Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
Canon 6D Mark II users can come in out of the cold. Canon has released a firmware update which now prevents the freezing issues that some of you may have experienced. The issue would be that in certain circumstances, the touchscreen and buttons would become unresponsive.
While this firmware update isn’t exactly feature-packed, only solving this one problem, it is an important problem that needed to be solved. And it’s one that those who’ve been affected by it will be welcome to see.
It’s been a little over a year now since Cactus first announced their cross-platform X-TTL system. It came with a flurry of firmware updates to let you get HSS & TTL compatibility across multiple brands of camera and flash. These updates added support for Fuji, Sony, Sigma, Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic and Pentax. But you’ll note that there’s a big name missing from that list.
Cactus’ new firmware update adds that name, by offering support for Canon wireless flash. The new firmware for the Cactus V6 II transceiver allows it to wirelessly communicate TTL information between a Canon or Cactus flash and a Canon camera.
Despite being the rather good video-focused camera that it is, the Panasonic GH5 has been plagued with one big problem. Autofocus. While serious video professionals may say “Bah, who needs autofocus for video?!?!”, plenty of people still want good video AF performance. Many vloggers, for example, shoot with the GH5 and rely on the autofocus to keep up with constant movement in front of the camera.
But has the new 2.3 firmware finally solved the problem of the GH5’s autofocus? Well, Carl Yates at ProAV wanted to find out. So he took a pair of Panasonic GH5 cameras with identical Panasonic 12-35mm f/2.8 lenses, one running the older 2.2 firmware and the other with the new 2.3 firmware to test them side-by-side.
It probably wasn’t much of a surprise that Panasonic was planning to release new GH5, GH5S and G9 firmware updates. Mostly because Panasonic are always releasing new firmware updates for such cameras. But what was a surprise was Panasonic finding that the announcement planned for May 30th had been leaked in Japan a couple of days ago. Now, though, Panasonic has made the firmware announcement official, with a list of what users can look forward to.
The original Canon EOS M mirrorless camera from 2013, the camera summarily dismissed by pretty much everybody as a pretty terrible camera, can now shoot 2.5K RAW video. Sort of. It’s all thanks to a new sd_uhs module in Magic Lantern which overclocks the write speed of the SD card.
It’s definitely a case of “Don’t try this at home!” unless you know what you’re doing or are willing to accept the risks, though. There have been reports of SD cards dying, and Magic Lantern currently doesn’t recommend its use. But it’s still available, and if it doesn’t kill anything lets you shoot 12Bit lossless 2.35:1 raw video.
It was only just over a week ago that Fujifilm announced the version 4 firmware for the X-T2. Much anticipated by X-T2 owners it adds internal F-Log 4K video as well as 120fps 1080p shooting. Now, though, due to “malfunctions”, Fujifilm has put out a new firmware, v4.01. But instead of fixing the issues, it essentially rolls the camera back to version 3.
When Fuji announced the then-new X-T2 back in July 2016, it got Fuji shooters very excited, especially the ones interested in video. Fuji now has a 4K video-capable camera in their lineup. They’ve since gone on to add 4K to the X-Pro2 and released the new X-H1, but they haven’t given up on the X-T2 just yet.
Only a month after release, would-be X-T2 owners were complaining that they could only shoot 4K F-Log if they were using an external recorder and not internally. Fujifilm said at the time that they would consider internal F-Log recording. And now they’ve delivered with a new firmware update that adds internal 4K F-Log recording to SD, as well as 120fps 1080p slow motion.
The Sony A7III hasn’t been out for very long, and while an extremely impressive camera, especially for a “basic model”, it does have a couple of issues. Of course, what new camera doesn’t? So, Sony has released the first firmware update (v1.01) for the A7III to fix a couple of big issues and improve overall stability.
Well, this is an interesting little update for the Fujifilm GFX 50S. A new firmware adds a 35mm “full frame” crop mode to its capabilities. It also adds focus bracketing up to 999 frames for those macro users forced into shallow depth of field. And lastly, it adds some more compatibility for the H Mount Adapter G, which lets you use Hasselblad H Mount lenses on the GFX 50S.
Sony shooters, if you use a Mac, there’s a rather concerning issue regarding the Sony firmware update application. First highlighted by software expert Lloyd Chambers back in October 2017, Sony’s updater essentially forces you to give it root access to your system. This could potentially pose your entire system and data it contains at risk.
I’m not 100% sure on how big a deal this one is yet. From a security standpoint, it’s absolutely huge. But from a more real-world impact perspective, it possibly isn’t going to be a huge issue. In theory, root access means the software could do anything it likes to your computer. Install keyloggers or malware, for example. Not that Sony would do that, but who’s to say that somebody won’t compromise their software?
You can find out more about John on his website and follow his adventures on YouTube and Facebook.
can change a lens mid-rappel, swap a memory card while treading water, or use a camel as a light stand.
To see more of his work please visit his studio website blurMEDIAphotography, or follow him on Twitter, 500px, Google Plus or YouTube.
JP’s photography is available for licensing at Stocksy United.
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