What it looks like at Jonny's end! Where is the "Add Manual Controls & Extra Frame rates button"? 
When I first got wind of this, I was very, very interested! I’d always thought that surely as soon as the Canon 5D MKII Firmware Update that gave the user manual control over ISO, Aperture and Shutter speed came out, somebody would take up the reins and find a way to port that over to it’s baby brother the Canon 500D. It never happened. I guess by the time the Canon 7D came around, most people had seemed to forget about the fantastic little 500D.
Canon seemed to have forgotten about it, no firmware update with manual controls ever came and now with the release of the 550D, which has all that we wanted in the 500D and more, it seems it’s slipped totally from the program.
Enter Jonny Petts. A likeable lad from Kent in the UK. He’s a friend on Facebook and when I saw his status update that he was beginning work on a 500D Firmware Hack, naturally I thought I should suss it out and see just what was going on. I built this site around videos I shot on the 500D and there’s still alot of people out there who would jump at the opportunity to have manual control of their settings and shoot at different frame rates with this little gem, so good on Jonny eh? Three cheers!
So after having a bit of chat with Mr. Petts, here’s the deal, I’ve included the whole thing here because, quite frankly I understand about 16% of what he’s saying!
Ok, well i have a firmware from the 500d and the 550d. I am also comparing what Magic Lantern has done with the new 5D MK II firmware update to the new 5D MKII to see if I can see what they have done.
But what I am ultimately trying to do is use dissect_fw3_2 to expand the firmware into flasher/firmware then to reverse the flasher (after loading it into IDA to find out how to decrypt the firmware image). After I have done all of this, I will be able to attempt porting the desired functionality into the 500D firmware from the 550D’s firmware.
This is going to be a long and painful process and could mess up the 500d, but I am willing to do it for the sake of others, as it will benefit all of the 500D users out there and could save some people $200 instead of buying a 550D.
Did you get that?! You’d be forgiven if you didn’t get it all! So here’s the scooop. . .
Jonny’s first objective is the revered 24P. Many 500D users (myself included) have found dinky workarounds for the manual controls, but are still horribly crippled by that awful 30P and the useless 20P in 1080 mode! I believe he is also looking to implement the 60P and 25P functionality as well. No word on 50P, but we’ll see how that develops, I’m sure if it’s possible we’ll hear about it.
Next up is the manual controls, obviously the new 550D has full manual control over the Shutter, ISO and Aperture. It was such a pain shooting video with the 500D, this would really be a godsend!
Since the 500D doesn’t have a microphone input, the disabling of the AGC is not such a huge issue, but I think that Jonny plans to contact Trammel Hudson (Author of the 5DMKII Magic Lantern firmware) to get his take on things. I’d be interested to know whether people see this as an important thing considering they can’t connect external mics.
I’ll be following Jonny’s progress very closely here, so if you’re interested, stay tuned. If you have anything to add or know a thing or two about hacking the firmware on Canon camera’s and would like to get in contact with Jonny, leave a comment here and I’ll make sure he gets it! Wish him luck guys! I would have loved this to happen when I had one of these camera’s and I can’t wait to see how it goes!
Jonny would like to give a big shoutout to the Cinema5D Forum users. Apparently they’ve been instrumental in getting this project up and running. Smiles all round!
More soon. . .
**UPDATE** Want to catch the first update on Jonny’s progress? Here it is!
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and me also waiting
Very very interested from Spain. Please, help us!!!!
I dunno if it is possible. But I have a intersting idea to make movie recording better. Well, we know video mode don’t use all resolution of camera, and in some canon models you have the option 640 crop to make movies.
With this idea of crop zoom i thought, why not a continuous crop zoom to the camera. Well, let me explain better.
Like, in the 640 crop mode, the camera just record the 640×480 pixels in the center… and in the 640 mode the camera use all the sensor but downsize the video in the save… Why not create an option with the zoom bottons, to do a continuous zoom (like in the compact cameras, but using the logic to use more or less from the sensor).
I don’t know how many times of zoom is possible in each res with this idea… But think for example in a 7D. 18mpx or 640×480 with 7x zoom… With a continuous zoom mode, the person can have a 50mm 1.8 lens and use this for movie like a tele-zoom. 50mm = 80mm in APS-C sensors, with the continuos zoom you could set from 80mm-560mm. And with an advantage in comparison with other tele lens, with F1.8!!!
Imagine if it be possible like 2times of zoom in Full HD mode. An simple 18-55 will work like a 18-110! Less money waste in zoom lenses for who make movies in DSLRs.
Well other idea is make lake in T2i, block the auto ISO where you want. Like max 400,800,1600…
I just wanted to add that I am looking forward to this as well. I, personally, feel that Canon really screwed the 500D users over when they introduced the 550D with everything we wanted in a firmware update to the 500D. Even if the 500D doesn’t have a microphone input, upgrading our video options alone would make me want to try this hack. I hack all my electronics, including my cell, DS Lite, PSP, etc, not to mention my Canon digital cameras if they support the CHDK (Canon Hack Development Kit).
hi, can you email me the link or anyway to get the firmware \hack? thanks ;D
Thankyou
god help us
please, release! thank you
Thats a ton for your effort, cant wait to see the fruits…………
Hey what happened to the firmware hack? Did it just disappear?
Awesom, wuld be possible alsso add folow focus (2 point electronic with adjustable speed) ?
Hi Everyone!
Has this been released? I see people requesting it and returning thanks…
I hope you can do it, my best wishes.
I’d hate to buy my self a 550d, cause i like my 500.
goodspeed
This may not be the right place to post this, but has there already been a hack for the 500D which allows the user to reassign the buttons on the keypad on the back – I have not/nor ever will want to use scene modes for example and it would be great to be able to reassign the keys to whatever function one requires ie bring back metering (which I had on the 450D). Any advice/help/pointing in the right direction greatly appreciated.
BTW, is anyone setting up a way we can make a small donation to help Jonny in his efforts to eventually save us all a great deal of money by doing all this work on the 500D ?
http://magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/Canon_EOS_500D/T1i/Kiss_X3