Canon PowerShot - Custom Firmware

[Ben Russell]

I stumbled upon this lovely piece of custom firmware for Canon PowerShot cameras.

http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK

The Wiki seems busy to read but ultimately it comes down to:

- Is your camera model on the list?

- Does your camera have the right firmware on it?

If yes to both, download a zip and extract it onto your memory card, you can then "run" some new software on your camera that opens up a whole heap of things you never thought your PowerShot could do.

The stand outs after 2 minutes of use:

- RAW image support.

- Custom bracketing.

- Realtime Histograms - before shooting.

- Lua scripting! (Gizmo uses Lua at its core...)

- Motion Detection - 60ms latency. They say it's fast enough to catch lightning.

The new firmware also lets you see engineering sensor data from the camera, things like Optics, CCD and battery temperatures.

If you like it you can set up your memory card so the new firmware auto-boots.

If you don't like it, or only want to try it, all you have to do is turn your camera off and on again to go back to factory firmware.

The scripting feature opens up all sorts of possibilities. Time lapse photography couldn't be easier.