Cdhk For Canon Cameras

[lordsux]

For those in possesion of a Canon camera this link will take you to the CDHK website where you can download a free utility and scripts that are installed onto your memory cards. The program/scripts will enable you to get the most out of your Canon. No changes are made to the camera, it's all on the SD card.

Major CHDK features

RAW - CHDK can record raw files, giving you access to every bit of data the sensor saw, without compression or processing. Raw files can be manipulated on the camera, or processed on your PC. CHDK also has experimental support for the open DNG raw standard.

Override Camera parameters - Exposures from 64s to 1/60,000s with flash sync. Full manual or priority control over exposure, aperture, ISO and focus.

Bracketing - Bracketing is supported for exposure, aperture, ISO, and even focus.

Video Overrides - Control the quality or bitrate of video, or change it on the fly.

Scripting - Control CHDK and camera features using ubasic and Lua scripts. Enables time lapse, motion detection, advanced bracketing, and much more. Many user-written scripts are available on the forum and wiki.

Motion detection - Trigger exposure in response to motion, fast enough to catch lightning.

Edge overlay - Detect the edges in a scene, and display them later. Ideal for timelapses, stop-motion, stereography and much more.

Live Histogram - CHDK includes a customizable, live histogram display, like those typically found on more expensive cameras.

Zebra-Mode - Displays under and overexposure areas live on the screen.

GRIDS - Create custom grids and display whichever one suits your shooting conditions.

Multi-Lingual Interface - CHDK supports about 22 languages, and adding more languages is simple.

DOF Calculator - Display detailed DOF information on the screen.

Customizable OSD - Improved display of battery status, free space, camera parameters, and much more. Fully customizable with an on-screen editor.

Filebrowser - Manage files without a PC.

Textreader - Display text files on your camera.

Games - Play Reversi, Sokoban, Mastermind or 4-in-a-Row on your camera.

USB remote - Simple DIY remote allows you to control your camera remotely.

Benchmark - Compare the performance of your SD cards.

User Menu - Edit your own customizable User-Menu for fast access to often used features.

Give me a shout if you should install it and for some reason run into any problems.

[AleG]

I've been testing it on my Canon A720is, the most useful things so far seem to be the ability to save the images in RAW format and the motion detection script. I'm waiting for an opportunity to use the later to shoot some lightning from my balcony, but alas, every time I see some lightning flashing outside, by the time I set up the camera on it's tripod, load the script and position it outside the storm moved somewhere else.

As for the RAW files, in this particular camera the output is only 10bits very far from my DSLR's 14 bits but still 4 times better than a normal 8 bit jpg. However, it''s slow to save the images and a little convoluted to actually used them since they have to be converted from the raw RAW to another format using a second application.

Things I haven't tried yet are the apparently very useful focusing bracketing and scripting an HDRI function.

I'm very eagerly awaiting someone to crack the Canon G10 so I can use some of this functions with it. I'm sure that with the camera's expanded capabilities and faster processor it would be possible to make some very interesting things.

[aeon]

there is supposed to be a link???

[AleG]

there is supposed to be a link???

heh, apparently lordsux forgot it. I suppose this is the missing link.

[lordsux]

Sorry about the missing link, I copied and pasted from an earlier post.

As for the RAW files, there is an option to save as DNG format in the CDHK menu. The DNG's open in almost all the major image processing software.

There are some lightning shots taken using the motion detection script at my flickr page, check link below.

Edited June 19, 2009 by lordsux