Changes in photo technology.

[Sagitar]

I've told the story before of how deterioration of my health and strength caused me to give up using my excellent but very heavy Canon gear and start to shoot with the much smaller and lighter Fujifilm X series cameras.

 

For some considerable time cameras have been moving away from mechanical connections and using firmware and software to operate their functions.

 

This morning I downloaded an update of the firmware for my Fujifilm X-T1 camera body. More than any firmware change that I have implemented in the past it made me realise how far things have changed.

 

This camera looks exactly like a mechanical device of old. It has substantial dials to set shutter speed, aperture, etc. It has nice big rings on the lens to adjust focus and to zoom the lens and it feels just like a high end mechanical camera. I can drive it for days on end without ever going into the menu screen to make adjustments and I love it for the simplicity of the way that it operates.

 

But nothing is as it seems. Every rotation of a dial or a lens ring does no more than issue an instruction to the computer at the heart of the device, which in turn makes the required adjustment to the shutter, the aperture, the lens etc.

 

It means that firmware upgrades can not only improve the functionality of the device as it stands (e.g. to make it focus more rapidly) but can actually introduce major new functions which were not there at all previously.

 

The changes introduced in this morning's upgrade take six A4 pages to describe, so there is a lot of them. The most striking point however is that some of them are really major to the point where I am faced with what is almost a different camera.

 

The best example is the introduction of a new shutter mechanism. The camera came with a typical focal plane shutter speeded to 1/4000 of a second. After the upgrade, the camera also has an electronic shutter speeded to 1/32000 of a second and I can choose easily between them.

 

Changes of the magnitude that occurred this morning would in the past have meant buying a new camera. Times are definitely a-changing.

[Rich]

To have changed the camera that much it's like a different one is amazing and shows just how good technology is. Is this camera the mirrorless one, I don't think such dramatic changes could be done on mirrored ones?

[Tony]

I'm as thick as it gets with camera's which is clearly evident from my pictures so auto everything is my saving grace..... Sagitar i'm sorry to read about your failing health but regardless it's good to read your not giving up on your hobby and please don't because the images you display are superb.

[Sagitar]

To have changed the camera that much it's like a different one is amazing and shows just how good technology is. Is this camera the mirrorless one, I don't think such dramatic changes could be done on mirrored ones?

 

I think you are right in respect of the electronic shutter Rich, because whatever else you do, you have to get the mirror out of the way to get light to the sensor. Lots of the other changes would still be possible however. One change that I particularly like is that auto and manual focusing are now combined so that having taken the first half pressure on the release the camera focuses automatically but the manual focus remains operable and engages focus peaking or an alternative focusing aid of choice as soon as it is touched.

[Rich]

It seems Nikon don't feel the same way with improving their cameras, not with my model anyway. I've just looked and no firmware updates have been released!

[Sagitar]

I'm as thick as it gets with camera's which is clearly evident from my pictures so auto everything is my saving grace..... Sagitar i'm sorry to read about your failing health but regardless it's good to read your not giving up on your hobby and please don't because the images you display are superb.

 

Thanks Tony - I'm just getting very old and much weaker than I used to be. I have had tachycardia for some years. It used to be the paroxysmal type that would bother me maybe a couple of times a year and end up in A and E for a heart restart. Now, it has become chronic, wanders up and down all the time, but is a bit easier to control with pills. There's nothing much wrong with my heart muscle but the electrical signal that drives it is inconsistent. It's a pretty common problem in older people. We all wear out eventually.

[Sagitar]

It seems Nikon don't feel the same way with improving their cameras, not with my model anyway. I've just looked and no firmware updates have been released!

 

I can remember doing firmware/software updates on some of my Canon gear but it was high-end kit and I think it was generally about correcting some kind of fault that showed itself after the camera was released.

 

Fuji seem to have adopted a different line, maybe because the introduction of the X series was a bit "experimental" and they have been learning as they have gone along. They do seem to be putting a lot of effort into responding to the comments of their customers and getting the best out of their existing cameras.

 

The X-T1 has gone back to the sort of physical size that I was used to in the days of the Olympus OM-1, but it's not full frame and it is still pretty expensive.

 

The marketing people will probably have a big say also. They may judge that most people will not want to fiddle with firmware downloads etc and that it is more profitable just to sell a new camera when they want to introduce an upgrade?