Inside the SD110 - 2nd step: the mainboard

(Jump to previous post in series.)

Just like in your computer, the SD110 has a mainboard where most of the logic chips and main CPU are placed. It's quite easy to get to; just pop the outside case off and there it is, under a layer of copper shielding, shown folded back to the left side of the picture. At this stage you can see several interesting features of the camera. First, many of the components are made by other companies, such as the two ICs in view, one from NEC and one from SAMSUNG.
Second, note how many ribbon cables there are on this card. While this may be the mainboard, there are a huge number of axillary boards, which you will see in later pictures. These boards are all attached with ribbon cables, which turn out to be relatively easy to remove and re-insert. Finally, note the ribbon cable on the lower-right, with the many silver dots. While it's not terribly clear, I suspect this is actually a testing port. The idea is that you could slip the whole thing into a connector and interface directly with the camera while it is apart. While this might be for repairmen to diagnose a problem with a camera that has been sent back for repair, another possible use is to test camera components while the whole thing is being assembled.

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Download photos from your Canon Powershot under Win2k3

Out of the box, the Canon Powershot software is not not compatible with Windows 2003 Server. But with some tweaking, you can make it work.

First, you need to install SSDP and UPnP services for Win2k3.

Next, make sure that the old Canon software is uninstalled.

Then, set the startup.exe install program on your Canon driver CD to load in WindowsXP compatibility mode. Run setup, and install ZoomBrowser ex, and photo stitch. I've found that version 5.8 does not run well under Win2k3, but that 6.x works fine, so at this point you may need to download and install an updater from Canon's website.

After rebooting, plug your camera in. The Canon software may load automatically. I found that I had to first open the Windows Control Panel for Cameras and Scanners and set Camera Window as the default action when my camera was plugged in.

After doing this the Canon software would load when I connected the camera, but clicking on the download images button did not work. A final step that I had to complete was to open the E:\Program Files\Canon\CameraWindow\CameraWindowDVC6 folder, and set all the EXE files to WindowsXP compatibility mode. I'm not sure this is necessary, since I discovered that some of the files had been set into Win2k compatibility mode from when I had been trying other methods to get the CameraWindow software to work. Win2k mode definitely doesn't work.

After those steps the Canon software works flawlessly. I can download pictures just fine, and all the Canon photo tools work just fine. In the MS event viewer tool, I do see the following, rather ugly message a lot, but I've never seen any actual malfunction:

Generate Activation Context failed for c:\Program Files\Canon\ZoomBrowser EX\Program\MFC80U.DLL. Reference error message: The referenced assembly is not installed on your system.

Canon SD850IS and Win2k3 do not work together

I have recently started using Windows 2003 Server, to avoid having to upgrade to Vista. After installing the drivers and applications for my Canon camera, I get the following error on each bootup:

The Canon Camera Access Library 8 service depends on the following nonexistent service: SSDPSRV

Using regedit I searched for SSDPSRV, and removed this dependency (see thread that suggested this) so that the Camera Access Library would load, but apparently it really does depend on SSDPSRV, or there is another incompatibility with Win2k3. Turning on the camera does load the Windows Image acquisition manager (after I enabled that service), but does not load the Canon tool for downloading images.

UPDATE: there is a workaround.

IrfanView 4.1 released

IrfanView is my favorite image viewer. Here's some of the highlights of this version:

* Lossless JPG Crop added (Menu: Options or Thumbnails (batch mode))
* Support for FLV format (flash video/image).

Get it here: http://www.irfanview.com/

Don't forget to download the plugins as well.

Inside the SD110 - first steps

(2nd post in this series: jump to previous post)

After my SD110 died I decided to take it apart. Here's the first two views. Canon was nice enough to use regular screws (Philips) so it wasn't too hard to get inside. Getting the metal shell off did involve some prying, even after the screws were gone, but nothing heroic.

Once inside I was quite impressed by how tightly everything is packed in. There's no wasted space, not that you would really expect otherwise from an ultra compact camera.

What was unexpected was just how dusty it was on the inside. Even so, all the mechanical parts continued to work.

Canon uses lots of ribbon cables to attach all the PC boards together. I think that's part of how they manage to have such a high density layout. After seeing how many ribbons were plugged in, I had some hope that maybe there was just a dirty connector, and that if I were to plug and unplug everything the CCD might work again, but this hope was unfounded. I managed to reset almost all the connectors, without making any improvement in the CCD image.


(See next post in this series.)

SD850 - customizable button

The SD850IS does have one nice customization option. There's a button for making your photos print when the camera is connected to a printer, but it is (or was) useless while taking photos.

Canon now lets you assign a function of your choice to the button. The function I was most excited about was turning on or off the LCD, but it turns out to work very poorly for that. You see, whenever you do something that would change one of the status lights on the LCD, the camera helpfully turns the LCD on again. One of the status lights on the LCD tells you which way the camera is oriented. So, if you turn of the LCD with this button, all you need to do is rotate the camera a little, and back on it comes. Also, the button doesn't work in all situations - such as during the 2-N second review of each snapshot you take.

There are other options you can assign the button - such as, start taking a movie, turn on a grid for composing your shot, open up a menu to let you set the EV, or change the white balance. None of which turn out to be that helpful, however.

In a related note, however, turning off the LCD is rather quick on this camera. There is a "DISP" button, which cycles between showing the current settings on top of the current image / just a bare image / LCD off. Which is to say like every other camera's "DISP" button. Except that a quick double click of the button will turn off the LCD (you don't have to wait at all between clicks), which makes it almost as good as having a dedicated button to turn off the LCD.

customization - when and how?

I wish consumer electronics were designed to let you customize how they worked a little bit better. A great example is the "High ISO" option that most cameras have these days. It's nice to have a mode where the camera automatically boosts the ISO so that your photos are not too blurry. But that boost comes at cost, which is grainy and desaturated photos. I wish that my camera had the option where I could set what the maximum ISO boost would be. For instance, ISO 800 looks like crap on my SD850IS, while ISO 400 isn't too bad. But the high ISO mode is happy to go all the way to 800, even when I personally think 400 would do. Let me decide how much noise I'm willing to have in my pictures! Yes, I could set the ISO manually, but it's a pain to do this for each and every shot.