No firmware update to 550 says Pentax!!

There is no question that Pentax should have responded to user complaints and issued a much-needed firmware upgrade. It is also a fact - as Gordon has already shown - that certain features actually exist on the 550, and if found, can be used - but they are not shown in it's specifications. They did not cripple these features, but rather told nobody that they were available in the 550. What they are actually doing however, is advertising these same things as NEW features in their upcomming 555.

There is a certain unethical side to this that frankly rubs me the wrong way. It definitely does not lend to any kind of trust in the ownership of their products, and I believe that eventually, Pentax will pay dearly by mistreating their owner base.

Minolta on the other hand, went out of it's way to correct user problems quickly with the D7, by releasing 2 or 3 firmware upgrades in it's first year. And when they finally released it's replacement D7i, they actually offered D7 owners a $50. firmware upgrade that gave their camera many of the new features of the new D7i. A pretty good deal, which upgraded the camera from it's D7 level to almost the level of the new D7i. Owners had the option of paying for that upgrade (and it really was an upgrade rather than a fix), or using the D7 as it was without those added features.

The 555 would have be a radically improved camera before I would consider buying one. For now, I'll make do with my 550. In any case, there is no urgency for me to upgrade to the 555, as the 550 is my carry-around shirt-pocket camera. Besides, I've just sold my Minolta D7 and ordered their new A1. To some considerable measure, my buying their new A1 camera has been influenced by the way Minolta paid attention to those of us that purchased the D7, and quickly addressed the fixing of many of it's problems. We did not feel abandoned by them, even when it's replacement came out. That's what I would call good Public Relations.
Barry

leloup said:

I totally support your point of view and answer.
Those who bought the 550 being aware of this noise issue made a
choice considering qualities and defaults of this camera. They
can't blame Pentax for this choice. We know in this area new stuff
is comming out every month, so we must accept the idea our
"yesterday-best-choice" may not last long. So far so good.
But this is how Pentax is trying to tell the story: "we, at pentax,
are so smart we are able to launch the next generation camera
within few months. We are very sorry for our customers who feel
"outdated" so quickly with the last generation, but can we stop
progress?".
But that's not the truth. This is about to fix a flaw. If it wasn't
fixed, again, former users couldn't complain. But if it is fixed
within a firmware (and again it's not about improvement but fixing
a flaw), one would expect to get the firmware fix for former
camera. Thinking more bucks can come with many 550 owners buying
555 just to fix this flaw is nonsense. The major consequence would
be a distrust in the company and losing future customers.
The comparison with Microsoft isn't valid. First, Microsoft
provides free updates for their bugs, Pentax doesn't so far for the
550. Okay! Microsoft's bugs are just unacceptable when it's about
securirty issues, but at least they monopolize the market giving
them a position where they can play this game with users.
Pentax can't. They are far from being a top leader about numeric
cameras. And would enough users spread around their complaint
(being a long time customer, a one time or just a first potential
customer that shifted to competitors at the last minute), I am not
sure Pentax's business wouldn't suffer quickly from such strategy.

Click to expand...

Barry Kernerman said:

The combination of LOW sharpening, LOW contrast and LOW ISO are the
only way to overcome much of the image noise. It is already a
given fact that anything over ISO 64 will produce increasingly more
noise, and especially at ISO 400, where there will be no option but
to use a NeatImage solution, which may or may not be satisfactory,

• or simply never shoot photos at higher than the lowest ISO 64, a

solution that I use.
Barry

Click to expand...

I am the present owner of an Olympus C700 which has similair problems and requires the same workarounds to produce a good picture. I bought this camera for other features (10x zoom) that it had, knowing that there were other shortcomings, as there hasn't been a camera produced yet where they get everything right.

It was soon superceded by the C720, C730, C740, & C750. This did not worry me as the camera still did what it did the day I bought it, and I still like it to this day. I am considering a O555 for the size and features. If I could get a camera the size of the 555 in 10x zoom then that would be the one for me.

Brian

Barry Kernerman said:

Barry Kernerman said:

Minolta on the other hand, went out of it's way to correct user

Click to expand...

problems quickly with the D7, by releasing 2 or 3 firmware upgrades
in it's first year. And when they finally released it's
replacement D7i, they actually offered D7 owners a $50. firmware
upgrade that gave their camera many of the new features of the new
D7i. A pretty good deal, which upgraded the camera from it's D7
level to almost the level of the new D7i. Owners had the option of
paying for that upgrade (and it really was an upgrade rather than a
fix), or using the D7 as it was without those added features.

Click to expand...

I think it is significant to the discussion that while Minolta released firmware revisions for the entire D7 series none of them improved the noise problem. I have a D7i and haven’t even bothered with the firmware updates as they don’t fix anything that bothers me. Since you are in a position to compare, do you find the 550 to be noisier than the D7? I find my Minolta to be very noisy.

Camera problems can’t always be fixed with firmware. Nor can they necessarily be upgraded with firmware. The Minolta firmware wasn’t able to upgrade the D7i to Hi. Or even include some of the new features like a higher quality JPG. The 7i firmware just fixes some tiny problems that are non-existent for my use.

It is possible there isn’t much Pentax can do with firmware to improve the 550 as Minolta couldn’t improve the D7i without releasing the D7Hi. We have established that Minolta is great with firmware but they weren’t able to do anything with the noise or upgrade to the Hi with firmware.

These are two different problems in two different cameras. Minolta could not fix the low ISO noise problem because the noise comes from the data acquisition electronics. It's not related to the sensor, and not too much with the processing (firmware), other than higher sharpening and contrast emphasizes it. Therefore, the update could only fix speed and focussing issues and add features. Minolta did not and does not have a problem with high ISO noise, as their specs there are lower than everybody.

The Pentax Optio 550, on the other hand, does not have a problem with low ISO noise, which would thus indicate that there is not an electronics problem. They use the same sensor as others, so it is not sensor noise. Thus, the high ISO noise comes from processing, mostly from the sharpening, which can be proven in that the noise is reduced with reduced sharpening levels, which are by default too sharp.

But Optio 550 owners, take heart. I am not allowed to say too much, but Pentax Japan is being made aware of the problem. They are confused because, as is mentioned by others in the thread, some users and reviewers do not view or print images in a mode where they notice the noise, or don't have the type of experience to recognize or quantify it.

Hopefully, once they become fully aware of how comparitively bad this specification is and how many of us are unhappy with it, they will react positively, as they have for other cameras in the past.

If they were to only fix this noise problem, as I'm sure that they can, I would be entirely happy with the camera as it is, and would not even envy the few extra features available with the Optio 555. Well, I guess I really would like to have the 15 second time exposure, but I knew the camera did not have it when I bought it.

Regards, GordonBGood

slipe said:

I think it is significant to the discussion that while Minolta
released firmware revisions for the entire D7 series none of them
improved the noise problem. I have a D7i and haven’t even bothered
with the firmware updates as they don’t fix anything that bothers
me. Since you are in a position to compare, do you find the 550 to
be noisier than the D7? I find my Minolta to be very noisy.

Camera problems can’t always be fixed with firmware. Nor can they
necessarily be upgraded with firmware. The Minolta firmware wasn’t
able to upgrade the D7i to Hi. Or even include some of the new
features like a higher quality JPG. The 7i firmware just fixes
some tiny problems that are non-existent for my use.

It is possible there isn’t much Pentax can do with firmware to
improve the 550 as Minolta couldn’t improve the D7i without
releasing the D7Hi. We have established that Minolta is great with
firmware but they weren’t able to do anything with the noise or
upgrade to the Hi with firmware.

Click to expand...

The D7's noise level was worse to begin with than that of the D7i which you have, and over a few firmware upgrades there was indeed some noticable improvement. Certainly, the firmware upgrades never resolved the problem, but I believe they did improve it somewhat. What they did do was to gradually fix other problems that were there when the camera was released, such as make the AF faster. They did this over 2 or 3 free firmware upgrades.

Because you never bothered to upgrade your firmware you have no way of knowing whether those upgrades would have helped or not. You are just assuming that they wouldn't do anything. You may be correct about the D7i - I have no idea about that camera's firmware upgrades, but in the case of the D7 you are definitely wrong.

The Upgrade that was offered for $50. was not meant to fix anything, but rather to add several features that became available in the then newly released D7i. They did not try to make it equal to D7i specs, but rather, but brought it to a half-way point between the 2 cameras by adding some features - such as an increase in the speed and number of shots of the fast Burst speed, add the EVF guideline feature and a few other features from the new camera. It actually amounted to a big improvement overall, and suddenly we had a camera with several new features, all of which were added via firmware. Some features could not be added to the existing camera - but still, it was a good deal, and we did get a faster, improved camera with a few more features. It could be that they were there all along, but had been disabled until the upgrade was installed - I have no idea.

Do I think the 550 produces more noise than the D7? Yes I do, at anything above their lowest ISO settings. In either camera, noise was never very bad at their lowest ISO settings so far as I'm concerned - and contrary to all the gossip that went around about the D7 - especially from people who never owned or used one.

Generally, the noise issue has lessened with each new camera in the D7xx series, and the A1 (which I have just ordered).
Barry

slipe said:

Barry Kernerman said:

slipe said:

Minolta on the other hand, went out of it's way to correct user

Click to expand...

problems quickly with the D7, by releasing 2 or 3 firmware upgrades
in it's first year. And when they finally released it's
replacement D7i, they actually offered D7 owners a $50. firmware
upgrade that gave their camera many of the new features of the new
D7i. A pretty good deal, which upgraded the camera from it's D7
level to almost the level of the new D7i. Owners had the option of
paying for that upgrade (and it really was an upgrade rather than a
fix), or using the D7 as it was without those added features.

Click to expand...

I think it is significant to the discussion that while Minolta
released firmware revisions for the entire D7 series none of them
improved the noise problem. I have a D7i and haven’t even bothered
with the firmware updates as they don’t fix anything that bothers
me. Since you are in a position to compare, do you find the 550 to
be noisier than the D7? I find my Minolta to be very noisy.

Camera problems can’t always be fixed with firmware. Nor can they
necessarily be upgraded with firmware. The Minolta firmware wasn’t
able to upgrade the D7i to Hi. Or even include some of the new
features like a higher quality JPG. The 7i firmware just fixes
some tiny problems that are non-existent for my use.

It is possible there isn’t much Pentax can do with firmware to
improve the 550 as Minolta couldn’t improve the D7i without
releasing the D7Hi. We have established that Minolta is great with
firmware but they weren’t able to do anything with the noise or
upgrade to the Hi with firmware.

Click to expand...

Barry Kernerman said:

Because you never bothered to upgrade your firmware you have no way
of knowing whether those upgrades would have helped or not. You
are just assuming that they wouldn't do anything. You may be
correct about the D7i - I have no idea about that camera's firmware
upgrades, but in the case of the D7 you are definitely wrong.

Click to expand...

I never said they didn’t improve the D7 features with firmware, but I never read reports by anyone else that they improved the noise. My point was that they were not able to improve the D7i with firmware. There was extensive discussion both on the Minolta board here and on Brian Bigger’s site about the specifics of the firmware update as well as blurbs on Minolta’s site. The firmware involved fixes of a few minor and obscure problems in features I never used. Most people who upgraded the D7i firmware recommended against it as it didn’t accomplish anything. My point was simply that all cameras can’t be improved with firmware.

You seem sure that firmware could improve the 550. I don’t have one and don’t know. If images are sharpened with minimum sharpening selected it would upset me even without considering noise. I’ve learned to live with noise in the Minolta and it doesn’t bother me that much. If it does I run it through Neat Image. If you compare images the entire Minolta D7x line is noisier than its competitors.

But I shoot with minimum sharpening and contrast for post processing and wouldn’t like the camera trying to out-think me. If that is the case it could be a firmware issue, but I doubt that Pentax would have released firmware for the 450 and not done it for the 550 if it could fix anything. It is a great conspiracy theory to say they want you to buy a 555 instead, but I would think 450 owners would be more likely to upgrade to the 555 and firmware for the 450 would cause Pentax upgrade loss to a greater degree than updating the 550.

brianj said:

If I could get a camera the size of the 555
in 10x zoom then that would be the one for me.

Click to expand...

I agree. And I think they should make it an f2 lens, with an EVF of course. IS would be nice too – it is really hard to hand hold a 380mm shot without it on a small camera. And they should use the new 8Mp Sony CCD.

I think you've misunderstood what I wrote. In my opinion, my camera operated noticably better after each firmware upgrade. Including a slight improvement in noise, which by the way, never bothered me in the first place, while others were absolutely paranoid about it. In any case I would dispute your assution that the D7 series were noisier than the competition. That's just falicy. I briefly owned a Nikon 5000 (I'm embarrassed to admit it) and it was much noisier than my D7 ever was. The Sony 707 was less noisy, but at the expense of using an NR system that left it's images with a plasticky appearance. These 2 cameras were contemporaries of my D7. Perhaps I was one of the lucky ones. There were cases where the upgrades absolutely screwed up some cameras, and as a result some people who switched back to the older version. But for the most part, people did notice a difference. As an example, the AF speed increase was considerably improved by upgrades. It's true though that most upgrades fixed only minor problems. The real problems of short battery life, and heat, could obviously not be addressed via firmware.

I cannot give any opinion about upgrades released for the D7i, because I never followed those on the forum.

The D7 default did not really over-sharpen to the point similar to the ove-sharpening in the 550. It was in fact a personal call, and many D7 owners were happy with the default setting. Most people however preferred to set sharpen at Low, and do their own sharpening in post-processing. NIK Sharpener Pro, which I use, could still perform it's work on D7 images that had been sharpened at the default setting.

The 550 is however another story. NIK Sharpener does absolutely nothing when trying to sharpen a 550 image taken at default setting. That's clearly because they are already over-sharpened and the program recognised that fact. Setting the 550 sharpen to Low instead, leaves NIK Sharpener some room to sharpen. That must say something. I find that setting the sharpening to Low on the 550 reduces noise somewhat. I did not sday it was enough though. It also removes the thin white halo that appears around edges in the default setting. I also find that the default Contrast setting is too high, and I believe contributes to some of the noise - so I set that to low as well, and corerect it in Photoshop later. In it's default settings, the 550 definitely will out-think you. I want to do all of the thinking by myself later.

But noise is not really an issue for me with either camera, even in the 550 which definitely has more if I use anything more than ISO 64. I am not paranoid about it, because it's not bad enough to see it in my prints. I really don't care about noise that is only visable on my computer monitor. But, from that aspect, the 550 has extremely low limits of ISO use. Going higher than ISO 64 means you are doing so at your peril. The D7 does not get that bad until you get into the ISO 400 range. Since I use a MAC, I do not have the benefit of using NeatImage anyway. So that's why I limit my ISO setting to the lowest end of the range.
Barry

slipe said:

Barry Kernerman said:

Because you never bothered to upgrade your firmware you have no way
of knowing whether those upgrades would have helped or not. You
are just assuming that they wouldn't do anything. You may be
correct about the D7i - I have no idea about that camera's firmware
upgrades, but in the case of the D7 you are definitely wrong.

Click to expand...

I never said they didn’t improve the D7 features with firmware, but
I never read reports by anyone else that they improved the noise.
My point was that they were not able to improve the D7i with
firmware. There was extensive discussion both on the Minolta board
here and on Brian Bigger’s site about the specifics of the firmware
update as well as blurbs on Minolta’s site. The firmware involved
fixes of a few minor and obscure problems in features I never used.
Most people who upgraded the D7i firmware recommended against it as
it didn’t accomplish anything. My point was simply that all
cameras can’t be improved with firmware.

You seem sure that firmware could improve the 550. I don’t have
one and don’t know. If images are sharpened with minimum
sharpening selected it would upset me even without considering
noise. I’ve learned to live with noise in the Minolta and it
doesn’t bother me that much. If it does I run it through Neat
Image. If you compare images the entire Minolta D7x line is
noisier than its competitors.

But I shoot with minimum sharpening and contrast for post
processing and wouldn’t like the camera trying to out-think me. If
that is the case it could be a firmware issue, but I doubt that
Pentax would have released firmware for the 450 and not done it for
the 550 if it could fix anything. It is a great conspiracy theory
to say they want you to buy a 555 instead, but I would think 450
owners would be more likely to upgrade to the 555 and firmware for
the 450 would cause Pentax upgrade loss to a greater degree than
updating the 550.

Click to expand...