After a row with vendor of card reader from ebay, and after some hiccups, I was finally successful in loading the CHDK firmware into my canon S2IS camera. Loading the CHDK firmware is easy once you follow the instructions carefully. I tried to be smart by not reading the manual fully and guessing the remaining.
I realized lately that the memory card should be kept in locked state for the firmware to load. If the card is not put in locked state, the CHDK firmware would not load. The camera will continue to work with the default firmware(by canon). The interesting thing to note here is that the pictures can still be recorded in the memory card even if it is locked. Till now, I thought that the lock physically protects the card from writing. But now, I understand that it is just a logical protection. i.e., The software has to respect the lock on the reader. I can write a software that will not honor the lock and will write it into the memory card even if it is locked.
I experimented a little with the new firmware and enhanced capabilities. I liked the RGB histograms etc stuff. I still need to explore lot of new functionality. The most interesting thing that drove me to upgrade to CHDK firmware is the motion-triggered photography, especially the lightening photography. But I am not much successful with it. There are a bunch of scripts on motion detection and others that one can explore.
The problem with the motion triggered photography is that there are a bunch of parameters in each script, which needs to be tuned. I am not able to tune those parameters to quickly take a photograph after motion is detected. The camera takes a lot of time after the motion happened. Added those parameters, the camera settings also should be tuned well. I was able to improve somewhat by setting the manual focus mode, and continuous shooting mode. Another problem is that the picture is not taken even if there is motion. I guess we need to tune the "threshold" parameter properly.
I will write one more post if I am satisfied with my experiments on motion triggered photography.
I realized lately that the memory card should be kept in locked state for the firmware to load. If the card is not put in locked state, the CHDK firmware would not load. The camera will continue to work with the default firmware(by canon). The interesting thing to note here is that the pictures can still be recorded in the memory card even if it is locked. Till now, I thought that the lock physically protects the card from writing. But now, I understand that it is just a logical protection. i.e., The software has to respect the lock on the reader. I can write a software that will not honor the lock and will write it into the memory card even if it is locked.
I experimented a little with the new firmware and enhanced capabilities. I liked the RGB histograms etc stuff. I still need to explore lot of new functionality. The most interesting thing that drove me to upgrade to CHDK firmware is the motion-triggered photography, especially the lightening photography. But I am not much successful with it. There are a bunch of scripts on motion detection and others that one can explore.
The problem with the motion triggered photography is that there are a bunch of parameters in each script, which needs to be tuned. I am not able to tune those parameters to quickly take a photograph after motion is detected. The camera takes a lot of time after the motion happened. Added those parameters, the camera settings also should be tuned well. I was able to improve somewhat by setting the manual focus mode, and continuous shooting mode. Another problem is that the picture is not taken even if there is motion. I guess we need to tune the "threshold" parameter properly.
I will write one more post if I am satisfied with my experiments on motion triggered photography.
