Exposure Screen:

I’ve already covered the two screens you’ll probably use the most (Audio and Live View).  Now it’s time for the less used but still important Exposure Screen. Magic Lantern opens up some very useful features so lets take a look at this screens basic options.

• ISO – Canon locked the ISO options for the t2i to 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, and 6400. This option gives you all existing ISO settings plus settings in 160 multiples or 1/8 EV steps. For the Canon t2i this feature adds 160, 320, 640, 1250, 2500, and 12,800.  If you press the Q button the camera will take a measurement and set the ISO from a measurement based on current conditions. If you’d like to find out more about ISO and how it works on a digital camera here is a good place to start.
• Aperture – This feature gives you access to f stop settings that are normally not available. For example the Canon 24mm f1.4 lens usually steps from f1.4 to f1.6 then to f1.8 and f2.0, with this feature you can select f1.5, f1.7, f1.9, and so on. If you press the Q button, the aperture settings will be displayed on the live view screen and can be adjusted by using the Scroll wheel on the top of the camera. Find out more about how Aperture settings work here.
• Shutter – This feature allows more shutter speed adjustment options in 1/8EV steps. Not a feature that will be use much in video mode, but this feature does unlock shutter speeds that are unavailable from Canon’s native firmware for photography.
• WhiteBalance – If you know the Kelvin (K) rating of the lighting that will be used, the white balance feature will allow you to dial in that number. Hopefully giving you the proper white balance. If you’d like to find out more about White balance Cambridge in colour is a good place to start.
• WBShift G/M – This feature allows you to shift your white balance for Green or Magenta in order to compensate for fluorescent lighting.
• PictureStyle – Gives you the option to select from picture styles that are saved on your camera. Press the Q button to bring up the sub menu, if you’d like to edit the sharpness, contrast, saturation, and Color Tone settings. This is a handy way to select from flat picture styles.  If you’re having trouble Installing a picture style on your camera here are two videos that will walk you through it. Part 1 installing flat picture style on your camera and part 2 enabling flat picture style in video mode.
• Rec PicStyle – This feature allows you to use a picture style other then the one selected in the “picturestyle” setting when recording video.
• Exp. Override – This feature allows you to bypass Canon Exposure limitations on some cameras. Settings are Off which uses Canon’s default settings, On which overrides exposure values (depending on the camera), and Auto which enables override of exposure values only when needed. Default is Auto.

That’s it for now, I’ll continue with more in part 3.  Let me know if you spot anything that needs to be corrected. There is a lot of information jammed into each of these posts and it’s easy for me to miss something.

If you’ve missed out on early parts of this guide check out Part 1 of the Noob Magic lantern Guide here and Part 2 of the Noob Magic Lantern guide here.

Tags: Magic lantern, Noob Guide