The Canon Camera Hackers Manual: Teach Your Camera New Tricks [Paperback]

Berthold Daum (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 193395258X | ISBN-13: 978-1933952581 | Publication Date: June 4, 2010 | Edition: 1 Pap/Cdr

The book addresses "geeky" owners of Canon consumer cameras who would like to explore the possibilities of their cameras, and eventually tweak them to do things way beyond their original specifications, such as

- RAW file (or DNG) support in addition to the camera's JPEG output - Manual control for aperture, shutter speed, and ISO - Expand shutter speeds way beyond the specification limits - Enable bracketing

The hacks are based on the Canon Hack Development Kit (CHDK), a free software maintained by a group of enthusiasts. Many scripts are already published on the web. The book teaches how to use existing scripts and how to write new ones.

Canon cameras, especially their consumer lines of PowerShot/IXUS cameras, allow the user to temporarily upload so called add-ons into the camera through the memory card. The next time the camara is switched on, the add-on is active, when the camera is switched off, the camera returns to its original state, so there is no risk of loosing the manufacturers warranty.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Berthold Daum studied photography in Melbourne and has both exhibited and published his images of Australia's natural beauty.

He also hold a Ph.D in Mathematics and is a professional Java and XML developer. Mr. Daum specializes in innovative electronic business technology and electronic content production. His experience in software training and ability to anticipate the needs of professional developers has been demonstrated in his previous books, including Eclipse 2 for Java Developers (Wiley) and Modeling Business Objects with XML Schema (Morgan-Kaufmann).

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Rocky Nook; 1 Pap/Cdr edition (June 4, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 193395258X
• ISBN-13: 978-1933952581
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #432,653 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Do Not Support Plagiarists, April 8, 2011

By 

Nature Guy "Nature Guy" (In the Woods) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Canon Camera Hackers Manual: Teach Your Camera New Tricks (Paperback)

Having been one of the people to have been involved in the creation of the CHDK project from day one, and all during 3 years after, I was extremely disappointed to know that someone would be taking all the information that _*I*_ painstakingly authored on the Wiki pages for MONTHS and YEARS for CHDK. Then he would just paraphrase ALL MY WORK in a book for himself just so he could get rich off of this open-source project that so many worked on for free. When the CHDK community heard of this author doing this, it was met with mixed reactions. None of which were very warm. ALL THEIR HARD WORK THAT THEY DID FOR FREE, JUST FOR THIS PLAGIARIST TO FINANCIALLY BENEFIT OFF OF IT.

This doesn't sit well. Especially since I was the one to write the main brunt of the original CHDK-Wiki User's Guides, Programming Tutorials, Grid Designs, and so much more, where this "author" got *ALL* his original information.

At no time did this author ever contact ANY of the people involved in the CHDK project, and at NO TIME did he even bother to offer to send one of his books for inspection to ANYONE to see if he even made any errors (of which there were many that were corrected on the Wiki *AFTER* this "author" had his book published), nor did he even send copies as a good-will gesture to the programmers and documentation authors for all that he received for free from everyone involved in the CHDK project.

DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK!

Just search for CHDK WIKI in any search engine and the very first link presented will lead you to the FULL documentation of CHDK with more information and scripts than this author could have ever printed in his book. AND ITS ALL FREE. Quite unlike what some underhanded greedy plagiarists would rather have you believe.

FURTHERMORE: WHOEVER is selling or has sold this book MUST make this book publicly available to ALL as a FREE download to anyone who wants it. CHDK was written and licensed under the terms of GNU General Public License. Failure to provide this book FOR FREE puts them in direct violation of that licensing agreement.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enhance Your Canon Camera Capabilities, August 12, 2010

By 

Jose M. Baeza (Sierra Vista, AZ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Canon Camera Hackers Manual: Teach Your Camera New Tricks (Paperback)

I have always been a point and click picture taking person. I have a Canon PowerShot SD770 IS but I had never taken a good look at the owner's manual and although I thought it would be nice to have the date on pictures I took, I had never bothered to find out how to set it up. When I heard about this book from a friend detailing how one could greatly enhance the capabilities of Canon cameras through the use of this software called the Canon Hack Development Kit (CHDK), which was available on the Internet, I thought: this would be a great challenge - actually going out and getting the kit and learning how to use it.
I consider myself computer literate and I have written scripts in Unix and C. This would definitely be a "computer geek" project, though, and definitely a challenge. Besides, it would force me to learn more about photography and video production, something I have thought about at times but had never taken the time to pursue further. The first thing I did was read my camera's owner's manual and set up the camera to print the date on all the future pictures I will be taking! I then proceeded to get acquainted with the features that came with the camera. I was now prepared to see about those enhancements available for my camera on the web.
The chapter detailing the installation of the CHDK is only five pages and appears to imply that the installation is pretty simple and straightforward. That was not the case for me although I did get the job done. In a nutshell, the installation goes like this. One must download the program CardTricks from a web site to your computer. Then using the program CardTricks one formats the camera SD card as FAT. The SD card should be in the card reader of your computer. Putting the card back in the camera, one can now determine the firmware version of the camera's operating system which is needed to identify which build of the CHDK your camera needs. Then using CardTricks, which connects you to a web site, you can identify which CHDK version to download to your computer. Again using CardTricks, make the SD card bootable and select the downloaded program, which will unzip this file and load into the card. Next the write protection must be set using a slider on the card. If everything was done correctly, you have successfully installed the CHDK on your camera! I was very happy to discover that I had succeeded and could proceed with reading the book and checking out the enhancements!
When one installs CHDK on the camera, both the camera menu and the CHDK menu are available. An <ALT> key is put on the camera which allows the switch from one menu system to the other. CHDK menu items are either parameters or submenus. One parameter change is the battery charge view, which now allows a percentage number display instead of a rough pictorial view of the remaining battery charge. Many other camera parameters can now be configured that enhance the user operation capabilities.
The major enhancement of the CHDK software is the capability to produce RAW images. To add this capability to consumer compact cameras was the main reason CHDK was developed. The RAW image is the complete sensor data produced by the camera, as opposed to the JPEG image, which has been modified to fit the constraints of the camera when the picture is shot. The RAW image on the other hand can be processed later by either the camera or PC software where many post processing functions can be applied to the RAW image to produce a better picture for the camera user.
There are very many useful enhancements possible when one uses the CHDK software. Many operations are implemented by using the scripting functionality that can be put on the SD card and transferred to the camera. One of these operations is motion detection. Combining scripting and built in functions of the camera, one can set explicit values for shutter speed, for aperture, for ISO speed, and for focus distance. The CHDK software also makes possible improved high speed and night photography. Also possible is bracketing, the process of producing a series of photos to obtain a perfectly exposed picture. All of these enhancements and others not mentioned here make it possible for the owner of a small inexpensive compact Canon camera to enjoy the capabilities of the higher end cameras. The only price one pays to obtain these enhancements is the time and effort to install the CHDK software and learn how to use it. I believe it is well worth the effort!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Major Note - Powershots Cams only, December 1, 2010

By 

oldestgeek - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Canon Camera Hackers Manual: Teach Your Camera New Tricks (Paperback)

CHDK only works on Powershot cameras. CANON DSLR cameras generally have a lot of what is in CHDK.

Another note, think of CHDK as Linux (it's not altho it's GNU licensed) on your camera. As geeky and as much fun, or, as murky and as much misery, depending on your results! Even with a mac, it's not easy to make work.

Have fun!