New to 6D. Magic Lantern, is it still worth it?

[CaveDweller]

Ok, we all know it's not the most recent camera out but it's great for my needs. Until about 3years ago I was quite happy with my 550D and kit lenses from taking pictures at night to high speed flash work at home. I didn't have anything insured and then the obvious happened, my stuff got stolen one day when I stupidly left my bag unattended. Since then I'venot had anything and with getting the bug back recently I've been "splashing out" one some new (to me) kit. I always wanted a 6d for its low light capabilities and I managed to get a body only for £300 and it's got less than 10k shots, win win. I've also ordered various lenses, a Tamron 28-75, not what I wanted but it will do for now. A Canon 70-200 f2.8 and a nifty fifty 1.4. All in all I've spent about 1.5k on a camera and some lenses I've always wanted.

I used Magic Lantern all the time on my 550D mainly for the intervalometer. Timelapses and star trails is something I plan to do a lot of and I was wondering if magic lantern on the 6d is worth it considering you have to use an outdated firmware? Magic lantern requires 1.16 but canons most up to date one is 1.19. Would I be better off buying a dedicated intervalometer or save some pennies and use ML?

Are there any other "secret tips" with the 6D that's worth knowing? Loving it so far, still waiting for my lenses to arrive though...

 

[hunnymonster]

Buy an intervalometer. An aftermarket Chinese one is no issue - if you look carefully, you'll find at least one that looks and acts identically to the Canon TC-80

 

[jerry12953]

It may not have been the latest tech but my 6d did a great job for quite a few years. I'm kind of regretting selling it now!

 

[apodo]

Magic lantern requires 1.16 but canons most up to date one is 1.19. Would I be better off buying a dedicated intervalometer or save some pennies and use ML?

Which offers more value to you, the fixes offered by Canon or the features offer by Magic Lantern.

From Canon, the firmware update will:

1.1.7

Corrects a phenomenon in which when using the camera with the EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS II USM lens, even if lens aberration correction is set to "Enable", correction will not be applied.

1.1.8

Fixes a phenomenon in which standard exposure may not be obtained, or an irregular exposure may result, when Silent LV (Live View) shooting with the following TS-E lenses: TS-E 50mm f/2.8L MACRO, TS-E 90mm f/2.8L MACRO, or TS-E 135mm f/4L MACRO.

1.1.9

1. Corrects a PTP communications vulnerability.
2. Corrects a vulnerability related to firmware update.

If you do not use those lenses, and use a card reader rather than downloading from the camera then you will not gain anything from the latest firmware.

But a cheap Chinese intervalometer is worth having in general as you can use it as a remote shutter too. And, unless you change systems, should be usable on future bodies, kind-of. Canon uses an R3 interface on the single digit DSLR models and some older two-digit ones ,and E3 on everything else.

 

[LongLensPhotography]

ML is totally worth it. I'm playing with it on 5D3 now and it transformed bracketing, well made it quite simple. I no longer need to guess the exposure range. I'll I do is set exposure to bright enough for the bulk and choose a step size. It will then do as many shots as it needs to to make sure all highlights are in. Amazing. OK, usually it does 1 too many but that's OK; otherwise I would likely be doing another 3.
It has other neat things too like pre-set bulb exposure over 30s. I did buy the chinese thing. It was OK for a while and 2yr later just stopped working. Now they are more expensive too. There is no way I'll buy another for like 2 times a year I use it.

Finally the video. The inbuilt HD video is utter crap in my opinion. Basically unusable. This gives me an easy 1090p RAW that looks miles better at first look. And then it can go even further to 3.5k which looks almost as good as modern ones. Still no autofocus but at least it is usable.

The downsides? One: the startup takes 2-3s instead of instant. If you shoot instant action maybe don't use it.

So hell yes. All the way for ML! You can always uninstall if you change your mind.