Supercharge Your Camera with Open-Source CHDK Firmware

[brotherS]

Fascinating!  

Digital cameras have powers beyond what is immediately available to the user. On a standard Canon, for example, the fastest shutter speed option offered is 1/1,600 second, but the hardware can handle much more than that -- up to 1/60,000 of a second.

CHDK, the Canon Hacker's Development Kit, is an open-source software project that can be loaded on cameras using Canon's DIGIC II or DIGIC III firmware platforms. [...]

http://howto.wired.c...Source_CHDK_Firmware

[CWuestefeld]

That is awesome!

I've got a Canon A710IS. It's a great little camera, takes great pictures. But I've wanted to be able to experiment with RAW data and HDR photography (which requires bracketing), neither of which is supported.

But this provides both of these, and about a thousand more.

[mrHappy]

Been toying with this the last couple of days, but I just can't get my camera to take pictures in RAW format no matter what I do.
And that really sucks since I was so happy when I found out my camera was supported and I could finally take pictures in raw.
Hopefullu I'll figure out somehting to allow me to do it.

[kfitting]

I looked at this, I dont have any cameras that support the firmware, then got looking at HDR... wow!  I found this freeware program and have been trying it all afternoon.  qtpfsgui

Kevin

[Armando]

Very cool. I'm going to have to try that now...

[WhaleWatcher]

I thought this was the answer to my prayers until I discovered the fix only applied to Canon cameras, does anyone know anything similar for the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50 camera?

 

Digital cameras have powers beyond what is immediately available to the user. On a standard Canon, for example, the fastest shutter speed option offered is 1/1,600 second, but the hardware can handle much more than that -- up to 1/60,000 of a second.

CHDK, the Canon Hacker's Development Kit, is an open-source software project that can be loaded on cameras using Canon's DIGIC II or DIGIC III firmware platforms. [...]

http://howto.wired.c...Source_CHDK_Firmware

[johnnylately]

I've loaded several builds on my A710, TONS of new options!  I saw this about a year ago and wanted to toy around with it but forgot about it until a few weeks ago when I took a Photography workshop at Great Smokey Mountains Institute at Tremont http://www.gsmit.org.  We spent quite a bit of time with histograms (I didn't know mine had that!) and Photoshop.  When I got back home I checked through some old links and found the one for CHDK and decided to try it out.  The one snag was you have to use a SD, not SDHC (so the flash memory limit is 2GB).  It's super simple to load and you can make it load automatically or just boot without it since it doesn't replace the camera firmware, just adds/opens up features.