Camera feature modifier Magic Lantern has piqued interest in the now five-year-old Canon EOS 50D by enabling video recording on this previously stills-only camera. The development work is still in early stages, but a user has posted raw video footage at 1592 x 720 resolution at 24p. The EOS 50D was announced less than a month before the ground-breaking EOS 5D Mark II, but offered no video recording capability.

Early reports of the camera's video output point towards potentially impressive low light performance. In addition, the EOS 50D has the feature set and handling of an enthusiast DSLR, which makes it stand out even against current EOS novice-oriented video-capable models. Of course, since the 50D did not include video capability, it provides no audio recording or input port. You'll need an external setup to record sound. Users attracted by the low cost of a used 50D must also take into account that recording video requires very fast CF cards, which are themselves expensive.

In addition to Magic Lantern's usual warning that its software has been created by reverse engineering and cannot be guaranteed 100% safe, we stress that Canon never intended the EOS 50D to record video at all. Issues of heat buildup could potentially pose significant risk for those who choose to enable this functionality.

Click here for a sample of the Canon EOS 50D's raw video output.

Click here for the Magic Lantern forum link describing the video capability.