Firmware Friday: New features for Leica M10, Canon Connect Station CS100; bug-fixes for Canon 1DX II

 

 

It's Firmware Friday time once again, folks: Your weekly roundup of all the latest camera and imaging gear updates is here, and this week brings news for owners of three products from Canon and Leica. Specifically, it's the Canon 1DX II and Connect Station CS100 being showered with love this week, along with the Leica M10.

We'll start off with Canon's news...

Canon EOS 1D X Mark II and Connect Station CS100

Firmware version 1.1.3 for the Canon 1DX Mark II is a bug-fix release, aimed at squashing a few problems in the previous v1.1.2 release which shipped last September. Three changes have been made in this new release, according to the official change log:

1. Corrects a phenomenon in which the drive mode icon is not correctly displayed when using custom shooting modes (C1/C2/C3).

2. Changes the maximum number of "Release cycles" displayed from 1,000,000 cycles to 9,999,000 cycles. This value can be checked under the "Camera system information" menu.

3. Improves the reliability of communication via USB cable when using the Lens Data Registration function within EOS Utility 3 software.

To download the update, you'll want to visit this page on Canon USA's website and then click over to the firmware tab.

Moving onto the Canon Connect Station CS100, the new firmware version 2.5 release adds some handy new features and improvements to the sleek little imaging storage device. Perhaps most significantly, you can now transfer movies to the CS100 using the Connect Station app on your smartphone or tablet. Network speeds are also said to have been tripled, and you can also now completely disable auto-standby and set an album's slideshow to loop infinitely. The update isn't yet available to download on Canon's websites, but we believe you can update the firmware from the device itself. (If not, just keep an eye out for the update to appear here on the firmware tab.)

Leica M10

Moving on to the Leica M10 rangefinder, you may remember that we recently predicted that new firmware was on the way. Well, some new firmware has indeed landed, but the version number is even newer than that which has been shipping on Leica M10 bodies as of late. Instead of the version 1.0.2.0 firmware we'd been expecting, Leica has instead released version 1.3.4.0, and it brings with it a fair few feature tweaks and improvements. Per the official release notes, changes are as follows:

• The color-coding of the SD-Card and battery status bars has been changed.
  The color of the status bar now changes from green to yellow to red as the battery is depleted or the SD card is filled.

• Two favorites pages allowed
  It is now possible to choose up to 15 menu items for the favorites menu. If more than 7 are chosen, a second favorites page will be automatically added.

• Quick access to the main menu and page-by-page scrolling using the menu button
  Pushing the menu button while in the last page of favorites will open the first page of the main menu. It is possible to scroll through the main menu page-by-page using the menu button.

• Auto Review Screen Target selectable
  In the menu item EVF/display control it is now possible to choose from “Auto”, “EVF” or “Display” to determine which screen the Auto Review function uses by default.

• “M-ISO" can be accessed directly from the favorites menu
  In “Edit Favorites” it is possible to enable a shortcut to “M-ISO” for the favorites menu

• Shorter blackout time after capturing in Live view
  The time when the Live View stream is interrupted after a picture is taken is significantly shorter now. This is most noticeable when Auto Review is turned off.

• Additional bug fixes and minor improvements also included.

And that's it for this week's roundup. Be sure to check back next time for the latest firmware news!

(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.)