I recently found out about CHDK. CHDK meaning Canon Hack Development Kit is a firmware upgrade available for many Canon Cameras. I stumbled upon this while browsing flickr for astrophotography and starscapes and found some amazing photos taken with one of the same cameras I have (A point and shoot SX40 HS)
Looking at it I was puzzled as to how they got such a bright shot of stars as I thought the maximum exposure time that could be achieved with said camera was a mere 15 seconds, not good enough surely for the amazing images I was seeing. Then I seen the note about CHDK so I went to investigate and by that evening I had downloaded it and installed on my SD card.
CHDK is not an upgrade as such nor does it replace your original firmware. However you get the option on startup of your camera if you have it installed if you want to “upgrade” to the new version. Below is a series of shots I took a few weeks ago using the CHDK firmware. I was able to take shots with a 1 minute shutter time. The “hack” actually allows you to open the shutter for far longer than that making it awesome for slow exposures and night time photography, ISO levels etc can also be overridden and its possible to make the camera do so much more than with its original firmware. Anyway, please check out the shots I took below and should you have any questions as to how to get it for your own camera, please drop me a line and I will be more than happy to share any knowledge I have on this subject. Hope you enjoy!
