What's new
GR User Forum

The spot for all Ricoh GR camera users

Register for free, meet other Ricoh GR users, share your images, help others, have fun!

Tell your friends about us!

New GRDII firmware 2.10 released!

odklizec

odklizec

PK
Tomorrow will be publicly released another feature enhancing FW for GRDII! Some of the enhancements are coming from GX200 FW, some of them are new and GRDII specific.

Here is the official announcement in Japanese:
http://ricoh.co.jp/dc/gr/digital2/firmware.html

and here in Googlish:
http://64.233.179.104/translate_c?u=htt ... en&ie=UTF8

Here are the enhancements (if I got the googlish translation right):
- More precise white balance and color correction, ability to correct WB and color balance even in play mode (GX200 feature)
- Noise reduction based of the selected ISO sensitivity. (This is definitely GX200 feature. Unfortunately, it does not mean that the NR is not done on lower ISO values)
- Automatic aperture value shift to prevent overexposure (I'm not quite sure about this)
- Actual value of ISO sensitivity displayed even in Auto and AutoHi ISO modes (Nice one! The actual ISO value was always saved in Exif but the camera displayed only AUTO or AUTO HI, which was not very useful)
- More details about photo displayed in Playback mode. (I think this enhancement is related to preview mode, right after tacking the photo. I hope it's now possible to display also the histogram?)

Well...well, there is still no sign of +-1 and 2 BKT and true NR OFF in JPEG. Maybe in next MAJOR upgrade? ;)
 
Re: New GRDII firmware 2.10 to be released!

Finally a bigger update for the GRD II but I hope the new NR is working better. Don't understand why now the GRD II, the Ricoh flagship camera, is trailing behind the GX200 and does not get all the flash settings, movable AF point in spot AF mode etc.
I hope Ricoh can fix the display freeze issue somehow in the firmware and the change the camera from focus priority to shutter priority.
 
Re: New GRDII firmware 2.10 to be released!

The new FW is live, unfortunately, there is a serious problem in new Aperture Shift feature, causing the camera to freeze! The problem was first mentioned here:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read. ... e=28718608

Here are the reproducible steps:

- Set the camera to A mode
- Set the aperture to f2.4 (it does not matter what value you set)
- Set the ISO to 1600 (it does not matter what value you set)
- Set the Aperture Shift to ON
- Now point the camera to a strong light source and half press the shutter. If the light source is strong enough it does not really matter what aperture and ISO value you set. If the camera decides that the given aperture number is too low (too wide) for the available light, it raises its value. Once it reaches f9 and shutter time 1/2000, the camera locks up. The only cure is to remove the battery.

So my advice for now is to do not install this new FW or do not use the Aperture Shift feature. I'm sure Ricoh will soon issue a fixed FW.
 
Re: New GRDII firmware 2.10 to be released!

Here are my impressions of the new firmware.

Today, Ricoh released the new firmware update for the GRD II. It offers the following function enhancements:
- Auto aperture setting to avoid overexposure,
- White balance adjust option like in the R8 and GX200
- Noise reduction on only when over ISO 400, 800 or only at ISO 1600

Of all these features I expected the NR option to finally bring some change to the smearing but I've been wrong, jpgs are still unusable although slightly better. Tested with two GRD II's next to each other and the one with the new firmware had slightly more noise and was sharper but this could have been just different metering. The GRD I produced better but underexposed images at the same settings.

The Auto Aperture setting works as long as you don't reach the lowest aperture and fastest shutter speed or the camera will crash. So not really usable in all instances and could cause you to miss shots.

The WB adjust option was the feature I thought least useful since the jpgs are not really useful for me and it looked too slow to adjust when shooting. The good news is that it is the best feature and pretty fast and easy to adjust when shooting. Yes, the jpgs are not usable and it does not apply to RAW files but it's a cool idea.
Be aware that you can adjust it during shooting even when using RAW but during playback only when using jpg WITHOUT RAW. Also as mentioned, the settings do not apply to RAW even if you select camera WB.

The other enhancements were not really important for me. Like displaying the correct ISO when using Auto ISO or Auto High ISO.
 
Re: New GRDII firmware 2.10 to be released!

Somewhat useful firmware upgrade. I thought the jpg smearing looked a bit better to me and also thought the grain looked a little finer in RAW. Since I use RAW and B&W jpg the WB adjustment was not that
big a deal but just a nice to have option. I can't say I ever noticed a big problem with the auto WB on my Ricoh cameras.
Thanks all for pointing out the Auto Aperture problem I suspect Ricoh will fix this soon?
 
Re: New GRDII firmware 2.10 to be released!

So is it worth it to upgrade to the new FW or not? I just got my GRD2 less than a week ago and I love it, but am a fan of staying up to date on things. Is the image quality affected that much? Every little bit counts, but I want to know if I should update it for sake of my images.
 
Re: New GRDII firmware 2.10 to be released!

I recommend the upgrade, install and have a great time with the new 2.1.

I shot in JPG, and NR somehow useful for ISO 800 and above.
 
Re: New GRDII firmware 2.10 to be released!

Hi, I had an issue with upgrading the firmware using a Panasonic 4GB SDHC card (Class 6). The camera fails to recognize the firmware files from this card, although it works perfectly while shooting pictures. Using an "old" SanDisk Ultra II 512MB works just fine. Is this normal?
 
Re: New GRDII firmware 2.10 to be released!

I'm using the same Panasonic card with GRDII and it works flawlessly, even during FW upgrade? Are you sure the FW files are in card's root directory? How did you transfer the FW files (via camera USB cable or card reader)? And finally, did you try to format the card in the camera?
 
Re: New GRDII firmware 2.10 to be released!

Aah! It probably makes me look like an idiot, but from the presentation on Ricoh's instructions I thought the FW files should be in the DCIM folder :oops: . I guess the different illustrations on Windows and Mac made me think to do so. I hope this is/was my problem. I'll know the next time an update is there.
I did format the card in camera, and I copied the files via camera USB cable.
Strange though that the FW files WERE found on the SanDisk card, on the very same faulty location.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top