A2000 Is CHDK

[jdl7538]

I see that a CHDK version for the Canon A2000 IS has been developed, allowing it to shoot in RAW, etc. Anyone here who has downloaded it? If so, does it work well, with all the bugs been worked out?
Thanks a lot!

[jono1515]

I have been using chdk on my a2000 for a few months now. It works great. Raw shooting works, saving to .DNG files. Manual focus works great too. You can over ride the shutter speed, but I think it's limited in regards to control over aperture. It uses a neutral density filter to simulate different apertures. The actual aperture varies as you zoom in or out, but there isn't an actual iris aperture in the camera. There also seems to be a bit of wiggle room in the ISO override. I can't remember right now, but I'm pretty sure I was able to get up to ISO 8000 when I messed around with that. It's noisy, but it works. Take out the chroma noise and convert to B&W and they look fine. Sort of reminds me of pushing Ilford 3200 to 12,800. I'm pretty sure you can also get down to lower than ISO 80 as well, but I haven't messed around with that at all yet.

I think running chdk on the a2000 specifically is pretty awesome. You essentially get RAW, shutter priority (Tv), manual focus and all the awesome scripts along with the "standard" features of the a2000: a small, easily pocketable 36-216mm camera that runs on AA batteries.

I recently went on a trip to Nicaragua for 2 weeks and brought my Panasonic LX3 along with me. It was great having a camera with all these kinds of controls built right in and very easy use. But the camera is a bit bulky and doesn't have much zoom range. The pictures are great though. But the next time I'm going away and I'm only going to bring one small camera, I'll go for the a2000 with chdk on it. If only it actually had an iris aperture...



http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/A2000

http://chdk.setepontos.com/index.php/topic,4141.0.html


- Jono

[jdl7538]

I have been using chdk on my a2000 for a few months now. It works great. ... I think running chdk on the a2000 specifically is pretty awesome. You essentially get RAW, shutter priority (Tv), manual focus and all the awesome scripts along with the "standard" features of the a2000: a small, easily pocketable 36-216mm camera that runs on AA batteries. ...
- Jono

Jono,
Thanks for the helpful reply which I just discovered. I've loaded CHDK and started to shoot in RAW with the A2000is as well, but have not been nearly as adventurous with trying out the other CHDK capabilities, though you've inspired me to try it. In the winter I don't always shoot in RAW, however, since indoors I don't find much improvement in RAW over the jpegs, which are terrific.
What I'd be interested in knowing is why the A2000is version of CHDK is listed as a "Beta" ever since September. Is it that its developers don't think that any further work on the version is worth it, or what is the significance of the "Beta" label?
Thanks again,
John

[jono1515]

I've only played around with a motion detection script (trying to catch an image of the mice that had moved into my apartment) and the intervalometer script. The motion detect script works pretty good but I didn't have enough patience to configure it just right for what I was trying to do. The intervalometer script works really well too. I've taken series of pictures of the sky at night and merged them in photoshop to show star trails.
I'm not really sure why the CHDK version is listed as Beta. As far as I know everything that could work on the A2000 does work. At a certain point there are hardware limitations that can't be overcome with software (like the lack of an adjustable aperture and limitations on the maximum and minimum shutter speeds). I could be wrong about that though. Not sure if anyone is still doing any development on it. Someone who goes by "reyalp" over on the A2000is porting thread got the manual focus working on it back in November but I haven't seen any real activity on that thread since then.

Jono