Slashdot Mirror
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?"
picture that...
Canon has so far said little on the hack but certainly cannot be happy with its potential effect on sales.
That arguement is rediculous. What part of Canon's market that will shell out for that camera will apply this hack? Probably almost none of it, if they can find it or understand it. So that leaves the likes of the slashdot crowd, and that really isn't a big enough group to put a dent into Canon's sales.
Some of the Sony Minidisc players had features disabled through software. I, for one, was able to get many new features on mine after enering the service menu.
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.
My Comcast cablebox (motoral model unknown, somewhere from c.1992) is a POS. I called Comcast for tech support because my volume was too low
Fast forward some months
This one feature was useful enough for me to keep two different codes for my one cable box on one remote.
I'm still searching for the CC button, like aztec gold.
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:
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
In Korea, long hair is for old people!
1. Build a product out of [price] reach for most consumers;
2. Charge a more realistic price for a 'feature reduced' version;
3. Watch as it gets hacked;
4. Then watch sales climb high as people begin to believe (under false pretences) that they have got 'one over' on the company - people love a free ride or a good 'bargain'.
I like it!
I know about a half dozen local photographers in current production. They don't care nearly as much as you think about the brand or name of digital cameras as much as old film cameras because most of the work for them is done in processing the picture and even if they took a half megapixel shot of someone's wedding they can reasonably work out something desirable to the person who wants the picture. Things are getting more stylized I'm noticing more usage of filters and the like in batch process to give desired effect like a subtle contrast boost and a tweaked guassian blur to lessen the harsh edges digital cameras are still prone to leave in the unedited image file.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
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.
The best easter egg in a car I think is this one. Have not found the hidden launch control on my 10 year old rustbucket, though. I am taking apart the digital clock this weekend to find it.
Spend the extra on the 10D, the metal chassis alone is worth the extra $$...
If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
Saving $500 is quite a lot, I'll bet a number of normal people figure out how to apply this hack with detail instructions from message boards and the like.
I really thought it was odd of Canon to differentiate the software at all - they should haver just kept the price differential to a resnable cost for a sturdier body.
Both are really prosumer cameras, I think people shopping for one would be thinking about the other - like you say, the real difference is when you are going for a 1D or a 1Ds.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I have one of those Motorola digital cable boxes. One afternoon my one-year-old nephew was crawling around and put his hand down on the remote. He apparently pushed just the right combination of buttons to access some sort of set-up menu. There was all sorts of settings that were obviously above my head, thus I was too chicken to make any changes for fear of really screwing up something, or worse. So I cancelled out of it and have yet to find out how to access it again. Makes me wonder what sort of stuff I could have tapped into had I known more about what I was doing.
Some of the stuff in this thread is just insane. And far and beyond normal idiocy.
1.Since this camera was announced we knew it would be hacked it was just a matter of time.
2.Canon knew it would be hacked.
3.If you only knew how many times products are crippled/disabled and priced lower so that high end stuff still sells? anyone remember 3.5 single sided floppies? Companies do what is in there own best interest.. err in the stockholders best interest. Do some of you really think Canon is doing this to pull one over on you? No they are doing what will make the most money for their shareholders.
4.I think the anaology to overclocking is not valid. Chips are clocked at set speeds becuase they are stable at that speed, If AMD/Intel sold the 2.4 rated chip as a 3.0 which it is in some cases IDENTICAL, people would complain since the 2.4 rated chips can't really handle those speeds and crash. AMD and Intel love overclockers cuz they buy more chips then anyone else, since they fry things all the time.
5.All in all this will not really affect 10d sales, for all the reasons listed above, stability, ability to interface with higher end equipment, better case, higher quality parts, and certain features that the 300d can't so at all.
6.300d sales will go up since this just became the geek camera of the year.
Also on a side note no one has mentioned that people have been hacking the Canon lenses to get more f-stops and zoom out of them for awhile. Canon restricts some lenses since the quality becomes adversly affected at min and max. So some people have removed the stops and taken the quality hit for more versitility.
---In a time of Chimpanzees I was a Monkey.
> Instead should have a $200 Photoshop for everyone.
Excellent post. You really made me question some of my thinking on the subject.
Have you considered, however, that adding back all of that crippled functionality can actually be a *negative* to many consumers? I have a friend who wanted to get a Photoshop-ish paint program to do basic image editing that got no more complicated than cropping and un-red-eyeing digital photos and a little messing around with scanning. He was determined to buy something on the level of Photoshop Lite, but I installed Gimp for him since it's more or less the full Photoshop. I was showing him the zillions of features that were available when he said "What the hell is all *that* for? All I want to do is send pictures to my mother!" Ignoring the whole commercial vs. open source aspect of it, I think there's a very large group of consumers out there who really *don't* want the full versions of products. If you get out of the hacker mindset then there really *is* such a thing as too much power / too many options. By just selling one version of Photoshop / Office with every function enabled, how many sales will actually be *lost?*
Also consider the fact that enabling those few added functions are what suddenly makes a product / software package go from being a "thing to use a little around the house" to "a professional tool to use to earn a living." How much of the value of a camera or imaging software comes from what that product represents in future income to the consumer? Does that make the product worth more money? Should the added value of those few menu options be ignored since they're essentially just a switch flipped in the compiler? I think your questions about luxury and high-quality are good, but one man's "high quality" is another man's "too damned complicated!"