add_filter and changing output captions of image gallery

I’d like to change only one output of native WP Gallery (in media.php)

On Smashing Magazine (link) author advises to change whole gallery_shortcode function.
But I wondered if is possible to change only specific output ($captiontag)

I wrote:

add_filter( 'captiontag', 'my_captiontag' );

function my_captiontag( $captiontag ) {
 $output .= "
  <{$captiontag} class="wp-caption-text gallery-caption"><p>
  " . wptexturize($attachment->post_excerpt) . "
  </p></{$captiontag}>";
}

but it doesn’t work 🙁

There are no filter hook called captiontag. You can change the value of the caption html tag by specifying the captiontag option when inserting the shortcode.

From the gallery shortcode codex page:

captiontag

the name of the XHTML tag used to enclose each caption. The default is
“dd”. For example, to change the gallery markup to use div, span and p
tags:

Update:

The following code will overwrite the default output. It is basically a copy of the gallery_shotcode() function with one modification to display the image title wrapped in <h3> tag before the image:

add_filter('post_gallery', 'my_gallery_shortcode', 10, 2);

function my_gallery_shortcode($output, $attr) {
    global $post;

    static $instance = 0;
    $instance++;

    // We're trusting author input, so let's at least make sure it looks like a valid orderby statement
    if ( isset( $attr['orderby'] ) ) {
        $attr['orderby'] = sanitize_sql_orderby( $attr['orderby'] );
        if ( !$attr['orderby'] )
            unset( $attr['orderby'] );
    }

    extract(shortcode_atts(array(
        'order'      => 'ASC',
        'orderby'    => 'menu_order ID',
        'id'         => $post->ID,
        'itemtag'    => 'dl',
        'icontag'    => 'dt',
        'captiontag' => 'dd',
        'columns'    => 3,
        'size'       => 'thumbnail',
        'include'    => '',
        'exclude'    => ''
    ), $attr));

    $id = intval($id);
    if ( 'RAND' == $order )
        $orderby = 'none';

    if ( !empty($include) ) {
        $include = preg_replace( '/[^0-9,]+/', '', $include );
        $_attachments = get_posts( array('include' => $include, 'post_status' => 'inherit', 'post_type' => 'attachment', 'post_mime_type' => 'image', 'order' => $order, 'orderby' => $orderby) );

        $attachments = array();
        foreach ( $_attachments as $key => $val ) {
            $attachments[$val->ID] = $_attachments[$key];
        }
    } elseif ( !empty($exclude) ) {
        $exclude = preg_replace( '/[^0-9,]+/', '', $exclude );
        $attachments = get_children( array('post_parent' => $id, 'exclude' => $exclude, 'post_status' => 'inherit', 'post_type' => 'attachment', 'post_mime_type' => 'image', 'order' => $order, 'orderby' => $orderby) );
    } else {
        $attachments = get_children( array('post_parent' => $id, 'post_status' => 'inherit', 'post_type' => 'attachment', 'post_mime_type' => 'image', 'order' => $order, 'orderby' => $orderby) );
    }

    if ( empty($attachments) )
        return '';

    if ( is_feed() ) {
        $output = "\n";
        foreach ( $attachments as $att_id => $attachment )
            $output .= wp_get_attachment_link($att_id, $size, true) . "\n";
        return $output;
    }

    $itemtag = tag_escape($itemtag);
    $captiontag = tag_escape($captiontag);
    $columns = intval($columns);
    $itemwidth = $columns > 0 ? floor(100/$columns) : 100;
    $float = is_rtl() ? 'right' : 'left';

    $selector = "gallery-{$instance}";

    $gallery_style = $gallery_div = '';
    if ( apply_filters( 'use_default_gallery_style', true ) )
        $gallery_style = "
        <style type="text/css">
            #{$selector} {
                margin: auto;
            }
            #{$selector} .gallery-item {
                float: {$float};
                margin-top: 10px;
                text-align: center;
                width: {$itemwidth}%;
            }
            #{$selector} img {
                border: 2px solid #cfcfcf;
            }
            #{$selector} .gallery-caption {
                margin-left: 0;
            }
        </style>
        <!-- see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php -->";
    $size_class = sanitize_html_class( $size );
    $gallery_div = "<div id='$selector' class="gallery galleryid-{$id} gallery-columns-{$columns} gallery-size-{$size_class}">";
    $output = apply_filters( 'gallery_style', $gallery_style . "\n\t\t" . $gallery_div );

    $i = 0;
    foreach ( $attachments as $id => $attachment ) {
        $link = isset($attr['link']) && 'file' == $attr['link'] ? wp_get_attachment_link($id, $size, false, false) : wp_get_attachment_link($id, $size, true, false);

        $output .= "<{$itemtag} class="gallery-item">";
        // Here we add the image title
        $output .= "
            <{$icontag} class="gallery-icon">
                <h3>$attachment->post_title</h3>
                $link
            </{$icontag}>";
        if ( $captiontag && trim($attachment->post_excerpt) ) {
            $output .= "
                <{$captiontag} class="wp-caption-text gallery-caption">
                " . wptexturize($attachment->post_excerpt) . "
                </{$captiontag}>";
        }
        $output .= "</{$itemtag}>";
        if ( $columns > 0 && ++$i % $columns == 0 )
            $output .= '<br style="clear: both" />';
    }

    $output .= "
            <br style="clear: both;" />
        </div>\n";

    return $output;
}