First firmware update is available for 645Z

itshimitis · 09-25-2014, 01:57 AM

I had an email from my contact at Ricoh UK today to say that the first update is ready:

Latest PENTAX 645Z Firmware Update : Software Downloads | RICOH IMAGING

**Ed Hurst** · 09-25-2014, 04:50 AM

Thanks for the link. Unfortunately, I am having a problem. Following the instructions (as usual), when I turn the camera on (with the memory card already inserted containing the relevant file) pressing the MENU button in, nothing happens - it merely turns on as usual and does not offer me any update options. Any suggestions?

Thomas · 09-25-2014, 06:02 AM

Are you using the SD 1 slot? SD 2 won't recognize firmware.

GarethC7 · 09-25-2014, 06:58 AM

I love the way they say "improved stability for general performance" as one of the updates. That's about as nebulous as it gets.

Dreamsong · 09-25-2014, 07:34 AM

Originally posted by Ed Hurst

Thanks for the link. Unfortunately, I am having a problem. Following the instructions (as usual), when I turn the camera on (with the memory card already inserted containing the relevant file) pressing the MENU button in, nothing happens - it merely turns on as usual and does not offer me any update options. Any suggestions?

I just updated my Z with no problems.

As mentioned do you have the card in slot one.
Is the file in the root directory of the card.
Is the file named "Fwdc224b.bin"
I had the menu button pressed in and I held it in while I turned it on as opposed to pressing it while turning it on, no idea if that makes a difference. And with all of the above done it went straight to a screen asking if I wanted to update from 1.00 --> 1.10.

gha128 · 09-25-2014, 09:40 AM

Golly that's pretty vague on what changes other than prep for tethering

**Ed Hurst** · 09-25-2014, 11:35 AM

Thanks guys. But this is really weird - I am doing all that and it's just not working. Slot 1. Holding the MENU button in before turning on and keeping it held in throughout turning on. The downloaded file is in the root directory of the SD card. Tried it with two different cards. Just no response whatever from the camera to the update file being there; the camera just turns on as normal. Not sure what to try next...

---------- Post added 09-26-14 at 05:07 AM ----------

OK - I worked it out! The file had a .cpgz file extension after the .bin extension - so the full name was "fwdc224b.bin.cpgz" (this is on a Mac in case that matters).
I had not noticed that. I think that extension denotes that it's still a zip file. So I double clicked on it (on the computer) to let it extract the file (at which point the file appeared in the same folder without the .cpgz extension). Copying that file to the SD card root directory and using that as above worked fine (having reformatted the card in the camera first to start afresh).
Phew!

Royce Howland · 09-25-2014, 02:11 PM

I just applied the 1.10 firmware update to my 645Z, and I see at least 2 bugs I knew of have been fixed. The incorrect aperture reading in Manual mode when setting the lens aperture ring directly on FA lenses has now been fixed. And the inability of the camera to shoot continuously while in AF.C autofocus, using either Continuous H or L drive, combined with moving AF from the shutter button to the AF back button, also has been fixed.

I'll see in coming days whether some of the other glitches I've noticed have been taken care of as well. One problem was really bugging me over the past week -- using the 2 second self timer drive mode in conjunction with 5-shot AEB would occasionally produce a 5th frame that was erroneously the same exposure as the 4th frame, after which the camera would lock up with all controls unresponsive except for the power switch. This repeated quite frequently, but not on every AEB sequence, so reproducing it may be a challenge. If the firmware fixed the issue I may only be able to guess at it if the problem doesn't re-surface after a few weeks. There were a few other weird one-time issues, we'll see how things go for awhile after this.

All in all, after a casual eval today, it looks like a good firmware update that has quickly resolved a number of the initial issues with the camera. Kudos to Ricoh on getting this out...

**Kerrowdown** · 09-25-2014, 03:08 PM - **1 Like**

Originally posted by GarethC7

That's about as nebulous as it gets.

Aye, but it fixes everything.

Thomasbrowphoto · 09-27-2014, 01:40 AM

Ill be putting this on my 645Z asap.

I have noticed in the last week or so that my Z has been inconsistent with its exposures.. The settings stay the same but the actual exposure seems to vary (usually darker), Sounds like the shutter or curtains are doing something slightly off when it happens. But like every one else it only happens sometimes. Hopefully the firmware will change things.

Royce Howland · 09-27-2014, 10:11 AM

Watch that very carefully, Thomas. Speaking as someone who has worked through two blown shutters on a 645D, I'm personally very sensitive to any shutter anomalies now.

Thomasbrowphoto · 09-29-2014, 03:39 PM

Originally posted by Royce Howland

Watch that very carefully, Thomas. Speaking as someone who has worked through two blown shutters on a 645D, I'm personally very sensitive to any shutter anomalies now.

Royce I have just sent my Z away to get this shutter looked at. The pentax Service/disrubuter here in Australia asked for the camera body to be sent to them immediately as they are suspecting a shutter/aperture leaver issue. Can you tell me what happened with your D's? And did the same camera fail twice? Any troubles getting it repaired by Pentax? Im Interested to hear how it all went down.

Thanks

Royce Howland · 09-30-2014, 09:49 AM

Thomas, the shutter mechanism failed on my original 645D -- the same type of failure both times, on the same body. No trouble getting it fixed, it just takes a long time. ~10 weeks for the first repair, 12 weeks and counting the second time -- still not back yet, having been sent in the first week of July. My first repair involved a replacement of the shutter assembly, I imagine the second one will be the same.

Shutter repairs have to go to Japan which is part of the delay. First Ricoh Canada looked at it to confirm shutter failure, then sent it on to Japan since there's no repair facility in North America qualified for this level of work on the digital 645 system...

---------- Post added 09-30-14 at 11:01 AM ----------

On the topic of the firmware update, with firmware 1.1 my 645Z does seem more stable. I think another bug I knew about is gone, knock on wood -- the issue with the camera locking up after an AEB sequence with 2-second self timer also in use has not repeated since I did the update. But it was an intermittent problem so it's hard to say yet whether it's really fixed or not.

Unfortunately, not all gremlins have been eliminated. Yesterday I was shooting some horses in Av mode, AF.C autofocus, high speed continuous, ISO 800. With a long lens and live subjects, I typically shoot bursts of 3 - 4 frames for each "take" just to maximize chances of crisp detail, open eyelids, head & tail in a good position, etc. Well, one time when I hit the shutter button I heard a couple of "twangy" kind of noises from inside the chamber, not the normal sounds of the mirror flipping up & the shutter tripping. No exposures were made (or at least none were recorded), and the camera then did a sort of soft-reset on itself -- following that, it activated 5-shot AEB and reset my ISO from 800 down to 100. This was a weird situation, and only happened once. If I had to guess, it seems like some kind of internal error with the mirror or shutter wasn't handled properly, causing the camera to reset & the settings to get messed up.

Flakey stuff like this never happened in 10's of thousands of frames put through my pair of 645D's. Aside from my regrettable shutter failures, my pair of D's were always rock solid and totally dependable. It makes me a bit less confident relying on the Z. I suspect at least one more firmware update is going to be needed to clear up some remaining issues.

(And as already stated earlier, I'm a bit sensitive to shutter related issues so now I'm going to be watching this camera like a hawk for any signs of another impending shutter failure.)

Royce Howland · 10-05-2014, 08:26 PM

Originally posted by Royce Howland

On the topic of the firmware update, with firmware 1.1 my 645Z does seem more stable. I think another bug I knew about is gone, knock on wood -- the issue with the camera locking up after an AEB sequence with 2-second self timer also in use has not repeated since I did the update. But it was an intermittent problem so it's hard to say yet whether it's really fixed or not.

Okay, the above bug is not fixed by firmware version 1.1. Several times over the past week while doing some fall shooting with 5-shot AEB and the 2-second timer drive mode, the camera locked up at the end of the sequence and was unresponsive to any controls except the power switch. In each case, the 5th exposure was erroneously the same shutter speed as the 4th exposure, i.e. the 5th file was not correct. As before, turning the camera off & back on cleared the problem and shooting continued... usually without repeating the lockup or incorrect 5th exposure if I simply immediately re-shot the exact same AEB sequence with no settings changed.

I observed a new issue that seems unrelated -- twice while in Live View, the camera locked up so hard that even turning off the power switch would not clear the problem. With the power switch turned off & the top LCD blank, the Live View display actually stayed live and showed an image. Only popping out the battery was able to clear the problem. I never saw this behavior on firmware 1.0.

Another issue I saw is that during 5-shot AEB sequences, sometimes the shutter speed doesn't get updated on the top LCD display. The same shutter speed will be shown for a couple of successive frames, even though the actual recorded files are at the proper shutter speeds called for by the AEB settings. This is a cosmetic issue, fortunately, not affecting camera operation or recorded files.

So some stability improvements are still needed after firmware 1.1...

09-25-2014, 01:57 AM	#1
itshimitis Pentaxian Join Date: May 2011 Location: All over the place Posts: 3,535	First firmware update is available for 645Z I had an email from my contact at Ricoh UK today to say that the first update is ready: Latest PENTAX 645Z Firmware Update : Software Downloads \| RICOH IMAGING

09-30-2014, 09:49 AM	#13
Royce Howland Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Calgary, Alberta Posts: 275	Thomas, the shutter mechanism failed on my original 645D -- the same type of failure both times, on the same body. No trouble getting it fixed, it just takes a long time. ~10 weeks for the first repair, 12 weeks and counting the second time -- still not back yet, having been sent in the first week of July. My first repair involved a replacement of the shutter assembly, I imagine the second one will be the same. Shutter repairs have to go to Japan which is part of the delay. First Ricoh Canada looked at it to confirm shutter failure, then sent it on to Japan since there's no repair facility in North America qualified for this level of work on the digital 645 system... ---------- Post added 09-30-14 at 11:01 AM ---------- On the topic of the firmware update, with firmware 1.1 my 645Z does seem more stable. I think another bug I knew about is gone, knock on wood -- the issue with the camera locking up after an AEB sequence with 2-second self timer also in use has not repeated since I did the update. But it was an intermittent problem so it's hard to say yet whether it's really fixed or not. Unfortunately, not all gremlins have been eliminated. Yesterday I was shooting some horses in Av mode, AF.C autofocus, high speed continuous, ISO 800. With a long lens and live subjects, I typically shoot bursts of 3 - 4 frames for each "take" just to maximize chances of crisp detail, open eyelids, head & tail in a good position, etc. Well, one time when I hit the shutter button I heard a couple of "twangy" kind of noises from inside the chamber, not the normal sounds of the mirror flipping up & the shutter tripping. No exposures were made (or at least none were recorded), and the camera then did a sort of soft-reset on itself -- following that, it activated 5-shot AEB and reset my ISO from 800 down to 100. This was a weird situation, and only happened once. If I had to guess, it seems like some kind of internal error with the mirror or shutter wasn't handled properly, causing the camera to reset & the settings to get messed up. Flakey stuff like this never happened in 10's of thousands of frames put through my pair of 645D's. Aside from my regrettable shutter failures, my pair of D's were always rock solid and totally dependable. It makes me a bit less confident relying on the Z. I suspect at least one more firmware update is going to be needed to clear up some remaining issues. (And as already stated earlier, I'm a bit sensitive to shutter related issues so now I'm going to be watching this camera like a hawk for any signs of another impending shutter failure.) Last edited by Royce Howland; 09-30-2014 at 10:02 AM.

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09-25-2014, 04:50 AM	#2
Ed Hurst Site Supporter Join Date: May 2010 Location: Sydney Posts: 1,657	Thanks for the link. Unfortunately, I am having a problem. Following the instructions (as usual), when I turn the camera on (with the memory card already inserted containing the relevant file) pressing the MENU button in, nothing happens - it merely turns on as usual and does not offer me any update options. Any suggestions?

09-25-2014, 06:02 AM	#3
Thomas Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2008 Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 434	Are you using the SD 1 slot? SD 2 won't recognize firmware.

09-25-2014, 06:58 AM	#4
GarethC7 Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2014 Posts: 139	I love the way they say "improved stability for general performance" as one of the updates. That's about as nebulous as it gets.

09-25-2014, 07:34 AM	#5
Dreamsong Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2014 Posts: 39	Originally posted by Ed Hurst Thanks for the link. Unfortunately, I am having a problem. Following the instructions (as usual), when I turn the camera on (with the memory card already inserted containing the relevant file) pressing the MENU button in, nothing happens - it merely turns on as usual and does not offer me any update options. Any suggestions? I just updated my Z with no problems. As mentioned do you have the card in slot one. Is the file in the root directory of the card. Is the file named "Fwdc224b.bin" I had the menu button pressed in and I held it in while I turned it on as opposed to pressing it while turning it on, no idea if that makes a difference. And with all of the above done it went straight to a screen asking if I wanted to update from 1.00 --> 1.10.

09-25-2014, 09:40 AM	#6
gha128 Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2014 Posts: 49	Golly that's pretty vague on what changes other than prep for tethering

09-25-2014, 11:35 AM	#7
Ed Hurst Site Supporter Join Date: May 2010 Location: Sydney Posts: 1,657	Thanks guys. But this is really weird - I am doing all that and it's just not working. Slot 1. Holding the MENU button in before turning on and keeping it held in throughout turning on. The downloaded file is in the root directory of the SD card. Tried it with two different cards. Just no response whatever from the camera to the update file being there; the camera just turns on as normal. Not sure what to try next... ---------- Post added 09-26-14 at 05:07 AM ---------- OK - I worked it out! The file had a .cpgz file extension after the .bin extension - so the full name was "fwdc224b.bin.cpgz" (this is on a Mac in case that matters). I had not noticed that. I think that extension denotes that it's still a zip file. So I double clicked on it (on the computer) to let it extract the file (at which point the file appeared in the same folder without the .cpgz extension). Copying that file to the SD card root directory and using that as above worked fine (having reformatted the card in the camera first to start afresh). Phew!

09-25-2014, 02:11 PM	#8
Royce Howland Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Calgary, Alberta Posts: 275	I just applied the 1.10 firmware update to my 645Z, and I see at least 2 bugs I knew of have been fixed. The incorrect aperture reading in Manual mode when setting the lens aperture ring directly on FA lenses has now been fixed. And the inability of the camera to shoot continuously while in AF.C autofocus, using either Continuous H or L drive, combined with moving AF from the shutter button to the AF back button, also has been fixed. I'll see in coming days whether some of the other glitches I've noticed have been taken care of as well. One problem was really bugging me over the past week -- using the 2 second self timer drive mode in conjunction with 5-shot AEB would occasionally produce a 5th frame that was erroneously the same exposure as the 4th frame, after which the camera would lock up with all controls unresponsive except for the power switch. This repeated quite frequently, but not on every AEB sequence, so reproducing it may be a challenge. If the firmware fixed the issue I may only be able to guess at it if the problem doesn't re-surface after a few weeks. There were a few other weird one-time issues, we'll see how things go for awhile after this. All in all, after a casual eval today, it looks like a good firmware update that has quickly resolved a number of the initial issues with the camera. Kudos to Ricoh on getting this out...

09-25-2014, 03:08 PM - 1 Like	#9
Kerrowdown PEG Moderator Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Highlands of Scotland... "Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand" - William Blake Photos: Gallery Posts: 57,816	Originally posted by GarethC7 That's about as nebulous as it gets. Aye, but it fixes everything.

09-27-2014, 01:40 AM	#10
Thomasbrowphoto Veteran Member Join Date: May 2014 Location: NSW, Australia Posts: 335	Ill be putting this on my 645Z asap. I have noticed in the last week or so that my Z has been inconsistent with its exposures.. The settings stay the same but the actual exposure seems to vary (usually darker), Sounds like the shutter or curtains are doing something slightly off when it happens. But like every one else it only happens sometimes. Hopefully the firmware will change things.

09-27-2014, 10:11 AM	#11
Royce Howland Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Calgary, Alberta Posts: 275	Watch that very carefully, Thomas. Speaking as someone who has worked through two blown shutters on a 645D, I'm personally very sensitive to any shutter anomalies now.

09-29-2014, 03:39 PM	#12
Thomasbrowphoto Veteran Member Join Date: May 2014 Location: NSW, Australia Posts: 335	Originally posted by Royce Howland Watch that very carefully, Thomas. Speaking as someone who has worked through two blown shutters on a 645D, I'm personally very sensitive to any shutter anomalies now. Royce I have just sent my Z away to get this shutter looked at. The pentax Service/disrubuter here in Australia asked for the camera body to be sent to them immediately as they are suspecting a shutter/aperture leaver issue. Can you tell me what happened with your D's? And did the same camera fail twice? Any troubles getting it repaired by Pentax? Im Interested to hear how it all went down. Thanks

10-05-2014, 08:26 PM	#14
Royce Howland Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Calgary, Alberta Posts: 275	Originally posted by Royce Howland On the topic of the firmware update, with firmware 1.1 my 645Z does seem more stable. I think another bug I knew about is gone, knock on wood -- the issue with the camera locking up after an AEB sequence with 2-second self timer also in use has not repeated since I did the update. But it was an intermittent problem so it's hard to say yet whether it's really fixed or not. Okay, the above bug is not fixed by firmware version 1.1. Several times over the past week while doing some fall shooting with 5-shot AEB and the 2-second timer drive mode, the camera locked up at the end of the sequence and was unresponsive to any controls except the power switch. In each case, the 5th exposure was erroneously the same shutter speed as the 4th exposure, i.e. the 5th file was not correct. As before, turning the camera off & back on cleared the problem and shooting continued... usually without repeating the lockup or incorrect 5th exposure if I simply immediately re-shot the exact same AEB sequence with no settings changed. I observed a new issue that seems unrelated -- twice while in Live View, the camera locked up so hard that even turning off the power switch would not clear the problem. With the power switch turned off & the top LCD blank, the Live View display actually stayed live and showed an image. Only popping out the battery was able to clear the problem. I never saw this behavior on firmware 1.0. Another issue I saw is that during 5-shot AEB sequences, sometimes the shutter speed doesn't get updated on the top LCD display. The same shutter speed will be shown for a couple of successive frames, even though the actual recorded files are at the proper shutter speeds called for by the AEB settings. This is a cosmetic issue, fortunately, not affecting camera operation or recorded files. So some stability improvements are still needed after firmware 1.1...