Removal of lens from Canon P&S and still working?! - General Chat - CHDK Forum
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Removal of lens from Canon P&S and still working?!

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Offline leedsgreen

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Removal of lens from Canon P&S and still working?!
« on: 13 / October / 2009, 08:34:17 »
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Dear All,

I wonder is anyone has succesfully removed the lens of their Canon point & shoot canon so that the camera still works? I've done a search on the forum but have been unable to find any guidance/help. The reason I ask is that my friend has given me his broken a710IS (lens will not open to shoot position) and if I could remove the lens and get it to work, it would be fascinating to see if I could attach it to my telescope (via attached barrel) in prime focus fashion (i.e. like DSLR) as opposed to afocaly. Clearly this would be so much cheaper than buying a DSLR/micro four-thirds camera and with the smaller sensor there would be less chance of vignetting when I use a focal reducer for imaging DSOs.

Thanks for any help,

Nick
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Offline Microfunguy

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Re: Removal of lens from Canon P&S and still working?!
« Reply #1 on: 13 / October / 2009, 10:24:29 »
If you have not done this sort of work before there is a 100% chance you will break it.
If you have done this before but not this model there is a 90% chance you will break it.

Even if you do not break it you have to somehow override maybe three sensors and in the correct sequence so that the Canon firmware does not complain.
That would be very difficult.

Even if you got that far, you may need to fit a fast-acting tiny mechanical shutter.
Such shutters are not available to the public and even if they were it means you cannot connect to telescope.
It is possible that for long exposures you may not need the mechanical shutter.

I have done this mod with 5MP fixed-lens Vivitar cameras that were fitted to a microscope.
The results were good.

Problem is ... cameras that are fixed lens do not have the same sophisticated image-processing firmware that zoom lens more expensive cameras have.

As a result, it can be very frustrating getting good colour, brightness, white balance and contrast.

I have spent some years pursuing exactly what you want to do.

You do not want to hear the solution ... I have just bought a Panasoc Lumix G1.

With a flange-to-sensor distance of just 20mm you can fit any lens intended for any camera, even C-mount movie lenses (using a slightly-recessed adapter).

In the unlikely event that you succeed, it would be VERY interesting to see the result.

Why not document the process, stripdowns are always of interest ?



David
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Offline leedsgreen

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Re: Removal of lens from Canon P&S and still working?!
« Reply #2 on: 13 / October / 2009, 11:15:33 »
David,

Thanks for the detailed reply. I'm afraid I'm pretty hopeless with modifications and firmware updates etc so I reckon this will be well past me, which I was suspecting. Would be interested to know how you find the G1. A micro four-thirds camera does seem the way I would go (i.e. with larger sensor than my a710IS but not too big to avoid vignetting etc). Hopefully ebay might have a few in a year or so ;-)

Thanks again,

Nick
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Offline whoever

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Re: Removal of lens from Canon P&S and still working?!
« Reply #3 on: 13 / October / 2009, 13:44:22 »
Quote from: leedsgreen on 13 / October / 2009, 08:34:17
I wonder is anyone has succesfully removed the lens of their Canon point & shoot canon so that the camera still works?
...
it would be fascinating to see if I could attach it to my telescope
This is certainly doable -- see here for a successful astrophotography setup. Definitely not for faint-hearted though.
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Offline leedsgreen

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Re: Removal of lens from Canon P&S and still working?!
« Reply #4 on: 19 / October / 2009, 10:41:34 »
Thanks very much for link Whoever. As you say, not for the faint-hearted (but fun to read all the same)!

Nick
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a710is
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