I picked up a new camera to play with on my trip, a Canon Powershot S3 (they are last years model and are substantially discounted). I was plenty happy with the features it already had; its a big step up for quality/control then my Powershot SD300 (which i still love). However… someone took the time to hack the camera and enable extra features! The one I find most interesting is ‘zebra mode’, which highlights over/underexposed regions of the image in the live preview.
This is pretty neat, and it definitely begs the question (again) of why do manufacturers take steps to lock down their hardware? I wonder if RMS has a digital camera, or if anyone is working on an open source Digicam? (Note: I’m not volunteering)