M-Film

Your Canon, shot like film.

A film camera's interface for Canon cameras that run Magic Lantern.
Load a roll from a shelf of 72 film stocks, shoot without looking at the screen, then develop the roll: in the camera, or on your computer with Darkrooms.
The camera side is free and open, for everyone.

English · ภาษาไทย · Films · Cameras · Darkrooms · Take it further

M-Film replaces the camera's menus with a film camera drawn from scratch, with Magic Lantern running underneath. There is no picture on the screen after each shot and no going back through them: you shoot the roll, then develop it and see what you got.

Load a roll. A shelf of canisters that turn to face you. Pick one and the leader comes out of it.	Count your frames. A film camera's frame counter, from S to the last frame of the roll.
Shoot. An SLR viewfinder over LiveView: aperture scale, light meter needle, red seven-segment frame count. Or one of three quieter ones.	Develop in the camera. The darkroom develops the finished roll frame by frame, into JPEG folders on the card, at the size you choose.
See the prints. A contact sheet of the roll, each print full screen, and closer with the wheel.	Home instead of the camera's menu: the roll you have loaded and everything else.

Every RAW is kept, so nothing is lost: you can develop the same roll again with another film later.

Focusing a manual lens. Loading a roll sets the camera to the film's ISO, and LiveView shows the exposure the frame will get: with a slow film, or an adapted lens stopped down, it can be too dark to focus. Turn off Settings → Exposure simulation and LiveView stays bright enough to focus, whatever the exposure. (Not on the 600D and 1100D: Magic Lantern can't set it there.)

Bigger prints. Small, Medium or Large, asked before the darkroom starts: up to 2592 × 1728 from an 18 MP camera.	Zoom. In the prints, turn the wheel to go into a frame and the arrows to move about.
Four viewfinders. Classic (the SLR's), Minimal, Rangefinder and Clean: Settings → Viewfinder.	A shorter Home. What to do next on top, then Darkroom and Settings. The battery is on every page.

• Print sizes and zoom: how big the prints are.
• A quieter darkroom. The developing screen keeps the safelight, the tray and the paper, and draws again only when a print is done: the camera's one processor develops instead of animating. INFO dims the screen while it works.
• Date stamp (Settings → Date stamp): the day in the corner of each print, in orange, like a compact's data back.
• The battery beside the clock on every page and in the viewfinder: in percent on the 60D, 6D, 70D, 5D Mark II and 5D Mark III, whose battery reports it; as an icon with three levels on the others, where Canon knows no more.
• The films you loaded last have a shelf of their own, where the film shelf opens: the same film again is one press.
• Settings is one page (viewfinder, exposure simulation, print size, date stamp, film mode); the rest is under Manual lens and Advanced. The wind lever no longer locks the shutter: it reminds, or is off.
• Menus that are simply there. Going into a menu and back no longer slides; the fade between the shelf, the darkroom and the prints is shorter, and Advanced → Page fade turns it off.
• The readout lights when you turn a dial, not only on a half-press. On cameras with two dials (50D, 60D, 70D, 5D Mark II, 5D Mark III, 6D) the top one changes shelves on the film shelf and the rear one picks the film.
• EOS M: Advanced → Hide Canon's graphics keeps Canon's exposure scale and icons off the viewfinder (its focus frame goes too, so it is off unless you turn it on).
• One build. The film OS now loads as a module after the camera starts on every camera, so Magic Lantern takes no more memory at power on than it does alone (why). On the cameras that had it built in until 0.1.6 (EOS M, 6D, 5D Mark III, 60D, 500D, 50D, 5D Mark II) this is new: see Cameras.

The camera's darkroom develops in three sizes. You choose when you start it (INFO on the Darkroom page asks, and remembers) or in Settings → Print size:

• A vertical frame is the same, turned upright. Other sensors give in proportion: Large is 2736 × 1824 on a 6D, 2880 × 1920 on a 5D Mark III.
• A bigger print takes longer: by the work it is, about 2.6 times a small one for Medium and 4.4 times for Large (a small one takes about 15 seconds a frame on an EOS M). The Darkroom page says how long before you start, from the frames the camera has developed at that size.
• The JPEG in DCIM is the size you chose. Medium and Large prints also keep a file to zoom into on the card (2 MB and 4.5 MB a frame).
• A camera without the memory for the size you asked makes the next one down, and says so.
• To make a roll's prints bigger later: Delete → Prints only on the Darkroom page, then develop it again. Your RAWs stay on the card, so Darkrooms can also develop any roll you've shot at full size.

Choose how real. Settings → Film mode.	Basic (the default): the last frame finishes the roll, and it goes straight to the darkroom. No rewinding.

• Basic: shoot, then develop. Stop early with Finish roll on the roll's page (the first row of Home).
• Realistic: like a real film camera. Rewind the roll before it can be developed.
• Either way the roll is the same on the card, so Darkrooms reads both.

A DSLR shoots through its optical viewfinder, so there is no LiveView to draw on. With a roll loaded and LiveView off, the back screen becomes a film camera's top plate:

• shutter, aperture and frame in big seven-segment digits
• the film and its ISO
• a light meter from −2 to +2 stops, and a bar of the frames left
• WIND ON when the next frame needs winding

It goes off when you put your eye to the viewfinder, and LiveView brings the viewfinder HUD back. New in 0.1.1, still waiting for a DSLR tester: see Cameras.

Colour negative, slide, black and white, and cinema film, on four shelves. Each film has its own colour, grain, halation and softness; rolls come in 36, 24 or 12 frames.

Kodak Portra 400 Soft warm skin, gentle highlights	Kodak Gold 200 Golden hour, all day long	Kodak Ektar 100 Punchy colour, ultra fine grain
Fujicolor Superia 400 Green shadows, everyday snaps	Fujichrome Velvia 50 Vivid slide film, hard contrast	Kodak Kodachrome 64 Magazine colour of the 70s
CineStill 800T Tungsten cine film, night goes blue	Kodak Vision 2383 Cinema print: teal shadows	Kodak Tri-X 400 Gritty contrast, street classic

All 72 films, on the same photo →

Colour for 63 of them comes from the Film-Luts collection; the rest from M-Film's own film models (ml-dev/films/films.py).

M-Film was made on the EOS M, where it works. It now builds for every camera on which Magic Lantern itself is mature (DIGIC 4 and 5). Testers have tried most of them now: the table says how far each one got, and what's still wrong. If you have one marked needs a tester, you can help: TESTING.md says how (about 20 minutes, and you can always go back).

Not yet: 5D Mark IV, 5DS R, 6D Mark II, 7D Mark II, 77D, 80D, 200D, 750D, 850D, M50, R, R5, R6, RP, SX70 HS, SX740 HS (Magic Lantern itself is still experimental on these) · 7D (Magic Lantern's current source doesn't build it).

✅ tried on the camera and works · ⚠️ tried, with a problem · 🧪 builds; waiting for someone to try it. From 0.2 the film OS is a module on every camera (why): one zip a camera. The card files are in each release. The list lives in ml-dev/cameras.txt; porting notes in PORTING.md.

1. The camera needs exactly the Canon firmware in the table (MENU → last settings tab → Firmware ver.).
2. Unzip the card files for your camera onto an SD card, put it in the camera and run Firmware ver. → update once. From then on M-Film starts with the camera from that card.
3. In Canon's menu set Image quality to RAW (RAW+JPEG works too) and Image review to Off. The darkroom develops the RAWs: a frame shot as JPEG can't be developed.
4. Full steps, and how to go back: TESTING.md. Building it yourself: ml-dev/build_fork.sh <camera>.

Don't unzip a new version over the old one: files left from before can make the camera misbehave. Start from a clean card instead:

1. Finish the roll and develop it, in the camera or with Darkrooms. A new install starts with no roll loaded.
2. Copy your photos off the card (the DCIM folder), including the developed JPEG folders.
3. Format the card in the camera and choose to remove Magic Lantern.
4. Unzip the new version onto the card, as on the first install.
5. Put the card in the camera and run Firmware ver. → update again, then switch the camera on.

Your settings (film, screen colour, Film mode) go back to their defaults: set them again.

The camera develops its rolls by itself, slowly. Darkrooms does it on your computer, fast. Plug the camera in (or put its card in a reader) and open Darkrooms. It finds the camera, shows every roll you shot with its film, and develops them at full resolution.

Your rolls, each with its canister and a strip of its frames. Develop whole rolls or pick single frames.	The lights go red. Prints come out of the developer and hang on the line.
Lights on. Every roll gets a contact sheet and its own folder.	Full detail. Every pixel of the RAW, JPEG with 4:4:4 colour, EXIF kept, optional date stamp.

The camera's own darkroom stays free and unlimited. Darkrooms goes with your Google account: no key to type in or keep. Click the badge at the top right → Sign in with Google, then Get it monthly or Get it for life. After you pay, Darkrooms switches to Full by itself within a few seconds. One account works on two computers at a time (sign in on the other one with the same Google account). Cancel the monthly plan any time in the program (Manage the subscription): it stays on until the end of the month paid for. Privacy: your pictures never leave your computer.

From the Darkrooms releases (the newest is at the top). About 30–50 MB. The program isn't signed with Apple or Microsoft yet, hence the warning the first time.

• Have one of the cameras above? TESTING.md: try it and tell us, so it can move to ✅.
• Another camera? PORTING.md says what moves easily (the Film OS screens), what has to be redone per camera (the Magic Lantern side), and how to go about it.
• Every screen and button of the camera side, and how it works inside (in Thai): docs/MANUAL.th.md.
• Something broken? Open an issue and paste what the gear icon → What does the computer see? shows.
• The films (looks, LUT list) are in ml-dev/films/; the camera build bakes them in.
• Darkrooms, the desktop program, is closed source and isn't in this repository.

The camera side of M-Film is free and stays free. If it gave you a roll you like, you can buy the developer a coffee ☕.

M-Film is made by HNGSeries, on top of Magic Lantern.

This repository: GPL-2.0 (LICENSE), as the camera side builds on Magic Lantern. Darkrooms (the desktop program) is a separate, closed-source program under its own licence. Fonts, film LUTs and other parts: THIRD_PARTY.md. Not affiliated with Canon, Kodak, Fujifilm or any film maker.