Hacking Digital Cameras

whawk640 writes "I came across this book via the author's website www.camerahacker.com. I was interested in making a pinhole lens at the time so I picked up the book. Disclaimer: I'm NOT a hacker by nature. I only did a hack on a lens cover. Most of the hacks in here are for those with a better relationship with screwdrivers, drills and soldering irons than I have. I don't think this book was intended for me, so keep that in mind when reading my review." Read the rest of Daniel's review.

Hacking Digital Cameras
author	Chieh Cheng, Auri Rahimzadeh
pages	519
publisher	Wiley
rating	8/10
reviewer	Daniel LaFuze
ISBN	978-0-7645-9651-3
summary	Interesting and Fun

A quick list of the types of hacks in the book are as follows.

1: Hacking Cameras -- (triggers, tripods, raw data, power, remote control and updated firmware)
2: Hacking Lenses -- (accessory adapters, changing magnification, pinhole, lens extension, macro adapters)
3: Creative Photography Hacks -- (filters, infrared, and removing infrared blocking)
4: Building Fun Camera Tools -- (car mount, headrest mount, bicycle spy cam, stabilizer, flash bracket, monopod, and studio light)
5: Flash Memory Hacks -- (CF Type I to PC Card Type II, removing microdrives)
6: Appendices -- (Soldering Basics, Circuit Symbols, Glass Cutting Basics, Photographer's Glossary, Index)

This book has quite a few hacks and if you're interested in hacking, the step by step instructions presented in the book will be useful and interesting. Quite honestly, I've only performed one of the hacks myself. I followed the step by step instructions for making a pinhole lens and it worked just perfectly. My wife will tell you I'm no Bob Vila. About all I know about a drill is that one end is pointy and spins.

Anyway, if you want to tinker with digital cameras, pick up the book and read through the contents. If the specific hack you want to do is not in the contents, look for something close. If it's not there or the book doesn't give you any ideas on anything to do, then it may not be for you. Read one more paragraph to find out.

In addition to the hacks, this book covers quite a bit of introductory concepts in photography in general and the math behind it. I found it easy to read as a beginner and it gave me an appreciation for why there are professional photographers and 'the rest of us'. Concepts covered in the book include focal length, magnification, filters, softness, ambient light, field of view, white balance, infrared, ultraviolet, depth of field and many more. These sections are brief and provide only an introduction though. If you're an experienced photographer, you probably won't find anything new in these sections. One down side about this is that since an introduction to photography is not the focus of the book, these introductions are scattered throughout the book whenever they tie in with a specific hack. On the upside, it gives you the information when you need it to decide if a hack is right for you.

Now, the hacks in the book are step by step with loads of pictures, schematics where necessary and tips. What you need to perform each hack is identified clearly before you start. Additional ideas about how the hack could be modified in function or in fit are available after each hack.

In my opinion, the disclaimer telling you not to take apart your $400.00 brand new camera is not quite strong enough. People like me are rightly afraid of that sort of thing. From what I hear, your average hacker though is much more adept and less fearful.

This is not the type of book most people would pick up and read cover to cover. It is more like a reference you would want to have handy if you spend a lot of time taking creative pictures or messing with your camera.

Negatives: Hacks seem to apply to specific cameras, if you want to apply them to other cameras, the author's experience may not help you... be careful! I found section 3 very interesting and would have liked to see more chapters on fun camera hacks. Unfortunately, it was the smallest section in the book.

Are you a propeller head who loves to take things apart?
Are you a techno-junkie who has 9 or 10 digital cameras lying around because you always buy the newest one?
Are you an amateur or professional photographer who just can't quite get all the features you want in a single camera?
Do you have a specific need for a hack that the book covers?
Do you have an interest in this sort of hack and a desire to learn some photography basics?"
If you answered yes to any of the previous questions, then this book is for you.

---

You can purchase Hacking Digital Cameras from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

i took my olymous d300 apart

and installed linux in it. when i put it back together it didn't work. what did i do wrong?

Re:i took my olymous d300 apart

my olymous d300

What did you do wrong? You paid $25 to some guy in an overcoat in a dark alley for an "olymous" camera, you freaking idiot...

Now, about this "RoIex" watch you're interested in buying, along with these cheap "Vyagra" pills...

Lame

None of these really seem much like "hacks". More like cheap, obvious things.

A hack, IMO, would involve doing something funky with the software, like running MAME, doing effects on the image by altering the way its recorded, or something.

RE

I completely understand not wanting to mess around with a new $400 camera- However, most of us have old cameras lying around, that although expensive at the time, are now obselete. Why not use one of your old cameras for this? Or buy one of the super cheap digital cameras, with low resolution, to practice with? Sort of like, I wouldn't practice motor work on a new Corvette, but a $500 V8 Cutlass Supreme would be a great learning/test bed...

True monochrome?

How about having a CCD that takes true monochromatic images? No RGB overlays. So a sodium lamp would register near zero unless near its wavelength.

worst. review. ever?

i'm sorry. was this an amazon.com review posted on /. by mistake? did you try any of the hacks? what did you like? what didn't you like? did you just copy this off the back cover of the book or what?

-1 for content, -1 for copying from amazon or somewhere else, -10 for wasting my time reading and writing this reply

please write a review when you've actually read the book. thanks!

Give me a break!!!!!

the key in his introduction to getting you to go to his review is:

I don't think this book was intended for me, so keep that in mind when reading my review."

since i am a man, i will go out and review the new tampax smooth style heavy flow tampons, of course i will put the disclaimer that the product wasnt intended for me, and that this should be kept in mind when reading, what the disclaimer makes, a useless review!!!! said one sighted person when reviewing the kurzeweil reading machine for the blind "nice machine, but all the buttons and such have no labels, how do they expect the blind to see what they are doing?" said a double leg amputee in reviewing nikes new air jumpoes... "nice lines, cool colors.. i cant wear them, but if i had legs, i would" does anyone see the uselessness of reviewing products that were not intended for the reviewer? if you dont, then this mans review is perfect for you!

Re:Give me a break!!!!!

I got further than you. I stopped at, "If you're interested in cameras, pick up a copy of this book and see if it's the kind of book you're interested in. Then check to see if there's anything close to what you're interested in. If there's nothing in there that you're interested in, or close to something that you might be interested in being interested in, you'll probably not be interested by this book." An insight like that just can't be topped, so there seemed no point in reading further.

Just remember...

I'm NOT a hacker by nature.

Just remember, if at first you don't succeed, chainsaw juggling is not for you.

Raw data

One of the topics listed in the book is the raw file format. Why do camera manufacturer encrypt our pictures? Our pictures belong to us. We are the copyright holders of our pictures, not the manufacturers of cameras. There is probably no acceptable answer. So, let's just list the culprits. I start with one of them:
Nikon [imaging-resource.com].

Re:Raw data

One of the topics listed in the book is the raw file format. Why do camera manufacturer encrypt our pictures? Our pictures belong to us. We are the copyright holders of our pictures, not the manufacturers of cameras. There is probably no acceptable answer.

I followed your link, and I think your right, there is no acceptable answer to that from a user standpoint. Looking at the information from your link this sounds like a rather lame attempt at locking the camera to the raw processing software.

Its odd in that the image itself isn't encrypted but the white balance information is. It obviously takes additional work to encrypt the white balance, so why not the whole image? Probably its Nikon walking the line between irritating the software developer enough to drop support entirely, yet still keeping them from accessing the full potential of the raw file (locking out the open-source community - good job there Nikon...)

Another case of the corporate mentality to maintain complete control over what you can do with the stuff you buy.

Hacking Webcams For Astrophotography

Astronomers have been doing the same kind of thing with Webcams - specificly the Phillips TouCam, Vesta Pro and the Quickcam 3000 all use CCD sensors which are sensitive enough for astrophotography. It's possible to open them up, modify them for long exposure photography, add peltier cooling to reduce noise and some people even replace the CCD with a different kinds.
http://www.qcuiag.co.uk/ [qcuiag.co.uk]

Re:Hacking Webcams For Astrophotography

Astronomers have also been doing this with digital SLRs. Modifying the firmware to allow longer exposures, removing the IR dichroic filter... One camera manufacturer seems to have noticed this and made a specialized version: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0506/05060101canon20d a.asp [dpreview.com] No, I don't work for Canon, I just wish Sony (and others) would either open up their firmware or provide more flexible options for semi-pro cameras such as the DSC-V3.

Hacker??

When I first read the URL I thought I saw "camerawhacker.com".

Maybe it's the Elmer Fudd in me. Maybe I should put down the soldering iron.

/.'ed

Already...

Google Cache HERE. [72.14.207.104]

More interesting

Here's a site with instructions for building your own 'trail camera'. These are typically used by hunters to take pictures of deer passing through their hunting area for scouting purposes. The techniques could easily be applied to other uses such as setting up a remote motion detecting security camera.
http://www.hagshouse.com/Hags%20House/Trail%20Came ra%20Project.htm [hagshouse.com]

slashdotted

posters please submit coral links to the pages too, thank you.

link:
http://www.camerahacker.com.nyud.net:8090/ [nyud.net]

How apropos

I received this email from my wife a few minutes ago....

The camera is FU*KED.

I took pictures of the flowers. Showed someone the picture of your parents. As it was handed back, it was dropped. It is hosed. Know any good camera repair shops?

Please don't kill me. I am SO sorry. I hope we can get the pictures of the flowers out of it.

Re:How apropos

That's funny... I got this email from my girlfriend about half an hour ago...

The camera is FU*KED. I can't delete those pictures from last night - I'm afraid my husband will see them!

So, I took some pictures of some stupid flowers and then pretended to "break" the camera showing them to his parents. (oh, how I despise bill!). I'm afraid I didn't break it enough to get rid of those pictures. Should I drive a nail through the memory card?

I'll play the "please don't kill me" line with the puppy dog eyes. He should fall for it.

See you this weekend!!

Now here's a real digicam hack...

LOL.....Have a look here [blip.com.au] to see a real camera hack. There's even a gallery to see what you can do with this camera in the air, and post your own results...
I have just got one myself for my model plane. It's just an ordinary 2 Megapixel aiptek pencam, but modified to run off a model aircraft's battery pack and take instructions from a spare channel on your receiver. It has a programmable chip inside so you can alter the time in between shots. I'm taking mine to Spain this summer; we're going to try out some basic geological mapping, but with a bit of luck I should be taking some aerial photos of our model flying field this weekend to see how it turns out... :o)

They're out of stock right now - I was lucky to get mine before they ran out! Perhaps a better camera will be modded by them in future....

Hacking?

The term 'Hacking' now seems to mean any form of mild experimentation or improvisation outside of the scope that the product manufacturer had envisaged.

Wow! How cool is this hacking thing????

CVS One-Time-Use Camera Hacking

There's a whole forum dedicated to hacking the CVS/Ritz/Wolf/Rite-aid digital cameras and camcorders here: http://www.camerahacking.com/ [camerahacking.com]. Beyond hacks for reusing these "one time use" cameras, there are a number of folks taking them in the directions discussed by this book (i.e. lens mods, flash memory modification, IR lighting, etc.)

But, alas, recent CVS camcorders are now almost unhackable since the developer has closed most holes that were there intially. The still cameras are still accessible via some hardware hacks.

- Rich

Is this like the $40 iPod secret books?

I.e. lots of common sense things that anyone with a brain should understand, but feel they need the comfort of reading it in a book first before they feel comfortable exercising their God given intellect, or rather, being ripped of $40 to find out you already know everything the book feels the need to explain.

Anyways, my digital camera cost $1200, so I don't think I will go near it with a Dremel tool just to make it work with some tripod that wasn't designed to use as universal camera adapter. About the closest thing I did to hack my Digital Rebel was to update its firmware with one from a more expensive Canon digital camera, only to find out that while most of the menu options from the more expensive camera are available, most of the features are not supported in the Rebel.

I found it interesting that the book had to explain the math and concepts behind photography. This is analogous to the editor saying that you need to write a 500 page book, and you found out you only have 200 pages of real content, so throw in some superfluous information that you can find in an encyclopedia so you can fill in the void. I bet the book also features lots of full color picture pages showing all the neat things a camera can do (like take pictures of pretty things).

I find most how to manuals and "hacker" guides to be generally lacking in anything practical and filled with information you could probably think of if you took the time to think of it. The author hopes you don't think too hard and would drop $40 on the book. The only two "how to" guides I found ever useful and worth the money was "101 things to do with a dead cat" and "Everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten".

BTW, I hear Opera is bitter and doing an expose on the author of "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" because apparently the author lied and the truth is that men and women are both born on Earth.

Just one question - mirror lockup hack for Canon

....does it have instructions on how to hack firmware so that the mirror lockup functionality is behind a single button on 20D or 5D? I especially wouldn't mind replacing 5D's "Direct Print" with a mirror lockup button.

i h4x0r3d my webcam once

removed the IR filter, replaced it with a couple layers of film negatives and took scary pics of my eyes and the strips in money and the beam from my remote control. fun stuff, although i kind of liked that webcam.. oh well

How to build your own

For a while now I've been thinking, wouldn't it be cool to build your own digital camera? Has anyone tried this out? or even thought about this?
I can take care of the software/firmware and a bit of the electronics side of things, but I don't know much about the camera parts that actually take the picture.

Here is what I'd call

a real camera hack [rca.ac.uk]. Great shots too.

Infra-red!

I'd like to hack a digital camera to produce infra-red false-color thermographs. Filtered pinhole. Do-able?

Accidental Fisheye hack

When, after 4000 photos, the front zoom element jammed on my Casio QV-4000, I removed it and found that the remaining elements were still able to form an image if the camera was in macro mode. The camera has a save presets feature so now when I turn it on, it is in macro mode and since the focal length of the remaining elements is much shorter, I now have a very distorted ultra-wide angle non-zoom camera which can take in most of a room, the entire family or weird artsy photos such as this. [flickr.com]

Hacking for Infrared

Maybe the most common digital camera hack is removing the IR cut filter to allow for better IR photography. High-speed IR film is awkward to use because it has to be loaded in a dark bag, it's difficult to get the exposure right, and you can't see the image in the viewfinder if you're using a visually opaque IR-pass filter. Digitals hacked for IR are awesome, because with a visually opaque filter over the lens, you can still preview the image.

The only problem is that, because the IR cut filter is typically behind the lens (right in front of the sensor), you have to replace it with a IR-transparent filter with similar refractive properties, or the camera can't focus properly. I took my Nikon Coolpix 2200 apart and replaced the IR cut filter, but I guess the optical glass I replaced it with isn't quite right, because it doesn't focus well. I never got around to finding a suitable substitute.

Underwater camera housing

A friend [inventorsgarage.com] once told me a technique for minimising leaks in homemade underwater camera housings. Take the valve stem from a bicycle inner tube, attach it to the (PVC/HPVC) camera housing. Just before immersing the camera, pump 15 psi or so into the valve stem. That way if there is a slow leak, air pressure will help keep the water out (up to 30' or so)

an idea

Yeah, not the best hacks. Try running Linux on it, now THATS a hack.

So...

Sounds like a book you have to keep on paying for after having bought it. ;)