Firmware Friday: Nikon pledges new firmware features for D750, D810, D4S

 

 

It's that time again, folks: Friday is here, and with it, our weekly firmware roundup. Things are a little different to the norm this week, though, as the only camera firmware we have to report on hasn't yet been released -- instead, it's slated for arrival this summer, with a sneak preview at the National Association of Broadcasters show in Las Vegas, Nevada starting tomorrow.

Nikon's new firmware will be provided for three digital SLRs: the Nikon D4S, D750 and D810. One change is promised, acknowledging the increasing use of DSLRs to shoot video for professional video, whether TV or otherwise. All three cameras will gain the ability to control an attached HDMI recorder, starting and stopping its recording at the same time as the record button is pressed on the camera body.

No specific date is given for the firmware, but it seems likely that it will arrive for certain models before others, as Nikon says that it will "release the new firmware in succession this summer".

And that wraps up our camera firmware news for the week, although we do have one other tangentially-related piece of news which was already mentioned in our coverage of Canon's new DP-V2410 4K Reference Display earlier in the week, just in case you missed it at the time and happen to own the company's earlier DP-V3010 display.

A firmware update will be available later this year for the DP-V3010 which allows support for the next-gen ITU-R BT.2020 broadcast standard color gamut, also known as Rec. 2020., as well as the Cinema Gamut and DCI-P3+ color gamuts as used in the EOS C500 Digital Cinema Camera. Also newly added are YCbCr 4:4:4 luminance and chroma sampling, the the ACESproxy transfer standard, a focus peaking function, RGB bias and gain functions, the ability to delete imported look-up tables, auto-switching between 3D-SDI and HD-SDI, a function guide, ability to disable banner display, on-screen display position adjustment, and control of interlaced / progressive segmented frame display. The update is promised to arrive this October, and will also be demonstrated at the NAB Show.

(Camera parts image courtesy of Kelly Hofer / Flickr; used under a Creative Commons CC-BY-2.0 license. Image has been modified from the original.)