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Friday, October 29, 2010

New Firmware to be Released for the K-5

See the latest news report at the Japanese Impress DC Watch:-

http://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/20101029_403449.html
(Google Translated English Page Here)

It is promised that the continuous maximum number of frames for shooting RAW in PEF will be increased dramatically from about 8 to 20, with the upcoming firmware! Just! Oh well, this is just somehow amazing enough as the hardware buffer size cannot be changed by software anyway! So, the software will do some great tricks! :-D



Besides, there is yet another news in the same report. That is, the new DA 18-135 DC lens now has a confirmed release/on-sales date, which will be on November 26. It is actually delayed as the original targeted market date was in mid-November. Furthermore, it is also stated that the price of the lens will be "open priced". That means that Pentax will let the price to be adjusted dynamically according to the market supply and demand. Btw, I shall do more research works in the meantime and will wait for the release and this kit set is actually my real target. I hope the kit set can be sold more reasonable/competitive in price and I wish also it could come down a little bit around Christmas so that I can consider it more seriously - I think the current back order price at US (Amazon and B&H etc.) is just a bit priced too high.

In fact, the K-r has been out already in my potential purchase list after my recent dual hands-on tests myself and also the detailed head-to-head ISO shootout test and comparisons that seen today. I think it is just rather meaningless for me to buy a K-r as I already have a K-x, which is now found to be even better in the IQ and as we all know, the K-x is just smaller in size and is compacter!


Read Also:-


Ten Reasons for Thinking Twice before Decided on a K-5..

K-r Vs K-x - What's New and What's Not?

Comments (8)

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キットレンズ入れた店頭価格が20マン近いじゃねえか。冗談はよしてくれ。
the buffer could be changed by firmware. no any problems. the same was at Sony A100.
5 replies · active 749 weeks ago
Michael A.'s avatar

Michael A. · 750 weeks ago

Obviously, physical mem cannot be changed by FW, but the way "mem flush out" and writing to card is handled....which should be the case.
http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/1242808-post12...
1. 512MB overall memory, 256MB reserved as write buffer (WB) to SD

2. FW 1.0: Partioned into 32MB 16Bit memory frames -> 8 RAWs in WB

3. FW x.x (Nov):
Compressed 14Bit raw files -> 15 RAWs (13 in WB, 2 written)
Compressed 12Bit raw files -> 20 RAWs (17 in WB, 3 written)
Michael A.'s avatar

Michael A. · 750 weeks ago

Exactly the point. Thanks for taking time to find falconeye's new guess (as he puts it) on this subject.
If Pentax did not compress the RAW frames before they stored them into the buffer, this is actually just a big mistake of theirs. Just imagine if even the JPEGs are not compressed and stored, then actually the maximum number of burst will be the same even if the user is shooting JPEG! And this indeed would be rather stupid enough.
Michael A.'s avatar

Michael A. · 750 weeks ago

One more scenario could be if certain address in the buffer's mem is blocked by FW not to access it and than enabled back by FW's update. Only Pentax knows...
自分のが、古いと許せん、クレイマー、理由をつけて、「俺のエエ」

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