Loading the CHDK BETA for the Canon Powershot SD780IS / IXUS 100 IS Camera
Loading CHDK Beta for SD780IS and IXUS 100 IS
CHDK is a custom firmware mod that unlocks loads of powerful features on a Canon Powershot Camera. You can now capture uncompressed RAW images, unlock zoom during video recording, update auto-focus during video recording, use image bracketing, have manual control over image exposure, run Basic / LUA scripts to do things like time-lapse photography, and tons of other cool things too.
CHDK is safe to use with your digital camera because it doesn't permanently change the camera's firmware. CHDK loads itself into RAM after the camera has booted. You can completely remove CHDK at any time by erasing the CHDK files from your SD card.
Currently CHDK supports 101 different Canon Powershot camera models! To figure out what firmware version of the Canon Powershot SD780IS / IXUS 100 IS camera you have, you need to create an empty text file called vers.req and put it in the root directory of your memory card. Put the memory card back in your camera. Then turn the camera on by pressing the review mode button.
Press and hold down both the Func Set button and then tap the down cursor button at the same time. (The down cursor button has the erase / self timer icon labeled next to it). Your camera will say if it is a Firmware Ver GM1.00C or Ver GM1.00B. If you tap the two buttons (func set and down cursor) a few more times you can cycle through a few screens of information like how many photos you have taken.
The latest CHDK version is compiled daily by the CHDK Autobuild Server. I recommend going for the Complete version as it has all the features a normal user would want.
If you have a Canon Powershot SD7080IS Camera, both the version 1.00C and version 1.00B firmwares are supported. If you don't know which version of CHDK you want you should download the "Complete" version of CHDK for the SD780IS / IXUS 100 IS. It will be listed as either PowerShot SD780 1.00C or as PowerShot SD780 1.00C
You can download the latest CHDK firmware here:
The downloaded CHDK files are stored in a ZIP Archive. Expand it to your desktop.
Insert the SD memory card from your Powershot camera into an SD Card reader. You need to use a card reader as you can’t do this over the USB cable connection with your camera.
SD Memory Card Reader
Make sure to format your memory card as a FAT16 volume using either a disk formatting utility or by doing a low level format on your digital camera.
The next step is to make the memory card bootable. There are a few different utilities that exist to simplify installing CHDK and making the sd memory card bootable.
http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ#Q._How_do_I_get_CHDK_onto_my_camera.27s_SD_memory_card.3F
SDMInst for Mac OS X
Mac OS X users can download SDMInst. It is a handy utility that formats the sd memory card, makes it bootable and will even copy the CHDK files over for you. Make sure when using SDMInst to select the correct disk to install CHDK onto by checking the card details info! I have had great success using it.
http://www.zenoshrdlu.com/clickpansdm/sdminst.html
Here are Windows instructions for using Card Tricks to make the SD memory card bootable:
http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK/Installing_with_Cardtricks
Here are Instructions for Mac Users if you don't use SDMInst:
http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ/Mac
After you have made the card bootable you need to copy over the CHDK files.
Copy the expanded CHDK files to the root directory of the memory card.
CHDK Files
Eject the memory card.
Slide the lock mechanism on the memory card to LOCK. This tells CHDK to load automatically when the camera is turned on. If you don’t lock the card CHDK will not load on startup!
Locked SD Memory Card
Turn on the camera. Presto. CHDK should load a few seconds after the camera powers up.
CHDK Loaded
Since the Canon SD780IS camera lacks an ALT button that is on other Canon Powershot cameras the developer of CHDK for the SD780IS has enabled the DISP (DISPLAY) button to act as the ALT button when pressed for a short period of time and as the normal DISPLAY when held for a second or more.
Enable the ALT Menu option by tapping the DISP button quickly. The text ALT will appear on the lower left of the screen. Then press the MENU button. This is how you load the alternative CHDK menus.
CHDK Main Menu
Now let’s enable zoom during video recording. Enable the CHDK ALT Menu. Scroll down to the Video Parameters menu item and select it. In the Video Parameters window select Enable optical zoom so there is an enabled little white circle next to it. I like being able to update the focus during video recording. You can enable this by selecting the AF Key (Auto Focus Key) Option. Toggle this option until it says SET. This means that during a video recording you can press the center SET button and the camera will take a new focus reading.
CHDK Video Parameters
Loading a CHDK Basic Script
There are lots of features to explore with CHDK. A personal favorite of mine is being able to record time-lapse sequences using a UBASIC script. There are a variety of intervalometer scripts available for the CHDK firmware.
Intervalometer (Time-lapse) Scripts
I wrote an easy to use intervalometer script called the countdown intervalometer. Countdown intervalometer allows you set the delay (interval) between photos and the number of shots to take. If you set the number of shots to zero it will take photos until your memory card is full.
Here is a winter sunset time-lapse video and a Cloud Time-lapse video I created using the countdown intervalometer script.
Raw Support
I wrote another article that covers how to setup RAW / DNG Support with CHDK on the Canon Powershot SD780 IS / IXUS 100 IS. Here is an article on fixing lens distortion in CHDK DNG RAW images. Also, here is an article on using custom Adobe camera profiles with CHDK DNG images.
Bracketing with CHDK
Here is an article on shooting bracketed images with CHDK. You can use the bracketed photos to create HDR images on your desktop computer.
Manual Exposure Control
Here is an article that discusses using CHDK Shutter Speed Overrides for manual exposure control.
Enabling Super-Fine Quality JPEG using CHDK
Here is an article on improving the quality of recorded JPEG images.
CHDK Developers Forum Thread
The CHDK development thread is where you can find up to date information on what is going on with the latest versions of CHDK:
http://chdk.setepontos.com/index.php/topic,3995.0.html
CHDK Forum
27 Responses to “Loading the CHDK BETA for the Canon Powershot SD780IS / IXUS 100 IS Camera”
Leave a Reply
Note: Comments will have spelling errors corrected before they are posted. If you have a specific question please provide your email address so I can send you a direct reply.
Hi,
I tried to install CHDK on my SD780 IS using the above method but it's never worked. First I put the CHDK files on a 1GB SD card using SDM Install and made it bootable. Then I locked it and put it into my camera. When I turned it on (in either photo or video mode), I got a splash screen showing a red box with some CHDK info in it. But the lens didn't extend. When I turned it off and turned it on again, the lens would extend but and a "Memory Card Error" would appear on the display. This happened several times already. I did a low level FAT-16 format on the 1GB card then used the SDM Install. And every time I would get the splash screen on the first power on and then the "Memory Card Error" the second time. What am I doing wrong?
I personally have never experienced a "Memory Card Error" message. Here are a few things you might look into:
Is your camera a Canon SD780IS / IXUS 100 IS Version 1.00C model?
If you have another SD memory card you might try using that to see if that is the problem. Did you try CHDK with just one build or have you tried this with multiple builds? Check with the CHDK autobuild server and see if there is a new build version and give it a try.
Andrew
Hi you probably know Ken that you cannot use sdhc cards only the older SD cards but thought i would state this just in case as I got that response when i first started out on this forum.Once I read everything i realised that .everything fine now
Ps Thankyou so much Andrew for sharing your knowledge going to try the time lapse tomorrow
Hi,
I'm very new to chdk and I don't understand you get the list of the available functions that you can use in the scripts.
Thanks a lot,
Wallace.
Wallace,
CHDK uses uBasic and LUA for scripting. Here is where you will find the UBASIC reference material and programming tutorials.. Here you will find the full language syntax.
Regards,
Andrew Hazelden
This could be a stupid question, but I have 1.00B version.
Is it possible to "upgrade" to C? I can't find the fir file on canon's pages and only found a "Primary.bin" with is a dump of 100C. No idea if or how I could use that to go to C and then use CHDK.
TIA
G
Hi.
No, you don't have to try and upgrade the firmware to 1.00C. Another version of CHDK will have to be created to support your 1.00B camera. There are active discussions on the IXUS 100 IS / SD780 Developer's Porting Thread at the CHDK Forums about work on the 1.00B firmware. Read pages 35-37 for more details. From what I can tell people are still working on capturing the firmware from the camera and reverse engineering it with the IDA decompiler which would then be the basis of a new CHDK build for the 1.00B.
In reply to Ken's issue, mine does the same thing with the lens not extending. You can press the shutter button, then the lens should extend.
Hi,
Loaded CHDK, and timed.bas. Everything is working fine, set the interval to 60 seconds and autostart and it works, great! Somehow though I now seem to have lost the CHDK menus. Briefly depressing 'disp' brings up the 'alt' message on screen, but the menu button will no longer activate the CHDK menus. time.bas keeps working but I've lost the menus to adjust the parameters.
Hi Richard.
A script is started and stopped by pressing the shutter button while in ALT mode. To load the CHDK menus you have to stop the script. Press the shutter button again when in Alt mode to stop the script from running. Now you can change the script settings in the CHDK Menu.
Andrew
CHDK seems to be quite buggy on my camera. Most of the time stuff is working, but pretty often the camera just shuts down instead of taking a picture. Also I sometimes can't change the camera mode. I.e. I can change from video to manual mode, but it won't go to auto.
Is this my fault or are those beta bugs?
In my experience with the CHDK beta for the SD780IS works well for general everyday use. There are still a few bugs hanging around with the beta but things have been steadily getting better. There is a bug with switching to auto mode and back so I stick to using the photo and video modes. There is also a current bug with the beta if you use the zebra bars that can cause your camera to turn off. What type of things are you doing when the camera shuts down?
Andrew
I noticed that zebra-mode was turned on. Now that I turned it off the problem doesn't occur anymore. Thanks for the hint.
aLu
Hi Andrew,
First, thanks for your efforts here; it's a great resource for a great utility on a great little camera.
When I first got the SD780, I had a real ordeal getting auto-bracketing to work. After a lot of trail by error, I developed a workflow that worked:
After manually loading the CHDK software, I slightly depressed the shutter to go into shooting mode, then pressed DISP then MENU to get to the autobracketing settings under CHDK extra photo options. Then pressed MENU and DISP again, and at that point the SD780 would crank out extended brackets for as long as I held down the shutter button.
I dropped the camera, just got it back from Canon, and now I can't get CHDK to work again - the same problem I had before - after going through all the steps, the LCD simply goes black when I press the shutter button, but the lens remains extended. I think some unwanted script is running. Somewhere along the line, there is a missing step. Can you help?
Thanks.
Hi Andrew,
I'm having more success working with the two sets of menus. I'm experimenting with rapid.bas. Do you have any thoughts about using this as an alternative to timed.bas. The interval is about right for what I am doing, but not sure if I have the nerve or the battery life to leave it running for the required 107 minutes!
Rapid.bas works well if you set it to single shot mode (not continuous mode). My Canon SD780IS camera has taken over 20K photos without a problem so I wouldn't worry too much about filming non-stop for 107 minutes.
How big is your memory card? Can it hold that many photos?
As far as battery life goes if you are going to be doing a lot of time-lapses you might want to look into the Canon ACK-DC10 AC Adapter Kit http://amzn.to/9ms5nh which allows you to power the camera off a wall power supply. Don't bother with the eBay clones of the ACK-DC10 as they are really low quality and the adapter has the connector break off after a few uses.
On the desktop computer side when you assemble the time-lapse you may want to look into getting a deflicker plug-in that will compensate for the variations in brightness caused with the camera's auto exposure feature when clouds pass over. You could also lock the exposure with a CHDK shutter speed override.
I sometimes shoot time-lapses zoomed out and at high resolution and then in a compositing package do a slow pan and zoom to add the feeling of slight motion.
Andrew
Thank you for an informative blog. How may I tell which version of the camera I have (SD780 IS)
Thanks
Hi Bruce,
To figure out what version of the SD780IS camera you have, you need to create an empty text file called vers.req and put it in the root directory of your memory card. Put the memory card back in your camera. Turn the camera on by pressing the review mode button. Press and hold down both the Func Set button and then tap the down cursor button (erase / self timer) at the same time. Hopefully your camera will say it is a Firmware Ver GM1.00C so you can run the CHDK beta. If you tap the two buttons (func set and down cursor) a few times you can cycle through a few screens of information like how many photos you have taken.
Andrew:
Thanks for this. I am not a photographer and this really seemed like a mountain for me to climb, just to be able to enable CHDK for my SD780 IS. Thanks for the great tips, I was able to get it going!
Hi Andrew,
I just found your blog and I'm excited to try this. My camera version is "Firmware Ver. 1.0.0.0, and I out of luck?
nevermind, I did it the right way and found out I had the 100c version, yay!
Kim, thats good news about your camera firmware version. I'm sure you will have alot of fun with CHDK!
I've been working at this all morning with no success. The problem is the vers.req thing doesn't work for me. When I hold down Func/Set all I get is a fancy looking clock. Holding DISP or tapping down the curser doesn't do anything.
I tried to use the SDMInst and it seemed to work but then my camera wouldn't turn on in any mode.
Urgent help needed! Thanks for any tips you can give!
I have the SD780 IS. Everything seems to work fine with the CHDK except for the LCD. No matter what I can't see a live image while in shooting mode.
Even while the counter script is running there is nothing on the LCD. toggling the playback button doesn't extend the lens either.
Bummed!
Hi Wes.
The Display button (DISP) has two modes in CHDK. A short tap of the DISP button toggles on/off ALT mode which is used to access the CHDK menus. A long press of the DISP button toggles on / off the LCD display. This will turn the live image LCD preview screen black or show the live video through the camera's LCD screen.
To turn on the Canon SD780IS camera, with CHDK enabled on start-up, you can either press the power button or the playback button. Then lightly press the shutter button to extend the lens and enter photo shooting mode.
I just ran across this site. I have a Canon SD780 IS. Sounds like CHDK adds a lot of cool features, especially the ability to analog zoom w/ video. I'm interested in doing HDR photos too (CHDK allows the multiple exposures in rapid succession, right?).
However, I'm a little timid to go through the CHDK modifications for fear I'll screw up my camera. What recourse is there if I want to go back to the original, manufacturer's config?
Hi Craig.
Thanks for your question. The neat thing about CHDK is that it doesn't permanently change the firmware on your camera. CHDK is loaded into the RAM of your camera from the SD card each time you turn on the camera. If you ever want to completely remove CHDK all you have to do is erase CHDK from your SD card.
The most common setup with CHDK is to make your SD card 'bootable' using the CHDK installer. When you slide the lock lever on the SD card to the LOCKED mode CHDK is told to start once the camera is booted (CHDK is able to save photos to the memory card when the card is in the locked mode). If you want to disable CHDK, you just have to unlock the memory card and your Canon camera will startup like normal.