TINYenormous – Build it up to break it down again – Page 2

CHDK Compatible Powershot ELPH cameras

Elph Series
The ELPH Series are good looking cameras with metal bodies. They are a small form factor camera and easily pocketable. These are a good choice if you are using chdk to get a few more features from your point and shoot, but you don’t want to do any hardware hacking or explore manual modes. Enabling RAW format on these cameras could easily be worth the effort, even if you didn’t play around with many of CHDK’s other features.

Not linked – ELPH 300 500

As with every camera purchase, you’ll need to make sure that you end up with an appropriate memory card (or two), a battery, and charger. If you buy new this is less of a concern, but a lot of these cameras are only really available on the used market so keep an eye out for what accessories are bundled with the camera.

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CHDK compatible Powershot A series cameras
CHDK compatible Powershot ELPH series cameras
CHDK compatible Powershot S series cameras
CHDK compatible Powershot SD series cameras
CHDK compatible Powershot SX series cameras
CHDK compatible Powershot G series cameras

CHDK Compatible Powershot G series cameras

G series
The G series is really the jewel in the powershot line. All of the cameras from the G7 on up have metal bodies, full manual modes, and are built with dials and buttons in order to allow you to use the manual mode without going through any menus. Most of the cameras have a threaded ring around the lens that allow you to mount (a few) accessories like a wide angle lens. These cameras also all have hot-shoes for mounting flashes just like a dslr. Even broken, these cameras will sell for a few hundred dollars. If you can get your hands on one of these affordably, then jump at the chance. The listed price is the lowest (usually used) price on Amazon.

G SERIES	CHDK	RES	ZOOM	IS	LCD	RELEASED	REVIEW
G7	CHDK	10	6	y	2.5	2005	dpreview.com

[asa]B000HATNI8[/asa]

G SERIES	CHDK	RES	ZOOM	IS	LCD	RELEASED	REVIEW
G9	CHDK	12.1	6	y	3	2007	dpreview.com

[asa]B000V1VG5G[/asa]

G SERIES	CHDK	RES	ZOOM	IS	LCD	RELEASED	REVIEW
G10	CHDK	14.7	5	y	3	2008	dpreview.com

[asa]B001G5ZTPY[/asa]

G SERIES	CHDK	RES	ZOOM	IS	LCD	RELEASED	REVIEW
G11	CHDK	10	5	y	2.8	2009	dpreview.com

[asa]B002LITT56[/asa]

G SERIES	CHDK	RES	ZOOM	IS	LCD	RELEASED	REVIEW
G12	CHDK	10	5	y	2.8	2010	dpreview.com

[asa]B0041RSPRS[/asa]

G SERIES	CHDK	RES	ZOOM	IS	LCD	RELEASED	REVIEW
G1x	CHDK	14.3	4	y	3	2012	dpreview.com

[asa]B006UMM2BW[/asa]

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CHDK Compatible Powershot SX series cameras

SX Series
The SX series is pretty similar to the S series. It is too big for a point and shoot, yet lacks a lot of the functionality of a dslr. These cameras can be picked up pretty cheap (*used) because they aren’t the sharpest looking canons on the market. They still can have great optical quality and their larger size enables both larger screens and longer lasting batteries. If all that you care about is the picture then these might make a good tradeoff of price per pixel.

Not linked – SX150 SX210 SX 220

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CHDK Compatible Powershot A series cameras

A Series

The A series has the highest number of supported cameras. They generally aren’t all that fashionable, but the 1000 series and above all look pretty slick and are thin. These can make for good, reliable chdk installs in situations where you the camera is in a degree of danger. The lower number / earlier cameras are also more likely to run off of AA batteries. That makes it easier to get a good deal on a used one without the charger and it also means that there are easier battery replacement options. One other good aspect is that bigger cameras can be easier to disassemble in case you are looking to create a new enclosure or tap into the wiring for the buttons.

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How to use SDMInst to install CHDK

Let’s assume that you have already used ACID to find your camera’s firmware and then download the appropriate CHDK build. Now we are going to use SDMInst to format your sd card and then move the CHDK build onto it.

If you are running Mountain Lion (10.8) then go here in order to figure out how to start up the app. Other versions can simply double click it.

First, select your memory card from the “Select card drive:” dialog. You will know which one it is by its size in comparison to the others, and the name in the “SDM Volume:” field. You may not even have any choices. I happened to have a lot of mounted disk images that showed up as options. Next click on the browse button, or drag the directory containing your CHDK build into the “Copy all files from” box.

Finally click on “Prepare Card” and watch it do its magic. Eject the card, lock it, and then put it in your camera to test!

How to find the firmware version of your Canon Camera

In order to install CHDK on your memory card you need to know what version of the firmware your camera is running internally. This happens to be blissfully easy due to an app called ACID.

ACID stands for Automatic Camera Identifier and Downloader. It was written by Dave Mitchell and is one of three great CHDK-related apps that he hosts. Not only does this app find your camera firmware but it also will download the correct CHDK version for you! Note – you have to move the app onto your computer for this to work. It can’t download anything if you run it from the .dmg.

The next step is to use SDMInst in order to format your card and upload the freshly downloaded CHDK build to it!

Installing CHDK on a SD card in osx Mountain lion 10.8

I just tried to properly format an sd card and put CHDK on it for the first time since I upgraded to Mountain Lion. I ran into a bunch of trouble. Ill put the steps I used to fix it here so that I can save you the trouble!

At first I used macboot but I ran into an error that I could not fix. If you want to use macboot, then jump to the bottom for the resolution.

Next I used ACID in order to look at a jpg from the camera and determine the firmware version in use. It wasn’t causing the error, but I wanted to make sure that I was using the correct version of CHDK for the Powershot A490 that I was using. ACID is pretty slick, and it worked exactly as described.

SDMinst is an app from the makers of ACID that will format your sd card and then copy over the appropriate CHDK files.

Now generally I don’t read very much documentation for apps that have GUIs. These three apps all have clearly marked buttons and that was enough for me. The one thing that would have saved me an hour was that macboot and SDMinst both have trouble doing what they need to do in 10.8 due to permissions. i.e. they both need to be run as root. I’m sure there are people who would be concerned about giving root to an ‘untrusted’ app, but I wasn’t in this case. Dave Mitchell is the writer of all three apps, and he has also written small terminal scripts in order to open them as root. Here is the script for SDMInst. Here is the script for Macboot.

If this is your first time, then here is a tutorial for finding your firmware version, and here is one for installing CHDK using SDMInst

How to buy a CHDK compatible camera on amazon

I LOVE CHDK. It lets you do so much cool stuff on canon powershot cameras, from shooting timelapses, to enabling RAW file options, to shooting video on cameras that never had video before. For the uninitiated, CHDK is an alternate firmware that your camera loads from the memory card. That keeps it relatively safe and allows you to reset your camera simply by switching the memory card! I’ve been using CHDK on and off since 2009, and I recently decided that I wanted a new camera to play around with. One of the toughest things about finding a good camera to run chdk on is that most, but not all canon cameras are supported. It is really hard to find a canon powershot and KNOW that it is compatible with chdk without doing a lot of work. Earlier today I had a tab open with the CHDK FAQ and a page open on amazon. I kept switching back and forth to find a good resolution, well featured chdk supported camera at a good price. That meant I had to keep a lot of info in my head. I quickly gave up on that and made this whole slew of amazon product links. It’s not the absolute best (that would be a database of megapixels, features, and price) but it definitely helps to hone in on your ideal price point.

Just in case you came here looking for a suggestion: go for the G series if you can swing it. They are amazing cameras in a small package. On the other hand – if you are dropping that much coin you might want to consider going for a dslr and running Magic Lantern on it. Magic lantern is like chdk, but coded explicitly for Canon’s dslr line.

On the other end of the line if you are just beginning and you don’t know how useful this will really be, don’t feel bad about buying an older camera. I would even recommend buying it used, but make sure that you get the charger and battery with it. Even if you get a mid level camera you will still end up with a better camera than the phone in your pocket!

Note: I’ve done my best in order to keep this clear and correct. I strongly urge you to cross reference any camera that you find with the CHDK FAQ before you click buy. So without further ado, here are the links. I plan on keeping it updated, so if it is useful – spread the word!

– UPDATE –
It seems as if Amazon doesn’t love the idea of having a solid page of ads, so they may have blocked them. I will break it up into separate pages by camera family in order to see how they feel about that.

CHDK compatible A series cameras
CHDK compatible ELPH series cameras
CHDK compatible S series cameras
CHDK compatible SD series cameras
CHDK compatible SX series cameras
CHDK compatible G series cameras

How to easily test in-camera sd card speed

This is a cross-post from my other blog you down with fcp because it seemed just as applicable here. Go there for final cut pro related tidbits!

I picked up a canon t2i the other day to save some timelapse-related wear and tear from my 7D. Unlike the 7D, the t2i uses sd cards. I was really happy to find out that sd cards in general are far cheaper than CF cards, but I quickly realized that some cards are better than others, even when they have the same specs. I was inspired by this post over on peta pixel to run a quick test. This isn’t a very broad test, but I tested all the cards I could scrounge up.

In order to do this, I just popped in an sd card and fired off 15 shots. I recorded audio of the camera firing and then compared the waveforms in final cut.. The quick cards bogged down significantly less than the slow cards. You can see the in-camera buffer get filled up after 7 shots, and then the real test begins. The gap between shots is now due to the write speed of the card. The end of the green bars represents the total amount of time that the card spent writing buffered data. Since I didn’t line them all up starting at time=zero the numbers to the right of the green bar represent the total time to shoot 15 shots.

Results:

Sandisk extreme class 10 45mb/sec 32 Gig – 9 Seconds

PNY professional 20mb/s 32 Gig – 15 Seconds

Sandisk Ultra II 2 Gig – 17.75 Seconds

Sandisk 1 Gig – 26.20 Seconds

What does this mean? Well, it shows the comparative speed of different cards I have available to me. You may get drastically different numbers based on your cards and cameras, but you will probably still show the same trend. I wouldn’t even think of using the slower smaller cards for video, but this certainly puts some data behind that feeling. For stills the speed really doesn’t effect me very much, but it is crucial for video. If I’m shooting hd with a high iso (lots of detail make a hard to compress image) then I absolutely need to have a fast card. Of all of the cards tested, the Sandisk extreme class 10 45mb/sec is a clear winner for dslr video. It is 166% the speed of the pny card, despite only being 120% the price. If I were a stills-only shooter, then I would consider trading volume for speed.

In the future I’m interested in testing out different priced cards in the same class to see what the speed / price curve looks like. Lastly, it brings up the interesting idea that a slow enough card can almost replace an intervalometer. My super old sandisk 1Gig card took almost 3 seconds between shots! That could make for an acceptable time lapse interval in a pinch. Do you have a brand that you love or hate? post it in the comments and I’ll try to see if I can test it.

Note – I know that there are much more precise ways you can actually test cards using a computer. I don’t want that. I wanted to test both my camera and sd cards simultaneously.

I’ve been busy modeling!

I’ve put together three entries for the engineer vs designer absurd iPhone contest. It’s been a lot of fun, and it’s a great excuse to jump into openSCAD and start actually creating things, as opposed to duplicating things that others have built.

So far I have built a wheeled iphone case with a broomstick handle,

a shuttered iPhone case

and an iPhone trailer hitch!

Check them out on thingiverse, and design some of your own!