The Canon Camera Hackers Manual: Teach Your Camera New Tricks

By Berthold Daum

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
• Release date: May 28, 2010
• ISBN: 9781457101083

Berthold Daum

Berthold Daum holds a Ph.D. in mathematics and was a codeveloper of NATURAL 4GL at Software AG. He has lectured in database design at the University of Karlsruhe and has practical experience in the design and implementation of large distributed online systems. In the 1980s, he became involved in artificial intelligence and was a member of the ISO standardization committee for PROLOG. He has published various articles in trade magazines and scientific publications, and is co-author with Udo Merten of System Architecture with XML, and author of the forthcoming Modeling Business Objects with XML Schema. Currently he runs a consulting agency for industrial communication.

Reviews for The Canon Camera Hackers Manual

[fugitive_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I purchased this book in 2013.Berthold Daum's THE CANON HACKERS MANUAL has three big weaknesses. First, the installation of CHDK instructions shows the age of this book (published in 2010, most of the information is probably 2009). There are lots of easier ways to install CHDK now, my favorite being using STICK. Second, the chapter on Kite Aerial Photography (KAP) is pretty much just a placeholder - a couple of pages saying "people use this for Kite Aerial Photography" but no real insights. Third, the index is automatically generated (i.e., useless); if you look up something like "memory" you'll be referred to 40+ different pages.The strength of the book is the extensive discussion of writing scripts. I'd recommend this book to the experienced programmer who probably should be a fairly experienced amateur photographer. Since none of the examples refer directly to KAP, but could be useful (e.g., the intervalometer script), I'm not sure I'd recommend this to a beginning KAPper. The utility of this book is more for the uber-nerd interested in ... wait for it ... hacking Canon portable cameras.I liked the book and found it useful and interesting. But, it is showing its age. I'd be extremely interested in an updated edition.