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Got a Canon compact and want to breath new life into it?

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 The Lemming 28 Mar 2014
Over the last week or so I have been experimenting with Time-lapse. The plan was to use my dSLR till I worked out that I could kill the mechanism with thousands and thousands of shutter releases.

So I moved on to my phone/tablet in the hope of a compromise. It worked but I was undecided about the image quality

I had thought of using my Canon compact but it did not have any Time lapse features. However a bit of googling later I discovered the world of a Canon Hack Development Kit.

Basically, if your camera is on their list then you can open it up to a world of new features and for me this included Time Lapse.

After an hour or so reading I had a go. For my camera all I had to do was check out its firmware and download the correct zip-file. The zip file was then unzipped onto a SD Card and inserted into my camera. A few button presses later I was up and running.

In total I had a new camera in under five minutes flat. And if I wanted to revert back to the stock camera, I simply replaced the SD card.

Its bewildering all the new features that have been opened up to me for five minutes of physical effort.

If you are feeling brave give it a try. My camera is still alive.

http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK
 Paul Evans 28 Mar 2014
In reply to The Lemming:

Agree, I'm using this to shoot RAW on a cheap-ish Canon P&S. Needs a bit more work in post than say an S100/110 etc, and slower to write files. However less than 1/3rd the price, and the RAW images knock spots off the in camera JPEGs the camera produces out of the box.
The number of facilities that CHDK offers is mind blowing, including several which even top end Canons don't support. If you want something really obscure that isn't supported, you can even program your own add-ons, if you can write LUA.

Paul
 deepsoup 28 Mar 2014
In reply to The Lemming:
> I had thought of using my Canon compact but it did not have any Time lapse features. However a bit of googling later I discovered the world of a Canon Hack Development Kit.

Shame someone didn't suggest that in your "Time lapse photography" thread a couple of weeks back eh? Might have saved you a bit of time.
 Glyno 28 Mar 2014
In reply to The Lemming:

I had a little dabble a while ago with CHDK on my Powershot S95 but found it a bit 'finicky'. I didn't know you could use it to do time-lapse though.
I just put the SD Card into my camera and can't find it on the menu.
OP The Lemming 28 Mar 2014
In reply to deepsoup:

Sorry.

Information overload.

OP The Lemming 28 Mar 2014
In reply to Glyno:

> I had a little dabble a while ago with CHDK on my Powershot S95 but found it a bit 'finicky'. I didn't know you could use it to do time-lapse though.

> I just put the SD Card into my camera and can't find it on the menu.

Its not on the SD card.

You do a bit of cut and Paste into a simple text file and Bob's your auntie.

http://tinyshooters.com/blog/ts/article/hack-your-canon-camera-for-time-lap...
 deepsoup 28 Mar 2014
In reply to Glyno:
The time lapse thing isn't a feature of CHDK itself, there are lots of intervalometer scripts you can download and run.

Lots and lots of scripts actually - I find it all a bit baffling. Some of the intervalometers are fairly basic, then there are others that are specifically written for various things - shooting from a moving vehicle, filming the night sky, shooting over very long time periods, you name it..

There are some scripts here: http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/User_Written_Scripts
But lots more out there to be found.
OP The Lemming 28 Mar 2014
In reply to deepsoup:

Thanks for that link. The one I gave kept the screen lit, eating battery power.

I'll give this one a try though.

http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/Lua/Scripts:_Accurate_Intervalometer_with_power-...
 Glyno 28 Mar 2014
In reply to The Lemming:

> Its not on the SD card.

> You do a bit of cut and Paste into a simple text file and Bob's your auntie.


Hey! just done that and it works - brilliant, thanks!

All I need to do now is experiment with shutter delay timing and I'll then need to know a program to put all the images together ...won't I?
OP The Lemming 28 Mar 2014
In reply to Glyno:

> Hey! just done that and it works - brilliant, thanks!

> All I need to do now is experiment with shutter delay timing and I'll then need to know a program to put all the images together ...won't I?

So far, I have not had much success with Power Director 12 but I am getting help from ChrisJD.

I'm giving Adobe Elements 12 another pop as we speak but it is feking complicated.

However the only bit of software that I have found that is lemming-proof is Microsoft's own Movie Maker. Just dump all your JPEGS into that and manually type in the duration time of 0.04 seconds and you are good to go.

 Glyno 28 Mar 2014
In reply to The Lemming:

excellent - must go now but will definitely be checking back on this thread tomorrow!

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