canon p&s firmware hacking making awesome progress (read!!)

[Coutts]

For a while people have been hacking the firmware of canon point and shoot cameras to give them the abilities of the expensive digital slr cameras and recently one of the famous hackers has released his latest build. He goes by Allbest and his latest build, Allbest has made a milestone recovery, enabling cameras to shoot at up to 1/64,000th shutter speed with synced flash! He has also unlocked shutter speeds as long as 65 seconds and recently its been ported to my camera. im going to try this out and let you guys know how it works out but im very excited! some major features include:

* shutter speed override (from 65 seconds to 1/80,000th of a second)
* aperture override (from f2.7 to f16.0)
* iso value override (still being perfected but iso values of up to 6400 have been achieved)
* subject distance override
* exposure bracketing
* aperture bracketing
* iso bracketing
* subject distance bracketing (focus bracketing)
* shoot in raw format

heres some sample shots taken with the new Allbest build taken at 1.60,000th second shutter speed with sync'd flash (i didnt take these):

1/60,000 f/3.6

1/60,000 f/8.0

bic lighter test pics:

This stuff looks very promising and i cant wait to try this out. the firmware add-on is called CHDK - website here: http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK

The cool thing is the firmware is only temp, you can set it up to autoload, but otherwise incase anything happens, just remove your battery and restart the camera and it will be back on the normal firmware.

There are different builds of the firmware, currently Allbest is making good progress but they all have neat features, one has a usb remote trigger for certain cameras, another has motion detection for lightning shots.

IMO this is very interesting and looks to be promising, who would have expected all of this from just a little point and shoot camera? Currently a list of cameras that are supported and stable is (supported firmware versions in parenthesis):

* A560, Fw: 1.00a
* A570, Fw: 1.00e,1.01a
* A610, Fw: 1.00e, 1.00f, (1.00d with CHDK version for 1.00e)
* A620, Fw: 1.00f ( 1.00e is not compatible. You must upgrade to 1.00f first (see here))
* A630, Fw: 1.00c
* A640, Fw: 1.00b
* A650 IS, Fw: 1.00d
* A700, Fw: 1.00b
* A710 IS, Fw: 1.00a
* A720 IS, Fw: 1.00c
* S2 IS, Fw: 1.00e, 1.00f, 1.00g, (1.00i with CHDK version for 1.00g)
* S3 IS, Fw: 1.00a
* G7, Fw: 1.00e, 1.00g, 1.00i, 1.00j
* SD500, Fw: 1.01a, 1.01b
* SD700, Fw: 1.00b, 1.01b
* SD1000, Fw: 1.01b, 1.02a


Discuss, what do u guys think?

 

[96 DX Hatch]

There's no way in hell that's at 1/60,000 3.6 unless they took it near the sun.

 

[Genuine Rolla]

the exif data says this for exposure time:

0.0000 s (1/53264341)

the water drop ones were only 1/1600

The very last shot was 1/3200

 

[Coutts]

There's no way in hell that's at 1/60,000 3.6 unless they took it near the sun.

obviously an external flash was used.

 

[Coutts]

Dremel-Drill Shutter/Flash Speed Test(s)

This image from an S2 IS PowerShot camera was submitted to test the true speed of the new ultra-shutter-speeds. However flash was used, so it is a better indicator of the flash-duration than shutter speed. What is important here to consider is that the camera's own flash synced with this high-shutter speed, extinguishing all ambient light from ruining the exposure and providing for optimum detail. Also, as the calculations will show, revealing some surprising results.

(Contributor: "dudleydocker" from this discussion. Calculated Tv exposure was 1/8000, f3.5, at ISO 400)



A smaller well-defined highlight at the very edge of the disc's abrasive, one with easily discernible starting and stopping points, was used to better measure the angle of rotation. This way the measurement wouldn't also be thrown off by the diameter of that highlight that moved during the exposure.

Dremel Drill: 30,000 rpm = 500 rotations per second = 1 revolution every 1/500th second.

Motion blur: 2.97 degrees, let's safely round that to 3 degrees = 1/120th of a revolution.

This means that 120 units of measure can fit into a 1/500th of a second rotation.

500 x 120 = 60,000

The highlight's motion blur occurred during an exposure of 1/60,000th of a SECOND!

The image above is not just of a 1/8,000th nor even a 1/10,000th of a second exposure, but of 1/60,000th of a second effective shutter-speed. Xenon flash units usually control their flash output by duration rather than output level. So when used on the dimmest setting these cameras are shortening the flash output to 1/60,000th of as second.

How's that for high-speed flash-sync photography?

[Addendum: It has now been discovered that these high CCD-shutter (as opposed to flash duration) speeds are F-stop dependent. In the same way that the camera's own firmware will only allow a shutter speed of 1/3200 at F/8.0. (On typing that just now, the camera's fastest native speed of 1/3200 seems agonizingly slow compared to the speeds we've been using and enjoying.) Aperture dependent: meaning CCD-shutter speeds of 1/8000 to 1/10,000 are only available at widest aperture. At smallest aperture f/7.1 - f/8.0 then CCD-shutter speeds as fast as 1/50,000 to 1/64,000 are available. That's yet another 8, 1/3EV steps. It has been very difficult to determine why some people were getting higher shutter-speeds during random testings. The only way to be certain is to use available-light sources alone (no flash). At F-stops that small and shutter-speeds that fast the light intensity has to be extreme, to say the least. Much brighter than sunlight. Once this new range of shutter-speeds are added to the CHDK Menu "Shutter Override" then high-speed flash will be able to be used as the light source for even more precise motion-stopping effects. The CCD-shutter matching the flash-duration and effectively obliterating any detail-smearing blur from ambient light sources completely.]


I have since been investigating other uses of high-speed flash on the internet, and ran across this little discussion, when someone was enquiring about photographing shot-gun spread-patterns from the side, and how fast of a flash would be needed. The reply is rather appropriate for this photo. They compared the edge speed of a Dremel-drill cut-off wheel with ballistics speeds.

I guess this means that if you wanted to, and had a way to sync your camera to a rifle shot, you could get one of those spectacular images of a bullet ripping through a playing-card, edge-wise.

Also worth noting in my net searches, most "high speed" flash units on the market rarely go above 1/50,000th of a second, more commonly about 1/20,000th to 1/30,000th of a second, at exorbitant cost.

 

[Genuine Rolla]

but the exif data says different.

The lighter picture is the only one shot at 1/60,000

 

[Coutts]

i cant remember exactly, ill look it up but i remember reading something about the camera still thinking its shooting at lower shutter speeds while its actually being over riden, i cant remember exacty but when i find it ill post it up.