Recently I found out about a wondrous thing called CHDK. CHDK is software that adds a number of useful features to Canon digital cameras. It can do things from the mundane, like adding a better battery-level indicator to the display, to the esoteric, like ultra-long and ultra-short exposures. It can even run little scripts so your camera can do stuff by itself, like taking a series of photos for time-lapse movies. It’s completely free and it doesn’t permanently alter your camera in any way, so it won’t even void your warranty.
I found out about it from an article here on the the always-diverting Hack A Day site. That page includes a few nice demonstrations of what can be done with an CHDK-enhanced camera. The main CHDK site is here. I’ve successfully installed it on my SD700 IS but haven’t yet done anything with it aside from paging through the numerous settings in wonder.
Note that this software is mostly useful for point-and-shoot cameras. If you already have a high-end Canon of some sort it probably won’t do much for you, if anything.
It’s great, I just installed it on my Canon S3. The few simple improvements are well worth going through with the process. Here is my test of the intervalometer script. Enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DB-wGWT1tVQ
Oh, very nice! I love time-lapse movies of sunlight moving. Thanks for sharing that.
Since entering the above post I’ve used CHDK to do bracketed exposures to start messing with HDR and a very quick test of the high shutter speed feature. It’s a great addition to my camera.