Just came across this link today - may be useful for some...

http://www.dslrfilmnoob.com/2012/03/10/magic-lantern-key-feature-overview-part-1/

Thanks Snapper, nice find.

@ AndyCivil

I recently had a little play with doing a time lapse using ML's intervalometer and "silent" picture mode.
There are a few drawbacks to this method.
And 1 HUGE advantage.

Drawbacks
1:- Your fastest shooting rate is 1 FPS.
2:- The output resolution is only 1056x704, this is because "silent" mode uses the live view and converts this data to a .422 file. (See 3)
3:- Silent mode produces files (.422) that require processing before use. A .422 --> jpeg converter is available.

Advantage.
Zero increase in shutter count.


Sample of original image quality.

Once the .422's were converted I used VirtualDub to compile them into an AVI file.

The results aren't HD quality but its certainly not bad.

http://youtu.be/D2WnARstal0



P.s. Could someone tell me how to link to YouTube properly, like I've seen in other peoples posts, where you actually see the video in the post rather than just the link ?
Interwebz and forum no0b here 

P.p.s. YouTube has bashed the hell out of it, original is more defined and smoother during playback.

With 1 frame per second couldn't you achieve the same end result but with far better resolution shooting with the quality set to S and using one of the plug-in timers that has a time-lapse facility? The timer I have has a 1FPS  setting that would do that.

http://youtu.be/D2WnARstal0



P.s. Could someone tell me how to link to YouTube properly, like I've seen in other peoples posts, where you actually see the video in the post rather than just the link ?
Interwebz and forum no0b here 

P.p.s. YouTube has bashed the hell out of it, original is more defined and smoother during playback.

You need to post the full youtube link, not the shortened youtu.be link.

Thanks, Chas, but that would increase the shutter count. The thing is, we don't worry much about shutter actuations when we're taking photos, after all, we're not going to buy a nice camera and then be afraid to use it. But if you're taking a movie, you don't want each frame to be a shutter actuation, because it mounts up.

I haven't taken delivery of my 550 yet I hasten to add. Doesn't it have a mirror lock-up or is just some sort of advance mirror action for a single shot. More used to medium and large format film than this DSLR stuff TBH.

a five minute time-lapse video would need 5x60x30 frames, that's 9,000 or $90. It's approaching 1% of your camera's life... no one's going to do that, unless you're a pro with money to burn.

I don't understand your maths... at 1FPS surely it's only 300 actuations for 5 minutes... maybe I'm missing something here?

(P.S. no one really knows what the life of a camera is - it could be way more than 100k actuations, the stats are skewed by 'selection bias' for failed mechanisms. And it could be repairable for less than $1k, too. I'm just showing examples for scale.)

I read that Canon only rate the shutter for 50k actuations though that source could be wrong.

First off, thanks for the YouTube tips guys

Just done another test using silent picture mode and yes Andy, you can produce higher res .422 files (yes they are YUV422 taken directly from the live view buffer), using  silent Full HD mode (can't believe I hadn't seen that option ) and setting video resolution from the Canon menu to 1920x1080 will produce an image of 1720x974, Canon menu to 1280x720 produces 1280x580 images (dunno why, but hey it works).

Pretty damn good I think.

Will try and post an example later,,, if the weather improves of course.