I went over CHDK in another post, so here is a simple quick guide to actually getting it on your camera.

CHDK = Awesomeness from a small Camera

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These features include:

• Shooting in RAW
• Fully manual Control of: exposure, shutter, aperture, ISO and focus
• Bracketing of exposure, aperture, ISO, and even focus
• Motion Detection
• Live Histogram
• Zebra Mode

This software is called CHDK, and detailed user guides can be found at:

• What is CHDK http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK_in_Brief
  
• Basic Usage Info at http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK_firmware_usage
• Detailed Usage Info at http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK_firmware_usage/AllBest
• Detailed Usage Manual as PDF http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/chdk/images/e/e7/CHDKmanual.pdf
• Detailed Usage Manual as PDF New? http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/File:CHDK_UserGuide_April_2009_A4.pdf
• Quick Start User Guide as PDF http://drop.io/chdk_new_UserGuide_booklet_pdf

Loading the CHDK Software:

1. Put the camera into playback mode (not stills or movie mode).
2. Turn on the camera.
3. Push ‘Menu’, then Up (ISO) so that ‘Firmware Update’ is selected. Push ‘Set’ to select it.
4. Push Right (Flash) to highlight ‘OK’, then push ‘Set’ to select it.

The CHDK should now load. NOTE: This is not actually a firmware update – when you turn the camera off and on again, the CHDK software will no longer be loaded.

Note: You can copy the CHDK software to another SD card if you like. However it will not work in another camera.

Intro to Using the CHDK Software:

Once CHDK is loaded (see above), the on-screen display information will be changed, and potentially the camera’s operations will change, depending on how CHDK has been set up (see ‘Default Settings’ below).

The main concept to understand when using CHDK is that to change its settings, you also need to use the buttons on the camera, but you cannot use the buttons both for CHDK and for the normal camera operations at the same time. Therefore, when it is first loaded, CHDK will be running (in the background as it were), but the camera buttons will affect normal camera operations – not CHDK. To change from ‘normal’ mode to ‘CHDK’ or ‘Alternative’ mode, push the <alt> button (the one with the printer icon). Now the text ‘<alt>’ should appear at the bottom of the screen, and the buttons will control CHDK instead. Note, this only works if CHDK has been loaded (see above).

When you are in <alt> mode, you can push the ‘Menu’ button and it will display the CHDK settings menu. You can navigate this menu with the directional buttons on the big circular button (ISO, Flash, etc) and push ‘Set’ to change things. Push ‘Disp’ to return to the previous menu. To exit the Menu, push ‘Menu’ again. There are many, many powerful options in the CHDK settings menu, most of which are self-explanatory, however, you can refer to the user guides listed above for more info.

If you are in <alt> mode and try to take a picture (i.e. push the shutter button), it will not work as expected. This is because in <alt> mode, the shutter button is designed to run a custom script instead. By default the script is empty, but you can load a new script under ‘Scripting’ in the CHDK settings menu. So the main thing to remember is that if you want to take a picture, turn <alt> mode off first.

Summary of Shortcut Keys (and Other Handy Ones):

• In Playback Mode, Turn on, Menu, Up, Set on Firmware, Set on OK – Loads CHDK.
• <ALT> + MENU – Displays the main CHDK menu
  • DISPLAY Button — Return to previous menu
• <ALT> + “+/-” – Toggle Saving Raw.
• <ALT> + SET or FUNC/SET – Display the Script menu
• Full Shutter press – Executes the selected Script
• Half Shutter + Left – Toggle Zebra on/off
• Half Shutter + Up – Toggle Histogram on/off
• Half Shutter + Right – Toggle OSD on/off
• Half Shutter + Down – Toggle Overrides on/off (IF “Disable Overrides” is ON or Disable).
• When in MF (Manual Focus) mode and in <ALT> mode,
  • you may press the UP navigation button to instantly set MF (manual focus) distance to infinity.
  • Press the DOWN navigation button to instantly set MF distance to hyperfocal distance (based on f/stop and zoom focal-length).

Default Settings:

The CHDK software has been set up to do the following by default:

• Saving photos as Raw is turned off (they are 10mb each). Turn on/off RAW by running the CHDK software (see above), then when in <alt> mode (see Intro to Using the CHDK Software) simply push the +/- button. While in Raw mode, the word ‘DNG’ is displayed in the bottom-right corner, along with the number of Raw files that can fit on the card.
• When Raw is turned on, for each photo taken it will save a .jpg (a standard image) and a .dng (the Raw file) both with the same filename. It saves Raw images in the DNG file format, which is a standard format, and can be opened by software like Adobe Photoshop.
• Show a live histogram, both while taking photos and while viewing existing photos. This help you gauge the distribution of brightness of pixels in the image.
• Show zebra stripes, both while taking photos and while viewing existing photos. This helps you avoid taking over-exposed photos – any area of the picture that is overexposed will have animated stripes running through it to warn you. Overexposure is where the brightness of the pixels is higher than the maximum, so these pixels appear pure white, resulting in loss of picture information. The easiest way to deal with overexposure is to decrease the exposure (in Photo mode, push ‘Set’ to get to the photo settings, choose a non-auto setting, then go to the +/- area, and decrease the setting from 0 (neutral) into the negatives (e.g. -1).

 [Guide courtesy of chdk.wikia.com]

What is CHDK? It’s a firmware enhancement (I like that word because it’s not a replacment) that work on many of Canons Cameras. CHDK gets loaded into your camera’s memory upon bootup (either manually or automatically). It provides additional functionality beyond that currently provided by the native camera firmware. The CHDK project allows users to non-destructively modify the firmware and write custom programs with new features.

CHDK is not a permanent firmware upgrade: you decide how it is loaded (manually or automatically) and you can always easily remove it.

Quick answers to 7 key questions about CHDK:

1. What is CHDK?

CHDK is not just one thing! The term CHDK refers to free software – currently available for many (but not all) Canon PowerShot compact digital cameras – that you can load onto your camera’s memory card to give your camera greatly enhanced capabilities.

2. Am I likely to be interested in CHDK?

The enhanced capabilities that CHDK provides are most likely to be of interest to experienced photographers – if you believe that your Canon PowerShot camera already has more features than you will ever need, you probably won’t be interested in CHDK.

3. Is CHDK safe to use?

Probably. See this page for more information

4. How does CHDK work?

CHDK makes use of the microprocessor that controls the camera (every digital camera contains a microprocessor) to act as a programmable computer that provides the extra capabilities.

5. What extra capabilities does CHDK provide?

The current set of extra capabilities fall into six categories:

a. Enhanced ways of recording images – you can capture still pictures in RAW format (as well as JPEG), and for video images you can have increased recording time and length (1 hour or 2 GB), and a greatly increased range of compression options.

b. Additional data displays on the LCD screen – histogram, battery life indicator, depth of field, and many more.

c. Additional photographic settings that are not available on the camera by itself – longer exposure times (up to 65 seconds), faster shutter speeds (1/25,000 sec, and faster in some cases), automatic bracketing of exposure, etc.

d. The ability for the camera to run programs (‘scripts’, written in a micro-version of the BASIC language) stored on the memory card – these programs allow you to set the camera to perform a sequence of operations under the control of the program. For example, a camera can be programmed to take multiple pictures for focus bracketing, or take a picture when it detects that something in the field of view moves or changes brightness.

e. The ability to take a picture, or start a program on the memory card, by sending a signal into the USB port – you can use the USB cable to take a picture remotely.

f. The ability to do a number of other more useful (and fun) things, such as act as a mini file browser for the memory card, let you play games on the LCD screen, etc.

6. What else should I know?

Developers around the world are continuing to add new features to CHDK. Because the idea of using the camera’s microprocessor is so flexible, various developers have made different versions of CHDK, and new features continue to be developed – for example, one version of CHDK has features assist in taking stereo photographs, and even allows two cameras to be synchronized to take pictures at the same time (with an accuracy of better than 0.1 milliseconds, providing they are the same camera model).

7. How do I get started with CHDK?

See CHDK for Dummies and the Firmware Usage page !!!

(http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ , http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK_for_Dummies and http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK_firmware_usage)

A sampling of those additional features/functionality.

Main features:

• Save images in RAW format
• Ability to run “Scripts” to automate the camera
• Live histogram (RGB, blended, luminance and for each RGB channel)
• Zebra mode (blinking highlights and shadows to show over/under exposed areas)
• An “always on” full range Battery indicator
• Ability to turn off automatic dark-frame subtraction
• a higher compression movie mode, and double the maximum video file size
• exposure times as long as 65 seconds
• exposure times as little as 1/10,000 of a second
• ability to use the USB port for a remote trigger input

Additional features:

• a depth-of-field (DOF)-calculator
• File browser
• Text reader
• Calendar
• Some fun tools and games

Why would I want to use CHDK?

• To get Raw file capability on cameras that don’t have that ability
• To get the ability to use scripts
• to be able to know the battery status at all times (not just when it’s about to run out of power)
• you want or need any of the other enhancement features that CHDK provides

What are scripts? Scripts are BASIC language programs that give you the ability to control the operation of the camera under program control. They have been used to add or extend the native capability of the camera: more flexible intervalometers, extended-range exposure compensation, extended bracketing ability, lightning photography, etc. See the script pages for more details.

Beyond “Standard” CHDK

Several developers have extended the basic features of CHDK to add additional major functions. You’ll find these extended features in “special builds”.

There are several “Motion Detection” versions available that allow scripts to detect when motion (or any change in light intensity) occurs in one or more predefined regions of the images (the script can then take a photograph, a video, start a timer, etc) and there are some *very* cool applications based on this implementation.

There is a “Stereo Data Maker” (SDM) version, specifically geared to stereo image applications (which also incorporates the Motion Detection routines).

Additional video compression options (more or less), and the ability to go beyond the 1 Gbyte limit.

Use your USB port as a remote control / “cable release”.

See the CHDK Special Builds section at the bottom of the front page for more information, and then follow the links to the developers’ pages for the details.

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