CHDK – How to hack your Canon 350D DSLR

I have read about the CHDK hacks online for some time now, and today I finally gathered all the resources to successfully hack my 350D. While this just shows you how to hack the 350D (aka Rebel XT), there are many more resources out there if you have another kind of Canon camera.
Follow the directions very carefully, if you get it wrong, it could be very bad for your camera. I found a CHDK wiki forum here to help if you have any questions.
Here is a snapshot of the Cardtricks program formatting the card the 2nd time I did it.

Before you begin, the camera must be firmware version 1.0.3! You can find out what version you have by going to the 5th menu and scrolling down to the very last row.
1. Format your CF card using your camera.
2. Insert CF card into computer (or card reader) and copy scanled.fir to the card. (Click the link to download the file)
2. Insert CF to camera and run firmware update by going to the last choice of the 5th menu screen. You will see "CF card containing firmware is required to update". Wait for blue LED to light steady. Wait another 30 seconds.
3. Turn off camera and take battery out and then put it back in, leave the camera off.
4. Insert CF card in card reader. Run the program Cardtricks (click to download) and select the CF card by clicking on the picture of an SD memory card. Format the card in Cardtricks using the format button. Note, CF card must be smaller than 4g, I tried with an 8g and ran into problems formatting in FAT16.
5. Check "CF boot sector" at the bottom right of the Cardtricks screen and then click "make bootable" (on the left). Cardtricks will tell you to switch on the 'write protect switch'. CF cards do not have this, so just ignore that.
6. Go here and download the exe file. Be sure to click “Click here to start download” when the wnidow opens. Copy the AUTOEXEC.bin (in 350dall_in_infov2) into the root directory to the CF card, i.e. X:\autoexec.bin - not into any subdirectory.
7. Insert CF in the camera. If the camera is booting from the card the Blue LED will flash.
Here are some of the cool things the camera does now. All features are accessed through the info button:
"1:ISO"; ISO-values from 100 to 3200 in 1/3 stops
"2:WB"; white-balance (the original 8 plus ColorTemp)
"3:CTemp"; custom color temp from 1800K to 11000K in 100K steps
"4:Metering"; light metering, the original three (fullframe, center-weighted, partial) plus spot metering
"5:AEB"; exposure bracketing from +-0 to 6.7 EV in +/- x.0, x.3, x.5, x.7, for x = {0..6}
"6:CF-BSeq/AutoC"; bracketing sequence order (normal-under-over / under-normal-over) and autocancellation of bracketing on / off
"7:CF-SI Disp."; red focussing dots overlay on matt screen on / off
"8:CF-Menu Posi."; wether it should remember menu position after poweroff-on (the setting 'Top Menu' is faulty)
"9:CF-Safe.Shift"; Av and Tv autoexpanding the given values - only if needed (if picture would otherwise be over- or underexposed)
"10:CF-L.AFButt"; changes behaviour of AF-pushbutton on Canon L IS supertele (not the AF-switch on normal lens!)
"?11:CF-Decis.Da."; saves plenty of additional numeric decision data and sensor values in RAW and JPEG-EXIF (only for special software)
"12:CF-Flash"; switch flash on / off regardless of flash settings (either internal and flash socket)
"13:Shutt.Count"; total shutter counts
Create pictures every [user set 1-999] sec. Example : 100 x 5s --- take 100 pictures at every 5 sec.
Right – increase time by 1 sec
Left – decrease time by 1 sec
Play – increase # of pictures by 1
Here it is – hacked Canon 350D:

(Pardon the cell phone picture… its hard to take a picture of the camera WITH the camera… LOL)
All the new features are accessed through the ‘info’ button, not the normal menu button. Your regular functions are still there.
I also just figured out my camera has 55,000+ clicks. Hard to believe I’ve taken over 55,000 photos in 4 years! Now I can’t wait till I get my new camera next week and try it on that one! Check back later for more details on the new camera!
Enjoy!