Originally posted by jaad75 It was confirmed by John C Pentax on DPreview forum that the latest firmware available was 0.34 and these samples were shot a month ago with "a hand selected unit specifically for this purpose to provide the best quality at the time".
Actually, what he said was:
"There are no cameras around (except maybe with the engineers in Japan) that have final image quality or firmware. I have the latest and it is still version 0.34."
Source:
It most certainly is: Pentax SLR Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review
In other words, the Japanese engineers may well have access to newer firmware than John C currently does. Given that the hand picked camera was used to create sample photos for the Japanese website, and that Pentax is a Japanese company, it seems likely that the hand-picking was done in Japan. If that's the case, you'd rather have to expect them to be using the best (and hence, latest) firmware available in Japan at the time - and that could well have been far newer than what is currently available to John C, even as long as a month ago.
I emphasise this because it seems a bit silly to act like there's some conspiracy, and that Pentax isn't playing straight. Even if unintentionally, that is essentially what is being suggested by claiming Pentax has edited the EXIF data to change the number after the images were captured. What possible reason would they even have for doing so, especially given that it is entirely Pentax's own decision as to when the firmware is suitable for public samples / final production, and how to operate their firmware numbering schema?
For that matter, why does anybody believe it is even a requirement that the version numbers have to match? Perhaps there are multiple parts of the firmware with separate version numbers, and some parts *are* considered final, while others aren't. Alternatively, perhaps the firmware guys simply missed updating the version numbering in a couple of places before compiling the firmware. If one can assume they forgot to edit the numbers while editing the EXIF, it is not exactly a huge leap of faith to suggest they could've forgotten the exact same thing while compiling firmware for internal use.
Also, remember that just because this firmware is listed as "v1.0" doesn't necessarily even mean that it is the final version that will ship in production cameras. It could just imply Pentax feels the image quality will equal that of the final version, whatever revision number that may be. We're still at least 1-5 weeks away from the Japanese launch goal of "June 2009", and firmware is often being revised by manufacturers until almost the last second before product starts shipping to distributors.
Generally, the simplest answer is the correct one, and I have a feeling some combination of the above scenarios is far more likely than Pentax having edited the EXIF data to change the version numbers before posting to the web.