Hands on: Firmware updates

What are the risks?
A firmware update isn’t risk-free and if you don’t feel confident you may be able to get the manufacturer to do it for you. Both Canon and Nikon do; for others check the website.

The most important thing is to make sure you fully understand the procedure – read it through a couple of times so that you’re completely familiar with it and make sure you follow it to the letter.

Regardless of the manufacturer, one thing all update procedures have in common is the necessity for uninterrupted power during the update process. If the power fails part way through you could be left with a completely inoperable camera. So, if you have a mains adapter use it, and if not make sure you use a fully recharged battery.

The update process takes a few minutes at most, so unless you’re spectacularly unlucky, or do something silly, power shouldn’t be an issue. Once the process has started leave the camera well alone, don’t press any buttons and don’t touch the card slot cover, which on some cameras will cut the power supply.

Geotagging
Regular readers will know that I’m a keen panographer – panoramic photographer in other words. On several occasions, I’ve submitted QTVR panoramas to the worldwide panorama, an event that takes place four times a year on the solstices (longest and shortest days of the year) and equinoxes (day and night of equal length), and involves panographers all over the world. You can see my efforts at http://geoimages.berkeley.edu/wwppeople/html/KenMcMahon.html.

One of the requirements of the WWP site is that you geotag images. Geotagging is the process of adding information to a photo, usually in the form of positional co-ordinates, to identify the precise geographical location at which it was taken. Strictly speaking, the WWP images aren’t geotagged because the information isn’t added to the image Exif metadata, just included on the web page, but the applications are similar.

Geotagging is an interesting development in the use of metadata because it provides new ways to use and experience photos, the most obvious being that you can search large collections of images for photos of specific locations.

I get the approximate latitude and longitude data for my photos manually using Google Earth. A better and more accurate solution would be a GPS receiver in the camera that automatically writes the positional data when the shot is taken.

While that’s probably some way off, it’s already possible to link location data from a separate GPS device to images. Sony’s GPS-CS1 works with Cybershot cameras and the DSLR A-100 to record time-stamped GPS data, which can automatically be added to photos. Nikon’s MC-35 GPS adapter cord lets you connect a handheld GPS device to the D2X and D2Hs.

I’ll be taking a Hands On look at the whole field of geotagging in an upcoming column, so if you have any questions that you’d like to see answered, or want to share your own experiences drop me an email at the usual address.

Where to find firmware updates
The attached PDF document shows the most recent firmware update version for most of the popular DSLR cameras from Canon, Nikon, Olympus and Pentax. If your firmware is an earlier version then you should consider updating it. Here are the addresses for the manufacturers’ websites, where you’ll find the update files, details of what they include and full details of the update procedure:

Olympus E-Systems firmware updates

Canon DSLR firmware updates

Nikon DSLR firmware updates

Sony DSLR A-100 firmware update

Pentax DSLR firmware updates

Firmware updates aren’t confined exclusively to DSLRs – you’ll find them available for prosumer and compact point-and-shoot cameras too. For Nikon and Canon you’ll find firmware updates for all cameras at the addresses given above, for others, look here:

Fujifilm

Casio

Sony

Olympus

HP

And it’s not just digital cameras that can benefit from firmware updates. Scanners, printers and even portable storage devices employ firmware, for which manufacturers frequently provide updates. You could add to that list your PC Bios, iPods, PSPs, Xbox 360s and even your washing machine, but that’s getting well beyond the scope of this column.

As with cameras, if you have a problem with your printer or scanner it’s worth checking to see if there’s a firmware update that fixes it. You can find firmware updates for HP products at the address above and for Epson products at http://tinyurl.com/v4rv.