Attached Link: http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Supercharge_Your_Camera_with_Open-Source_CHDK_Firmware#Play_Around

Yea… if you want a P&S that shoots Raw out of the box, you are looking at around $500.00 for a “high end” consumer Point& Shoot. For that price you can get a fully featured entry level DSLR plus kit lens or one of those large sensor EVIL cameras (like the Olympus E-PL1).

 However there is a much cheaper alternative.

You can find the little Canon PowerShot cameras very cheap at places like Staples, Best Buy, etc.
They are pretty good cameras to start with, but with an open source firmware hack (CHDK, aka... Canon Hacker's Development Kit), they get a lot of added functions, like shooting in Raw, long time exposures, live histograms, etc.

 Check out the link for more info, and a list of Canon cameras that you can do this with.

 

Chuck