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CHDK Second Hand Camera Advice

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Offline leedsgreen

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CHDK Second Hand Camera Advice
« on: 28 / April / 2009, 07:14:39 »
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Dear All,

I bought my Powershot a710is in autumn 2006, which still appears to be going strong to this day. However, in the last year I have become more interested in astrophotography and use my a710is for afocal telscope work. With the help of CHDK I am now able to shoot, say, 50 continuous shots that I then stack to reveal incredibly clear and sharp images (for example, of the moon). However, this means in one night I may take around 500-1000 shots and from taking only 1000 a year between 2006-2008, I now take far more in one week. My concern is how long can the camera continue? Does anyone know? I must add, the camera appears as fit and healthy today (apart from the odd hot pixel) as it did when I first bought it.

The easy answer is to but a new powershot when I need to BUT it appears the new Powershots are less likely to be able to run CHDK software AND they no longer offer the ability to hold adaptors (ie to attach telephoto and wide angle lenses, as well attaching the camera to my telescope). With this in mind, I am tempted to buy a S/H powershot on ebay but am unsure which to go for. For example, I recently saw a a650is that woudl have been great but I can't work out if CHDK will work on it (as it appears to be firmware specific for this model and when I asked the seller what firmware version the camera had, he had no idea what I was talking about (and fair enough))!

Would anybody be able to advise what S/H Powershot camera is the best to buy that is most likely to run CHDK? I would really appreciate any help,  :)

Thanks very much,

Nick

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Offline barret

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Re: CHDK Second Hand Camera Advice
« Reply #1 on: 28 / April / 2009, 08:48:36 »
i think you shouldn't worry. i have used canon a550 for quite a long time, and made with it... dunno, maybe around 100 000 shots, different exposure times, many of them very long. i have several times done all night shooting exposures 64 sec. long (which you can see in my galleries btw - look in my signature;)). with my canon s3 i made about 50 000 or more shots, including 20 minutes long exposures.

and what? nothing :) everything runs fine :)
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Offline fbonomi

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Re: CHDK Second Hand Camera Advice
« Reply #2 on: 28 / April / 2009, 10:42:56 »
I had over 180.000 shots on my A570, but then I left it without batteries for a while and the counter got reset :-)

Anyway, ledsgreen, I quite share your worry about my A570.

The problem is, getting a different camera presents some problems (doubts about exact compatibility, will i get what I need, etc.) , so I decided to just wait until the A570s are old and then get an used one!


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Offline fudgey

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Re: CHDK Second Hand Camera Advice
« Reply #3 on: 28 / April / 2009, 17:38:11 »
My a570 is at about 100k shots as well, a great deal of them from timelapses using manual exposure and manual focus and fixed zoom i.e. putting less strain on mechanics than regular pointing&shooting on a holiday trip. Zoom has always sounded awful in my camera, but that aside I haven't noticed any problems or change in behavior... It's been dropped for a couple of times too, ran exposures up to 10 minutes and been crashed a countless number of times by all sorts of wicked test to hack it further to name some things I've put it through.  ;)
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Offline leedsgreen

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Re: CHDK Second Hand Camera Advice
« Reply #4 on: 28 / April / 2009, 18:07:50 »
Hey guys,

Thanks for all your replies. I notice the three of you have helped answer my q's before, so hats off and thanks again  :D

100,000 shots, wow! Sounds like I will have plenty more nights taking pics of the skies ahead of me! CHDK has really made a huge difference to my enjoyment of photography and halted what I thought would be a rapid move into the wide-world of DSLRs (with associated costs)! I take some pride in what can be achieved more cheaply and CHDK has been a major part of that.

Cheers,

Nick
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