Magic Lantern Improves EOS 5D Mark III Dynamic Range To 14 Stops

The Magic Lantern team has given the Canon EOS 5D Mark III and Canon EOS 7D approximately 3 additional stops of dynamic range using a new way of taking a photo by using ISO 100 for some of the vertical lines of the shot and ISO 1600 for the rest of it. They are also attempting to re-combine the lines of 100/1600 to give photographers the full resolution of their images.

Magic Lantern has been successful in enabling dual/ISO video, but with alternating frames and some motion limitations. This new method does it in individual frames and eliminates the motion artifacts.

Magic Lantern Improves EOs 5D Mark III Dynamic Range To 14 Stops

• Works for both photos and raw videos on Canon EOS 5D Mark III. On Canon EOS 7D, photo only (since it can’t do raw video).
• What are the benefits? more dynamic range (less shadow noise).
• The functionality was not really in Canon firmware, but in the chip that samples the sensor. Canon firmware does not make any use of it (they just set both ISO “registers” to the same value). It was implemented on the hardware side though (and that’s why it works only on these 2 cameras, because only they have two ISO amplifiers).