[thibs]

That'd be right here:

AF-S DX NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G from Nikon

Expensive firmware

[jsherman999]

AF-S DX NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G from Nikon[/url]

$199 initial MSRP, expensive for a firmware update , but cheap for a small fast D-normal that can AF on d40/60.

This, IMO, was a brilliant move by Nikon - to get closer to where Pentax already lives, small, inexpensive primes available for the entry-level.

And that lens is selling like umbrellas in a rainstorm. No place has it in stock as of last week, everyone's asking where it can be found in the forums.

I knew it would be hot, so I pre-ordered one from a local store the day after it was announced on dpreview. (patting self on back yet again...)

But I agree with Matt, there is a laundry list of small things that pop up that could make it into yearly firmware updates, and even some big changes now & then.

These things we attach our lenses to are basically computers with embedded sensors - lotsa tweaks can be made to improve things if Pentax was really committed to that.


.

[Bophoto]

I hope for a firmware update to K200D, but it´s to late now for K10D then K20D are replaced soon. But 5 or 10 dollar for a real improvement as, better Jpeg/RAW, faster "something" or focus adjustment of 10 lenses is nice on K10D and K200D...

[nanok]

i mostly diagree. i do not see any reason for k10d not getting firmware updates, nobody will buy a k10d instead of a k20d, they are seriously different beasts. penta,x as far as i can tell, has not (and doesn't seem to display recently) the tendency to sell fimrware updates with cameras (cameras nearly identical, which are just better on the firmware side) so their decision to discontinue support for the k10d is plain stupid and can only hurt them.

i understand there is effort involved in keeping firmware of older cameras up to date, but i doubt if the effort is so huge pentax would really be hurt financially by it.

at the risk of sounding obsessive: open source firmware, or at least opensource addons is the best of both worlds. pentax will only need to sit back and watch them grow, there is alos much to be learned from such an open development (great marketing tool, imagine you could see which features are most used/requested, which get more feedback, make addons to watch user behavior patterns and decide what the userbase would most desire in the new model, etc, the possibilities are endless, and with a very willing and friendly community, there will hardly be a question you cannot ask and get a positive answer). they can be the first to start such an initiative from vendor side, and will surely make an impression. i cannot see them having anything to lose from this.

[Bophoto]

A good idea but;
How many K10 users can develop a open source?
It can be a risk about bugs.
Pentax K was free in the 70ish, then it got problem with compability and Pentax took patent on the new "KA"...
So Pentax can be afraid of this things.

[nanok]

A good idea but;
How many K10 users can develop a open source?

history has proven this has never been a problem. you would be surprised.

It can be a risk about bugs.

the risk is there anyway, the only difference is that it takes less to fix the bugs with opensource, as can be seen, sometimes if it's closed you are just talking to a wall (we have been requesting for ages the ability to disable dfs on the k20d, ever since it was first released, still not done)

Pentax K was free in the 70ish, then it got problem with compability and Pentax took patent on the new "KA"...
So Pentax can be afraid of this things.

i am not saying they should be blindly marching into the idea, ofcourse it takes some effort and some care, but far less than handling it inhouse completely; history has proven opensource works, that is no longer up for debate, i should think.

[nosnoop]

so their decision to discontinue support for the k10d is plain stupid and can only hurt them.

I don't see how Pentax would be hurt when this is the norm in the industry for discontinued models.

i understand there is effort involved in keeping firmware of older cameras up to date, but i doubt if the effort is so huge pentax would really be hurt financially by it.

You mean during this day and age when Pentax is lay off half of its Japanese work force, and when Pentax is losing money? I think their return of investment would be much higher to devote the entire (remaining) work force in pushing K7D, 645D and up coming DSLR out the door than to spend time updating K10D. You can imagine the outcry if K7D or 645D are delayed.

at the risk of sounding obsessive: open source firmware, or at least opensource addons is the best of both worlds.

May not be as simple as that. There are a lot of things inside the firmware which Pentax would be reluctant to release it to the public. Things like demosaic algorithm, noise reduction technique.... etc are camera model and camera make specific. And this is still an art rather than exact science.

I mean outside my PC, the only thing which has open source firmware is my router. So open source has not yet proven itself out the PC. Basically, open source does not have much of a "history" outside the PC.

[nanok]

I don't see how Pentax would be hurt when this is the norm in the industry for discontinued models.



You mean during this day and age when Pentax is lay off half of its Japanese work force, and when Pentax is losing money? I think their return of investment would be much higher to devote the entire (remaining) work force in pushing K7D, 645D and up coming DSLR out the door than to spend time updating K10D. You can imagine the outcry if K7D or 645D are delayed.

i was not suggesting to put new projects on hold for this. this is not a 0/1 discussions, real world has shades of grey . so yes, i agree with you, the priorities should be as you pointed out, but that does not invalidate what i said. and "the norm" is a very relative term, pentax has little to do with "the norm", they have their own values to push, and it is what kept them afloat in the digital age, although with a small market share (example: backwards compatibility)

May not be as simple as that. There are a lot of things inside the firmware which Pentax would be reluctant to release it to the public. Things like demosaic algorithm, noise reduction technique.... etc are camera model and camera make specific. And this is still an art rather than exact science.

I mean outside my PC, the only thing which has open source firmware is my router. So open source has not yet proven itself out the PC. Basically, open source does not have much of a "history" outside the PC.

i am aware of the possible issues. this is why developing a way to interface with the original firmware (what i meant by opensource addons) is a much easier and more feasible possibility. everything which must be kept closed can be. the demosaic algorythm is no voodoo, i should think (see dcraw...), and keeping it hidden does no good to anybody. denoise is also no longer such a big secret, there is excellent opensource code for both. for another (rahter amazing, really) example of off-the-pc opensource code, check out rockbox.org, what those guys did is inspiring to say the least. the low profile of opensource on embedded devices has more to do with vendors than it has with opensource (it may also have a lot to do with perception, you would be surprised how many devices actually run linux underneath, or something similar -- opensource, even if that is not advertised).

a possible problem with doing this, a real one, would be how much of the camera operations are handled by dedicated hardware components, and how much processing power there really is available to run custom code, i cannot know this, but i have a hunch there would be more than enough.

[ratjadi]

I find the idea of open source firmware brilliant. At the moment our economic system is based on hiding things, preventing open development and real progress. If there is progress, this is a side effect, not intrinsic. 99% of people are doing jobs that are mostly senseless and which they don't like anyway.

Well, this gets a bit fundamental, but relates to open source firmware. Because people do best what they like. Current economy - which is hardcore capitalistic and reactionary, i.e. wants to utterly control people, even if they talk about personal freedom and stuff - is not really efficient. Just look at how well Linux and its various distributuns thrive. This is done by people for the sake of personal interest, not forced by econmic pressures. And back to cameras: look at the Canon firmware hacks, I think they drive some people into the cheaper Canon models, because they can unleash raw power afterwards. It is a pity that hacks are needed. The same was true for the Pentax K10D firmware hack. Why prohibit things that people really want? People want to correct lenses for focus inaccuracies, yet they deactivated this possibility with the next firmware update. This is not customer support.

Just release the source and let commited people do their work, which is proven multiple times. Pentax would be THE company to do this.

Imagine different jpeg engines, film modes, filters, this cameras could be customized to death. What a unique selling point for Pentax cameras?!

Maybe someone with a good connection to Pentax could seriously propose this. I mean, really, cameras are computers nowadays, but we basically throw them away after short time instead of customizing to our needs and updating with current technology. I don't think that this would cut sales, otherwise computers would sell very poorly. I think it would be the same with computers: the average user could run Ubuntu on an 5 year old macbook and do everything needed at a bargain, but still (s)he wants the newest stuff anyway. Same for cameras. So no danger from OS firmware.

[nixcamic]

I don't care if they open source the firmware, although it would be very very nice. If they could just provide specs, or a simple open source reference implementation of the firmware that doesn't do anything but access the bits of hardware, that would be enough.

[nanok]

I find the idea of open source firmware brilliant. At the moment our economic system is based on hiding things, preventing open development and real progress. If there is progress, this is a side effect, not intrinsic. 99% of people are doing jobs that are mostly senseless and which they don't like anyway.

"based" is a bit of an overstatement imho. it just so happens it evolved into that instead of something else. things usually don't change overnight from one thing to something completely different, they evolve slowly, step by step, that's normal. the sad thing is that, globally, nobody is making money on this (or, to be more precise, the money made on this are an illusion, and, sorry, it is bighting us in the arse now, but that's another storry). there is no money to be lost on opensource and open standards, there is only more money to be made. this is not news, ibm literally shook the computing landscape by releasing the specs for the x86 architecture back then, when computers were so bloody expensive they were as reachable to common people as a trip to the moon. fast forward a few years, the home pc industry starts to become a money-making business (and pc's are of two kings: ibm compatible and not, remember those times?), a decade later, it is probably the industry with the most turnover on the planet. is x86 great? not even close, but how does that matter? it's everywhere now (sorry mac fans, it's the truth, regardless of how good ppc is.. sorry, used to be, and how wise and all knowing sj is :-D )

in short, hidding specs and keeping to ones self only hinders progress, and loses _everybody_ money. this is not just humanist talk, it's a fact, scientists have known this forever, and they quietly go about their open-source style collaboration. many of them stay in the academic environment for less money rather than getting "a job" because they know that, (and i mean no disrespect) if managers were to lead their work as opposed to scientists, that would spell dead-end.

Well, this gets a bit fundamental,

it does

This is not customer support.

it's not. it;s probably a hint of corporate greed "disable it now, we will sell it
with the next model". it sounds like it works if you are really short sighted, but
it doesn't. that feature has never been a major selling point of the k20d, just
a nice feature, the k20d sells anyway, for other reasons (because it does have
value as a better camera, on it's own, and if it didn't, it would never sell, no
matter what firmware upgrades and nifty features would be added to it and
removed from the previous model, it just doesn't work like that)

Imagine different jpeg engines, film modes, filters, this cameras could be customized to death. What a unique selling point for Pentax cameras?!

the possibilities are almost endless. some things you cannot even imagine. there are people out there who know more about imaging than me and you, and together
probably know more than the entire nikon army of engineers (no disrespect to them, it's jsut the way things are).

one example i also mentioned above is rockbox, i have been a music fan for as long as i can remember (in short succession), i bought at some point a sony minidisc, i hated it's guts: brilliant engineers, brilliant machine, shithead marketing idiots destroyed it though, it was nearly unusable. i hated it so much because of that, that i didn't even try to cut my losses by selling it (it was expensive at the time), i just gave it away (i was considering destroying it with a small hammer, but my respect to the engineers who designed that machine stopped me), i got several flash-based players after, i was very happy, they were nothing like the minidisc, but they worked and didn't lock me in (not to mention out, sometimes). one day i found out about rockbox, i started hunting for a supported player, and bought one new, eventhough i was happy with my current player. i refuse to buy any player which is not supported by rockbox eversince, i simply don't see why i would bother? the point i was trying to get at is that, though i like music and know a bit about sound related stuff (i am not _completely_ ignorant, that is), just by reading the manual to this application i learned a lot more then i had ever known. i doubt if there is a player on the market which comes even close to what a rockbox player can do.
it is obvious to me that these guys know and care more about quality, features needed for audio playback for humans between them than any single team of developers and engineers at apple, iriver (though iriver are pretty darn good, have to admit), and so on. that's normal, and there's no shame in it. and here's the catch: there is no danger, it only adds value to those players. for free, to the vendors. for FREE. so all you have to worry about is make/choose the best possible hardware, worry about design, build quality, and so on, and give the specs to the rockbox "kids", they'll be sure to knock your socks off. so everybody wins. well, the DAP vendors still don't get it, it seems

Maybe someone with a good connection to Pentax could seriously propose this. I mean, really, cameras are computers nowadays, but we basically throw them away after short time instead of customizing to our needs and updating with current technology. I don't think that this would cut sales, otherwise computers would sell very poorly. I think it would be the same with computers: the average user could run Ubuntu on an 5 year old macbook and do everything needed at a bargain, but still (s)he wants the newest stuff anyway. Same for cameras. So no danger from OS firmware.

i find it hard to see the danger. should i mention that linux was the first functional os on amd-64? windows took years to be able to take advantage of that architecture. so it seems people running linux are buying new computers. actually, when the hardware is openly supported, it has more value on the long run, so it will sell better, and people will be willing to invest more because of that. also people will buy the newest shit anyway, not because the damn vista won't work otherwise, but because they can do more, and faster with it, because there will be software to put that new hardware to good use, and they will be reluctant to buy if there is not such software.

would any of us honestly pass on the next megapixel beast/noise beast/dynamic range beast/fullframe/better ergonomy/more knobs/better design(prettyer) camera just because the firmware in the older one has the same features (or close -- some will be hardware related), nope, not a chance. after all, the k20d has the sensor as the main selling point (opposed to k10d), the body is the same, the firmware features are very similar, and that's one reason we love it! not to mention another trick: a happy customer not buying a new body because the current one is still perfect will most likely buy more glass (and we are known for having a problem with buying glass, aren't we), and that's where the money is.

so i guess the only danger there, is of making a shitload of money, with minimal effort, and raising a positive PR storm in the process. actually, the biggest problem might be to keep up with production :-D

about a pentax contact: i think "we" do have some. ned bunnel seems to be quite open to the community for instance. perhaps there are also people with "connections" lurking here (the (in)famous NDA guys )

nixcamic: indeed, there are many ways of doing it. most probably the first and easiest step would be to build some interfacing method, to access all functions through the original closed firmware, this keeps the proprietary stuff safe and hidden, but with enough processing power and some good developers, the sky is the limit from there on. giving direct access to all the hw might be problematic, as often various bits are provided by various vendors, so it would be a nightmare to convince them all to accept their specs to be out in the open. one step at a time..

ps: i have an austrian friend who seems to think just like you. that's strange (borderline on scary) .

[nanok]

damn it's long. what have we learned today kids? "never ask an opensource "fan" to talk about opensource, unless you have the day to spare". goooood..

[mattdm]

damn it's long. What have we learned today kids? "never ask an opensource "fan" to talk about opensource, unless you have the day to spare". Goooood..

.

[nanok]

one more important note: the minidisc example: some might remember it, it was at the time bloody brilliant, there was truly nothing comparable on the market. so sony was bound to make a shitload of money, right? not. they pissed customers off to such extent, that it was effectively a brilliant idea born dead. flash based players were so far behind in so many ways, they didn't stand a chance, but they were unrestrictive, and sony gave them enough time to catch up (by continuing to be arseholes to the people who spent money on their products). when they realized they were losing, they released the hiMD, which was far less restrictive, but it was to late, everybody had moved on, and nobody wanted to remember the ugly prostitute they slept with at the prom ball because they were stone-drunk. it may sound over the top, but i mean it, it makes me sick even to remember my netMD, and i am embarassed to have ever bought it. also, i hated sony so much after that that the fact the _sensor_ in the k20d was not sony was actually a bit of a selling point for me.

so i guess the point is: there is danger, the danger of being too late. sony is now litteraly _nobody_ in the personal audio player market, they used to be the one. on the other hand, iriver, a small korean company at the time when my minidisc nightmare begun, by being incredibly friendly and supportive (i recall they actually added ogg support to their cd players because users requested to, and they were apologizing they could not do it for some very old models who had too little anti-skip memory to work with that codec -- all the other very old cdplayers were updated!) have become a name in the business nowdays. but i think the most embarassing fact today for sony must be that apple managed to be (probably) number one on that market, apple, of all the possible competitors. that must hurt. i hope it does

the danger of being too late, and the opportunity of being the first...

pentax already made the "dng move", so they are not completely clueless. how about going the whole way and make the big two scratch their heads a bit.

[OregonJim]

The Nikon D40 was announced November 2006, shortly after the Pentax K10D. It's still getting firmware updates making concrete improvements. If I were to buy a Nikon camera now (which I'm not about to — just sayin'), it would have a higher value to me because I could be reasonably sure that two and a half years later Nikon would still care about it.

All that suggests to me is that Nikon sent the D40 to market too early - the firmware was full of bugs that needed correcting with later updates.

A camera that required NO firmware updates would be more valuable to me - that tells me they got it right the first time.

(P.S. - I'm a Firmware Engineer)