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New Firmware - Amazing

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Greg M said:
It really is! My D30 with a 28-135IS and a 550EX can now get a
focus lock in an almost completely dark room at night with no
lights on. It definately could not do this before I did this
update. The picture is off center because I could not even see
what I was shooting. There is no post processing and the flash was
facing straight up with the wide panel extended.

I have only shot a couple of shots but, to be honest, I am very
excited about the improvement and I wanted to share it.
Click to expand...
Hi!
You are all totally crazy and "oversampled".
I've tried the firmware and my D30 is still the same.
Slow AF and huntig at low light!
No better performance anyway!!!!
Regards
Hartmut
 
This is the test setup that I used to evaluate focus speed with the new firmware. The location is a fairly dark basement. Only the central focusing point was activated. I did NOT use the focus assist light.
Lens used is a Canon 28mm f2.8 (a rather slow non USM lens).
Speed of “lock” from close focusing limit of lens was:
3 seconds (with 3 late small “jumps”) before upgrade
2 seconds (with no extra “jumps”) after upgrade



Test was repeated three times with each firmware version with identical results.

Very Interesting!

--Dave Werner
 
Well, it's a new firmware version, and supposedly only fixes the "remote control" aspect of the D30... Nevertheless, why not install it, just to have the latest, most up-to-date version?

I followed the instructions in the PDF document, and it worked perfectly, as described. The camera brought up the "Upgrade firmware?" dialog on the rear LCD (which was kind of neat) and it did it's magic. Once done, I formatted the card to clear it off one final time and tried out the camera...

What did I find? Well, maybe it's just me, but I think the AF actually IS faster! Now, I only have the Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 lens to test with, but it IS a somewhat "dark" lens with that f-stop range. The camera focused in and locked fairly quickly, and seemed faster to me.

I didn't take before/after measurements so I could just be talkin' out my ass here, but hey, it seems to work better, and certainly didn't make anything worse - so I'm happy. :)
 
boarderphreak wrote:

"so I could just be talkin' out my ass here..." Now that would be a trick! I bet that your breath would be terrible.
That's where George Bush Sr. was lying out of when he said "read my lips."
--Ron Warren
 
boarderphreak said:
I could just be talkin' out my ass here
Click to expand...
I tried to use the word "A-R-S-E" in a post a few days ago, and I got a warning for being a potty mouth. But "ASS" is acceptable. Ha!

After my 28-135IS gets back from Canon, I'll run some pre-firmware/post-firmware upgrade tests of my own. I'm still leary of downloading firmware that, so far, has not been officially embraced by Canon.

JCDoss
 
JCDoss said:
I tried to use the word "A-R-S-E" in a post a few days ago, and I
got a warning for being a potty mouth. But "ASS" is acceptable.
Ha!
Click to expand...
I got one of those for 'c-r-a-p'. Good grief, that already IS the nice word for (sh) it.
Member said:
After my 28-135IS gets back from Canon, I'll run some
pre-firmware/post-firmware upgrade tests of my own. I'm still
leary of downloading firmware that, so far, has not been officially
embraced by Canon.
Click to expand...
I got my camera back from Canon factory service last week, from it's one year warranty last chance check-up/calibration. They installed the 1.0.2.2 version. That seems pretty official to me.

Didn't do a thing for AF performance, but then I've only f2.8 lenses. John
 
John Foote said:
I got my camera back from Canon factory service last week, from
it's one year warranty last chance check-up/calibration. They
installed the 1.0.2.2 version. That seems pretty official to me.
Click to expand...
Me too... Maybe I'll go ahead with it. But now I've gotta wait till my 28-135IS gets back so I can make darn sure that AF didn't change! :-)

JCDoss
 
JCDoss said:
Me too... Maybe I'll go ahead with it. But now I've gotta wait
till my 28-135IS gets back so I can make darn sure that AF didn't
change! :-)
Click to expand...
JC, It does change! I realized something was different, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Then I read Phoenix's post in the other firmware thread, and he nailed it. The AF in the new firmware looks once, gives it its best shot, and stops. It quits hunting. I don't really see this as an improvement, but it is different. That's what you're getting, so forewarned is forearmed. John
 
I lauged hard the other day when I read about a few folks that experienced improvement in focus lock with low light and use of the slower lenses, such as the 28-135IS (which I also have). I've used this lens fairly extensively over the last 7 months and found much like what everyone else has. That in low light it just hunts around and in broad daylight with decent sun is just fine. Well, I took the bait and while I was convinced it would make no differences in the performance, downloaded and installed the update. Well, am I eating crow today. It was a overcast day, and I was inside my rather dark living room with NO lights on. My cocateil in the corner in his cage, a dimly lit living room and downright dark kitchen. I took my D30 with it's 28-135IS mounted and proceeded to shoot around the rooms and "low and behold" it locked immediately on everything I aimed at that my eye could barely see. NO WAITING. I have the focus assist totally disabled and NO flash whatsoever on it. The lens was entirerly on it's own. I am flabbergasted at this action. I have attempted to do this in the past and found that indeed without a flash on, or at least some focus assist the lens would hunt to no avail without locking on to focus. While this also may not seem scientific, it is equal enough to similar situations I have already attempted and given up on this lens. It will be interesting to see in coming weeks if this continues. If so then indeed Canon is doing some "stealth" work on the firmware. I read somewhere that by design the focus chip was "neutered" in the final release of the camera. Perhaps they are finally letting go and resetting the chips firmware somehow to put it more in line with other SLR's in the line. We shall see.......
 
Okay, to add to the various "conspiracy theories" out there, I offer this viewpoint, which I think makes some sense.

Manufacturers release firmware/software updates to fix bugs and/or add features and Canon shouldn't be any different. This much we know.

The firmware version we're all talking about here is 1.0.2.2. Now, following convention, with the previous version being 1.0.2.0, what happened to version 1.0.2.1? It wasn't released!

Therefore, technically, 1.0.2.2 hasn't been "released" yet either - at least officially by Canon to the masses. I surmise that this release is a quick fix for people that need aforementioned "remote control" fix. But because it is still being worked on, there may be more changes within and in store for the final release, if this isn't it.

Any number of things could be changing behind the scenes with this firmware, and we might never know exactly what as there's no "change log" that comes with the firmware (unfortunately!).

I suspect that we might see a 1.0.3 public, official release from Canon - that might just have all these "stealth changes" finalized. Hell, it could even be a 1.1.0 or 2.0.0 release for all we know where suddenly the CMOS sensor becomes 6MP and the camera will even autofocus in pitch darkness, instantly. :-D

Of course, this is all theory. Heh.
 
Being more analytical than most(wife hates that!), I did a test.
I locked the camera in my Manfrotto tripod and took five shots in
my dimly lit rec room(ISO100, f4/5" on a Sigma 17-35 f2.8 lens)
Each time I moved the lens back to Infinity before the next shot.
The average for the 5 shots was 1.78 seconds to focus lock.
Without moving the camera, I loaded the firmware I had on another
card. The average for those 5 shots was 1.58 seconds. HMMM?
Maybe a few others should do a similar test and see if there is
a real difference rather then a perceived one.

Regards,
Chris
http://www.fototime.com/inv/CF8A7A18A13A00E
http://pbase.com/c_kuiphoff
 
Chris K. said:
The average for the 5 shots was 1.78 seconds to focus lock.
Without moving the camera, I loaded the firmware I had on another
card. The average for those 5 shots was 1.58 seconds. HMMM?
Maybe a few others should do a similar test and see if there is
a real difference rather then a perceived one.

Regards,
Chris
Click to expand...
The real advantage is that I could not get a focus lock many times before and now I can. This means that the times that I could not even take a shot, using AF, I now can. That's the news. Your test showed a little better then a 10% increase in speed.
 
n/t
 
One question I've not seen asked or answered yet is, for those times when focus lock could not be obtained and now can be obtained, is the resulting image in focus?
Greg M said:
Chris K. said:
The average for the 5 shots was 1.78 seconds to focus lock.
Without moving the camera, I loaded the firmware I had on another
card. The average for those 5 shots was 1.58 seconds. HMMM?
Maybe a few others should do a similar test and see if there is
a real difference rather then a perceived one.

Regards,
Chris
Click to expand...
The real advantage is that I could not get a focus lock many times
before and now I can. This means that the times that I could not
even take a shot, using AF, I now can. That's the news. Your test
showed a little better then a 10% increase in speed.
Click to expand...
 
Walt

I agree with you.

The AF WB is better also

LCD panel is more responsive..

LM--Life's short...go for it
 
Chris,

Thanks for the response. Just wanted some confirmation that the update had installed.
Wasn't quite sure on how to do what Jay had posted.

Jim C.
Chris Breeze said:
Chris
Jay Bean said:
gary shepard said:
Cheers-

Gary Shepard
Foreside PhotoGraphics
Maine, USA
Jim C. said:
I'm still showing v1.0.2 in BreezeBrowser & Exif after what
appeared to be a super smooth installation & update to v1.0.2.2
Has anyone else noticed this problem?
Click to expand...
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