CHDK firmware on my Canon IXUS 800 IS

Posted by Matthias Gutjahr on Saturday, May 17. 2008

A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled over the CHDK project where some fine people develop additional firmware for a wide range of Canon digital cameras. Since I call a Canon IXUS 800 IS - also known as Canon SD700 in other parts of the world - my own, I was instantly captivated by the amount of additional features that can be added by means of loading an small piece of software onto my cam. Yesterday, I tried to get it to work and was set up within a couple of minutes.

Some of the new choices I am given are that I can now save pictures in RAW image format (one of the reasons I got myself a Canon EOS350D on ebay a couple of weeks ago), a live histogram appears on the display, the state of charge of my battery is shown, and I can download and apply a large number of user scripts that combine batches of actions and permit to trigger them with a single button. And the best thing: The original firmware does not get overwritten!

Ever since I installed Rockbox on a Sansa digital audio player, I'm a big fan of user-contributed, open source alternative firmware. And this one is no exception, it's simply a glorious extension to my digicam. Let me show you a couple of pics of CHDK's new menu and display options:

The new, alternative main menu

One of the new submenus

The display in capture mode with some new features

The display with the additional histogram

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Dirk Ginader on Tuesday, May 20. 2008:

That sounds great! I'm a bit afraid of breaking something though - Any change this might happen?

Matthias Gutjahr on Tuesday, May 20. 2008:

If it's true what they say in the CHDK wiki, it's never messed with the original firmware so far. In my understanding, it loads an additional bit of code into the camera's RAM that is reset when you switch the camera off. You have to manually edit a config file (IIRC) to make the CHDK firmware load automatically. So, it sounds pretty safe and stable to me.

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