New firmware hack for 300D: enables FEC

[SteO]

There is a new hacked fiemware for 300D, that enables FEC on WB button, read this:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1031&message=8246765

The hack:

http://demeter.x1.ru/soft/E3kr111_v2.FIR

[msvadi]

I will better wait for an official firmware upgrade from Canon. By the way did Canon respond in any way to the hacks?

[SteO]

I will better wait for an official firmware upgrade from Canon. By the way did Canon respond in any way to the hacks?

Nope, there isn't news from bebit site:

http://www.canon.co.jp/Imaging/BeBit-e.html

[CyberDyneSystems]

I will better wait for an official firmware upgrade from Canon. By the way did Canon respond in any way to the hacks?

You'll be waiting a long time... :?

[gsmx2]

I gave it a try...it worked. I'll see if I keep it.

gsm x2

[Jesper]

I would be VERY CAREFUL with putting an obscure Russian firmware hack on my camera, who knows what the guy who made it did. Suppose you've uploaded the hack into your camera and it displays "APRIL'S FOOL!" in the display and your camera wouldn't work anymore..... :shock: try to explain that to Canon when you're sending your camera in for repair..... it would cost you a lot of money.

[timmyquest]

*moron*

whats FEC

:roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:
:( :( :( :( :(

[PeterS45]

*moron*

whats FEC

:roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:
:( :( :( :( :(

Flash Exposure Compensation? :?

[RichardtheSane]

Flash Exposure Compensation
:D
:?

[fwhitesides]

That hack is a *trade* in features rather than the addition of a feature. By enabling FEC, you lose the ability to switch White Balance modes. That means no more custom WB once you enable FEC. Screw that.

I'd love to have FEC on my DRebel, but not at the cost of custom WB. Now, if I could trade the small JPEG image size setting for FEC, that would be a good deal. :D

[cloudless]

I have no problem losing the white balance modes, as I will shoot in RAW anyway. However, is this April's fool?

[Jesper]

I have no problem losing the white balance modes, as I will shoot in RAW anyway. However, is this April's fool?
That was just a thought, to illustrate that in my opinion it's not a good idea to trust some obscure Russian hacker to mess with the firmware of your camera. How do you know that hacker knows what he's doing? Probably he doesn't understand all the code in the firmware from A to Z and you might get strange side effects, like loosing the ability to set the white balance. Or worse, if it's a malicious hacker, he might make something like I suggested just to annoy you.

On another forum someone asked if it was possible that a virus on the PC would be able to infect a camera connected to the PC. That is probably not a likely possibility, but if you're updating your firmware with hacks from an obscure origin, it could very well be possible that someone will write a camera firmware virus someday..... :shock:

[PeterS45]

It's not April Fools and not a virus. This piece of firmware has been available for quite some time, I've seen it for the first time just a few weeks after the 300D came out. There must me better and safer ways to compensate the flash of the 300D, like a piece of white plastic in front of the flash.

[theoldmoose]

Yeah, get a 550EX flash. Super bounce flash, and you can set FEC on the flash body. Plus, you can set the flash to TTL (rather than E-TTL) and it will not flash, but you can use the 550EX AF assist (red) lamp, instead of that lame 'strobe' flash from the built-in on the 300D.

Pricey flash, but it solves a bunch of problems for 300D users, and it will work well for you when you upgrade bodies later.

Aside for those that are afraid that a bad firmware download will kill your camera:

The firmware bootloader is in a protected region of the internal flash, and it always looks first for a downloadable flash image on your CF card, and if it finds one, it burns it into the internal flash and jumps to it.

So, if you end up with a bad download in your flash, you can always recover it, by just overwriting it with a good one.

Canon designed it this way on purpose, so they wouldn't get all the warantee repair requests when someone manages to mis-download one of their official updates.

[yb98]

Does someone know if the piece of code which allows to load the firmware is in the firmware itself or if it is an independant part ?
if it is not in the firmware itself, then it will be always possible to reinstall the canon firmware, else it could be dangereous. Am I right ?

[Tom W]

That hack is a *trade* in features rather than the addition of a feature. By enabling FEC, you lose the ability to switch White Balance modes. That means no more custom WB once you enable FEC. Screw that.

I'd love to have FEC on my DRebel, but not at the cost of custom WB. Now, if I could trade the small JPEG image size setting for FEC, that would be a good deal. :D

It just occurred to me - if the only way to get FEC on the Digital Rebel is to trade away another feature, then doesn't that provide evidence against the rumour that the Rebel is the same as the 10D but with the some features disabled (or as some on another website call it, "crippled")?

[Belmondo]

Every time I read or hear the word 'hack', I get really nervous, especially when it comes to my own equipment. I just cannot supress images of hatchets and/or axes. :roll:

As an intellectual exercise, it might be interesting to play around like this, but only if I felt I could afford to run the risk of really screwing up my camera, because if things go badly, I will very likely be paying Canon to put it back the way it was. I sure wouldn't expect them to do it under warranty with a nod and a wink. :wink:

To those for whom their Rebel is their only camera, the addition of this one feature just doesn't seem worth the potential downside.

BTW, I don't see anyone working on a hack for the 10D to make it the functional equivalent of a Drebel. Why is that? :?

[Tom W]

The only hack I know of for the 10D is a can of silver spray paint! (ducking) 8)

[OviV]

The "hack" only caused the WB setting function to go away because the programmer foolishly decided to use the WB button on the camera for the FEC. He probably felt that he did not use it so no one else did. He has a new version out that uses the SET button instead. I haven't tried it because I am expecting my wife to get me a new flash for our anniversary that will provide this functionality but if she doesn't, I am going to give it a try.

[Guillermo Freige]

people, you have old news. there is 2 news hacks after this one. The first one use the "set" button via CF1 (replacing "changes parameter" by "changes FEC" at value 2) instead of the WB one, and then another one that also fixes the "blinking eye" problem. Both work fine. I'm using the latest one now.
Just check dpreview.
(And this post makes me a Top Contributor :))

[dtrayers]

He really should have used the JUMP button (if it's possible). I don't think I've ever pressed it.

[Guillermo Freige]

dt:
Is more difficult to use a non working button than reassing a working one, because you can reassign only replacing a jump direction in the code, but to use a non working button means additional code. Actual hacks only replaces or creates some jumps without adding additional code or modifying firmware lenght.

[gsmx2]

Does someone know if the piece of code which allows to load the firmware is in the firmware itself or if it is an independant part ?
if it is not in the firmware itself, then it will be always possible to reinstall the canon firmware, else it could be dangereous. Am I right ?

It's in the firmware. Just load the file onto a blank CF card, put the card in your camera, and turn the camera on. The screen will show the option to install the firmware or not.

To be cautious, make sure your camera is on Auto White Balance before you change, and get the Canon copy of the firmware before you do this. It is easily UNDONE just by putting the Canon firmward on a CF card.

Scott

[Guillermo Freige]

Does someone know if the piece of code which allows to load the firmware is in the firmware itself or if it is an independant part ?
if it is not in the firmware itself, then it will be always possible to reinstall the canon firmware, else it could be dangereous. Am I right ?

It's in the firmware. Just load the file onto a blank CF card, put the card in your camera, and turn the camera on. The screen will show the option to install the firmware or not.

To be cautious, make sure your camera is on Auto White Balance before you change, and get the Canon copy of the firmware before you do this. It is easily UNDONE just by putting the Canon firmward on a CF card.

Scott
Apparently, the firmware loader is in a part of the camera memory not rewritable by the firmware itself, so in theory the camera will be able to do a firmware load even if the previous one fails or is corrupt, just putting the original Canon one in the CF card and turning on the camera again.

Also, forget about AWB. Just use the latest hack. It uses the set button instead of the WB one, and resolves the blinking eye problem, so you still be able to change WB after "upgrade"

[OviV]

Latest thread:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1031&message=8298167

[EXA1a]

Apparently, the firmware loader is in a part of the camera memory not rewritable by the firmware itself, so in theory the camera will be able to do a firmware load even if the previous one fails or is corrupt, just putting the original Canon one in the CF card and turning on the camera again.

Also, forget about AWB. Just use the latest hack. It uses the set button instead of the WB one, and resolves the blinking eye problem, so you still be able to change WB after "upgrade"

Thanks, Guillermo, for putting that straight!

BTW: interesting to see that the balck color of the Japanese 300D got 3 threads, 45 posts and 1350 hits. The FEC, which is a real improvement of the 300D's functionality without any tradeoff, got only this one thread with 24 (mostly unqualified) posts and 993 hits.

--Jens--

[gsmx2]

Bad news on the most recent update of this hack.

The first one---"WB Button" driven worked perfectly.

This latest one isn't working at all on my camera. The SET button doesn't activate the "FEC".

Tested the first hack this afternoon. It worked perfectly. I'll post some samples later, but the INFO button and visual examples showed that the FRC was in fact being adjusted.

gsm x2

[Guillermo Freige]

Bad news on the most recent update of this hack.

The first one---"WB Button" driven worked perfectly.

This latest one isn't working at all on my camera. The SET button doesn't activate the "FEC".

Tested the first hack this afternoon. It worked perfectly. I'll post some samples later, but the INFO button and visual examples showed that the FRC was in fact being adjusted.

gsm x2

Have you changed CF1 to "2: Change FEC", from the standard "0: Default (No function)" ?. I've used the last 3 hacks (the most recent one is 111M) and all worked ok.

[gsmx2]

Guillermo,

I'll try that change in functions as soon as I get done here.

Just posting sample shots taken tonight with changes in FEC. As you can see, they definitely show differences. And the EXIF information reflects the change also.

http://www.avenuecable.com/~scott423/-2.jpg

http://www.avenuecable.com/~scott423/-1.jpg

http://www.avenuecable.com/~scott423/0.jpg

http://www.avenuecable.com/~scott423/+1.jpg

http://www.avenuecable.com/~scott423/+2.jpg

gsm x2

[gsmx2]

Have you changed CF1 to "2: Change FEC", from the standard "0: Default (No function)" ?. I've used the last 3 hacks (the most recent one is 111M) and all worked ok.

Guillermo,

That worked PERFECTLY. Not sure where that was in the original instructions, but THANKS. Very happy camper now.

For those of you interested in getting this feature at no loss in function:

Here are two local links:
http://www.bahneman.com/liem/photos/tricks/e3kr111noredeye.rar
http://exocet.ca/files/e3kr111noredeye.zip

You may need this download to unzip the rar file.

http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm

After you have extracted the FIR file, copy it to a CF card that you have formatted in your camera. Insert it into the camera and turn the camera on. You are given the option to install the firmware update. Hit the SET button to do so. It takes about 4 minutes to update. Hit SET when it is done.

Now, hit MENU, right or left button to the 4th icon and the bottom item is Custom Function (C.Fn)

Choose Custom Function. Item 1 is SET button fnc. when shooting. By default it is set to (no function). To change it, hit the SET button and UP ARROW to 2:Change FEC. Hit SET and your firmware is updated. Close the menu.

In the shooting mode, hit SET, you can now use the wheel to increase or decrease the power of your flash +/- 2 in 1/3 increments. BE SURE TO RESET the flash back to "0" when you are done.

And for you piece of mind, get the official Canon firmware download by starting here:

http://www.canon.com/download/index.html

That way, if for some reason you want to revert, you can. Just copy that one to your CF card and put it in your camera.

BTW--the only HACK in this HACK was changing a few numbers. No executable code as added.

gsm x2

Scott

[gsmx2]

*bump* after adding a lot of material. I won't bump again, I promise.

gsm x2

[Guillermo Freige]

The "noredeye" hack isn´t the last one, but the only difference with the "M" version is the word "FEC" in CF1 is only in the english menu, so if you are using english menus there is no difference.

[ShootTechPan]

Anyone know of a hack for changing focus modes (selecting between one-shot to AI-Servo?) I know of the DOF-preview trick for faking one-shot, but it really isn't all that practical in some situations.

Since I know someone will ask, the DOF-preview trick is performed by focusing on your subject and then holding the DOF-preview button. Recompose (the camera won't switch into AI-Servo) and fire.

Anyways, a hack for changing focus modes would really be awesome.

[garethhhhh]

Anyone know of a hack for changing focus modes (selecting between one-shot to AI-Servo?)

Check out this thread:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=27924

(lots of 300D tips & tricks, AI servo mode is covered in there somewhere) :wink:

[theoldmoose]

Two questions:

1) Is the hack on the original code that was shipped with the camera, or on the updated firmware? I understand that at one time, the folks doing the hacking were only working on the original code, to avoid engtanglements with the download firmware more restrictive click-through license.

2) Does the FEC hack work with the built-in flash? I had purchased a 550EX specifically to work around the lack of FEC controls on the camera, but it would still be a win if this worked with the built-in flash for those times when I can't or don't want to use the big bounce flash.

[Guillermo Freige]

Moose

The hacked firmware is version 1.1.1, the same you can download from Canon. Some older cameras (mine for example) had the 1.0.2 firmware installed when shipped. Actual cameras have already the 1.1.1 installed.

The FEC hack works with the built-in flash, of course.