CHDK

This is the Canon Hack Development Kit. It could be used to overwrite firmware which limits the functionality of Canon PowerShot models of cameras.

It can also brick a camera. The distinction seems difficult to determine.

Installation

The wiki says you are supposed to run ACID to determine the version of the firmware on the PowerShot A2500 that belongs to Noisebridge.

ACID says the camera works but it can't download what I want  :(

Operation

Remote Control requires a special PTP extension. From there it appears there are some helpful utilities. There is some low quality information regarding building the computer PTP interface on OS X 10.8. It will not build on macOS Sierra.

Windows

The info about PtpCamGui will result in a program that will connect to a camera. It's good for timelapse and other computer controlled features though it will not work for liveview. It seems to have limited features.

Linux

Download the binary.

For Gnome, disable gvfsd-gphoto2 with the venerable kill utility. To enter an interactive shell, do this

./chdkptp.sh -c

To take a picture and save it to the computer, give the script some arguments

./chdkptp.sh -c -e"rec" -e"rs selfie"

building chdkptp

macOS:

brew install lua libusb
brew install --force readline
svn co http://subversion.assembla.com/svn/chdkptp/trunk/ chdkptp
cd chdkptp
cp config-sample-linux.mk config.mk

edit config.mk

replace LUA_INCLUDE_DIR and LUA_LIB with the following values

LUA_INCLUDE_DIR=/usr/local/opt/lua/
LUA_LIB=lua

edit Makefile so that the line around 111 with the main LDFLAGS definition reads

LDFLAGS+=$(LIB_PATHS) -L/usr/local/opt/readline/lib $(patsubst %,-l%,$(LINK_LIBS) $(SYS_LIBS))

continue to build

make

Edit chdkptp-sample.sh

run chdkptp-sample.sh

./chdkptp-sample.sh

Scripting

Once installed, it is possible to write scripts in the Lua language which run directly on the camera. There is a Lua reference in the Noisebridge Library.