The magic lantern or Laterna Magica is an early type of image projector employing pictures on sheets of glass. It was developed in the 17th century and commonly used for educational and entertainment purposes. Constructed by Moses Holden between 1814–15. These were made for the purpose of illustrating his astronomical lectures.
The magic lantern used a concave mirror in back of a light source to direct as much of the light as possible through a small rectangular sheet of glass—a "lantern slide"—on which was the painted or photographic image to be projected, and onward into a lens at the front of the apparatus. The lens was adjusted to optimally focus the plane of the slide at the distance of the projection screen, which could be simply a white wall, and it therefore formed an enlarged image of the slide on the screen.
Apart from sunlight, the only light sources available at the time of invention in the 17th century were candles and oil lamps, which were very inefficient and produced very dim projected images. The invention of the Argand lamp in the 1790s helped to make the images brighter. The invention of limelight in the 1820s made them very much brighter. The invention of the intensely bright electric arc lamp in the 1860s eliminated the need for combustible gases or hazardous chemicals, and eventually the incandescent electric lamp further improved safety and convenience, although not brightness.
A magic lantern is an early type of image projector, an ancestor of the modern slide projector.
Magic lantern may also refer to:
Magic Lantern is a firmware add-on, originally written for the Canon EOS 5D Mark II by Trammell Hudson in 2009, and ported to the 550D/T2i/Kiss X4 (1.0.8) in July 2010 by the same author. The current principal developer is known as A1ex and there are now versions for most Canon DSLR's.
Because installing Magic Lantern does not replace the stock Canon firmware or modify the ROM but rather runs alongside it, it is both easy to remove and carries little risk. The DSLR checks a "boot flag" in its re-writable memory, and if set, reads from a flash card to get the additional firmware routines. Each time the camera is started, there is an option to disable Magic Lantern.
A similar FOSS project is CHDK for most Canon point-and-shoot cameras.
Starting September 2010, A1ex from CHDK forum and other people ported this add-on to the 550D/T2i (1.0.9), 60D, 500D/T1i/Kiss X3, 600D/T3i/Kiss X5 (1.0.1) and 50D. It also runs on the 5D Mk III as well as on the 7D. A version for the 6D is available, but less fully supported because none of the principal developers own the camera.
The power of angels
You left at my door
I wrapped it up
In tinfoil
And hastened away
Towards hills
Begging for someone
to give me a sign
But my heart wrapped in silver
Could cry any louder
Hello, the silver hearts
That you cannot remark
Go on, go on
You shall never know
You shall ever be