Canon Digital Rebel Hacked Into A Pseudo-10D

Reverb9 writes "When Canon introduced the Digital Rebel, the world's first entry-level Digital SLR camera, many remarked on its similarities to the 10D , its $500 more expensive big brother. In fact, the two cameras share much of the same technology and so Canon implemented a number of software-based limitations to avoid destroying sales of the professional-oriented 10D. Now, a new hack that restores a previously hidden menu along with a few additional tricks has added nearly all of those 10D features to the Rebel, with an arguably superior user interface to boot. Canon has so far said little on the hack but certainly cannot be happy with its potential effect on sales. This is, however, a reality that more corporations are having to confront. In an era where programming labour is relatively cheap and computer connectivity more frequent can artificial, marketing-driven, barriers between technology products, last?"

Comments

Not 100% the same

[Polo]

Just to mention that the 10D does have different hardware, so this hack won't give all features,
notably the faster frames per second and frames that are buffered.

The EOS-300D will shoot 4 frames at 2.5 frames per second and the EOS-10D will shoot 9 frames at 3 frames per second.

Also, the EOS-300D has a cheap-feeling plastic body while the EOS-10D has a black magnesium body.

Server's Slow, So Here's a Synopsis

[the pickle]

The linked page is basically one guy's explanation of and links to a bunch of Russian sites that host hacked firmware for the 300D/Digital Rebel.

Firmware update instructions from Canon
10D Instruction Manual (PDF file)
Latest Firmware from Wasia

(Wasia is apparently the pseudonym of the Russian hacker who has developed all these goodies.)

Wasia's site is here:

http://satinfo.narod.ru/

Some more info from the linked page:

Its been widely known that the Canon EOS 300D Digital Rebel and the Canon EOS 10D DSLR's are similar beasts. In fact, if you look at their Side-by-side comparisons you can see that most of the features that vary are catagorized as "Customizable".

The 10D has a menu item called "Custom Functions" which allows these settings to be adjusted. Well, a fellow in Russia found that in the latest firmware, by switching a single byte in the firmware image, he was able to enable most of these 10D "Custom Functions" in the Digital Rebel. Now, some features, such as more frames in rapid shooting, are hardware-limitations but some features lacking such as Flash Exposure Compensation and embedded JPEG quality are found to be working in the 300D.

This is not the 10D firmware, it is the 300D firmware with some of the dormant 10D features enabled. The developers probably shared the codebase between the two models. The 10D firmware will not work on your 300D.

Now, be aware that this Modified firmware will violate your warranty!

There are a bunch of other neat tips on that site, but they aren't directly related to this story, and so I haven't re-posted them here.

p

Re:Makes you wonder

[mindstrm]

No...

Many vehicles out there have the same exact engine and drivetrain, but have timing and whatnot adjusted via computer, one to give better fuel consumption, the other to givemore power.. and the manufactuere advertises one as 120HP engine, and one as 150HP. Same, exact, engine.

Also, the timing on many vehicles is adjusted for a certain low grade of fuel (Even if that low grade isn't the lowest grade available).... making the decision to ALWAYS run on a higher octane fuel, and tuning the timing to take that into account can give you a nice increase in power.

Add to that cars with servo controlled turbo wastegates (if I recall correctly).. boost pressure can also be increased (or decreased, for better fuel efficiency) on the fly.

There are numerous ways to tweak a modern computerized engine management system.