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CHDK ~ Canon Hacking Development Kit
What is CHDK?
It is a replacement firmware which temporarily resides on the camera's SD card. It can be booted automatically or manually each time the camera is switched on. It will only load when the camera is in the Playback mode. It runs in the record mode. To date and to the best of my knowledge this firmware only runs on Canon Cameras. There is no equivalent for other camera makes.
So what does it offer?
CHDK offers you the capability of being able to use features only found on more advanced Canon camera models. The ability to take RAW format pictures on the standard Powershot models for example. Naturally camera manufacturers like Canon build in redundancy and limitations in models for various reasons. One being that if we want a certain feature we would have to upgrade our camera and spend more money with them. Not an unreasonable desire. CHDK does however offer the KAPper with some interesting avenues to explore and if you are interested in finding out more the best place is to go to the CHDK Wiki. Here you will find out everything you need to know about the subject.
Will it run on my Canon camera?
Again the Wiki gives a very exhaustive list of cameras.
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SDM ~ Stereo Data Maker
If you have checked out the CHDK Wiki you will see that there are many different builds of CHDK. These builds have their own features and many of them are not really needed.
One of these builds was called SDM and is a cut down version of CHDK primarily used for stereo photography, where two cameras take simultaneous pictures for 3D. However, it is also suitable for Kite Aerial Photography.
By using scripts which are loaded onto the camera's SD card various commands can be executed by the camera. Again the best thing is to refer to the SDM Home page.
To help you configure your camera and ensure you get the correct version of SDM, Dave Mitchell from the KAP Discussion Group has compiled a set of Java Utilities, which run on both Windows and Apple Mac systems.
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References
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CHDK |
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SDM |
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clickPAN-SDM |
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Dave Mitchell's CHDK/SDM Java Utilities |
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CHDK |
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