Digital camera hacks

[XabbaRus]

I have been thinking about my 3 year old, but still going well Fuji S5600 camera.

AS a digital camera it is halfway between a a DSLR and a normal compact. Good lens, decent zoom but in manual mode no slower shutter speed than 15 seconds.

IT doesn't havea bulb mode. Now I have just been thinking that normal digital cameras the shuter speed is just a function of programming as to how long the CCD is active and registering light unlike a DSLR or normal SLR where shutter speed is a function of how wide the thing that slides across the CCD/film is. Now I was wondering if anyone knows of any forum anywhere on which some clever bods have hacked digital cameras so they can do thing the makers never wanted us to do...

[Jimbuna]

I don't know if you've come across any of these yet.

http://www.camerahacker.com/directory/Hacks.shtml

http://hackaday.com/category/digital-cameras-hacks/

http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/digital-camera-hack

http://lifehacker.com/152949/diy-camera-hacks

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hacking-Digital-Cameras-ExtremeTech-Chieh/dp/0764596519

[TLAM Strike]

Lower shutter speed? Planning on taking some pictures though a telescope Xabba? :hmmm:

Sorry but I don't know anything about digital cameras... :cry:

[SteamWake]

woah wait ... "no slower than 15 seconds" what the hell are you doimg?

[XabbaRus]

I have this theory that the spirits move really slowly so if I have it on a really long exposure I will capture them as they move across the lense.

Nah really, I'm photographing the night sky.

I use my dad's Nikon D90 for through the scope work, but for wide field stuff I want to use my camera.

[SteamWake]

A good slr camera with very high speed film and a wide open aperature is the weapon of choice here.

Most pepole using cams for astronomical purposes are using CCD cameras. There getting cheaper and cheaper. Orion has one that simply slips into the eyepiece and hooks up to a computer to display.

The other trick they do is to take multiple images, sometimes hundreds of images and 'stack' them using computer software which removes errors and ehnances 'good' data compiling all the images into a single image.

Here is the defacto authority on the subject !

http://www.astropix.com/HTML/I_ASTROP/SOFTWARE.HTM