Rumors of a 22 megapixel Nikon?

In that recently withdrawn firmware update for the Nikon D3 there was apparently mention of a D3x with resolution specs of 24 megapixels in the notes. I first read about this in the British Journal of Photography. Looking for more details I found PDN also points to a British photography magazine, Amateur Photographer with the same story.

Nikon pulls D3 firmware update

I’ve taken down the post I wrote last week about a Nikon D3 firmware update because Nikon has discovered possible corruption problems, luckily only under very specific circumstances:

Release mode: Continuous high speed (CH), or Continuous low speed (CL) with Custom Setting d2 set to 9 fps
Image area: FX format (36x24) or 5:4 (30x24)
Image quality: NEF (RAW) or NEF (RAW) + JPEG fine/normal/basic
NEF (RAW) recording>NEF (RAW) bit depth: 14-bit

RobGalbraith.com has a good explanation and the details from Nikon.

Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom updated

Updates for Camera Raw and Lightroom have been posted on Adobe.com. The previous updates v4.4 Camera Raw and , v1.4 Lightroom, were withdrawn after bugs were discovered, so if you think you may have installed the previous version it is especially important that you download these updates.

v4.4 Camera Raw Mac
v4.4 Camera Raw PC


v1.4 Lightroom Mac
v1.4 Lightroom PC

Nikon D300 Firmware update

There is a firmware update available for the Nikon D300 which corrects vertical bands that can appear in exposures longer than eight seconds. You can download the firmware update here:


D300 Firmware update 1.02 for Mac
D300 Firmware update 1.02 for Windows

Must-read article one exposure for digital

This article, written by Bruce Fraser for Adobe, has been around for a while but I've never posted about it. It's a great explanation of how exposure is different for digital and how to cope with it. In a nutshell, most of the exposure information in a digital file is captured in the lighter tones of the image, which is why you get so much noise when you try to brighten an underexposed image-even from the raw file.

Canon 5D Firmware Update

This is why firmware updates are so fantastic. Even though the Canon 5D is nearly 3 years old , the firmware (the "brains" of the camera) can be updated to take advantage of new technology. When the 5D came out 16GB CF cards didn't exist and 8GB cards were very new. This firmware allows for the 5D to properly read the capacity of the 8GB-16GB CF cards. Also added is support for new canon lenses (without the update the 5D can't record the names of the lenses in the EXIF data).


Download the firmware update here.

Canon 1Ds Mark III viewfinder problems?

According to the British Journal of Photography, there have been reports from Canon 1Ds Mark III owners that “ instances where a scene appearing straight in the viewfinder leans up to one degree clockwise in the final image.”

I’ve since looked for more instances, and found two threads here and here.

The fix apparently is not so bad, it seems that it just involves the replacement of a couple screws on the mask over the sensor. Still, not something you can DIY; back to the repair center for it.

Slow tethered shooting with the Canon 1Ds Mark III on the Mac

There's been a lot of talk of slow tethered shooting speeds with the Canon 1Ds Mark III (it's no longer Firewire, but now USB 2.0). Martin Evening documents his experience over at LightroomNews.