European Bee-eater pair posing above their nesting tunnel. Southern Hungary. Nikon D4 with Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/4G ED VR II AF Lens, 1/1250 @ f5.6, auto ISO at 360, EV comp -.7, Jobu designs JR3 gimal head and tripod. More images from Europe coming soon.
Nikon DSLR firmware updates
June 2nd update
Good news!
The new firmware installed without a problem and after a full day of shooting I can say that the firmware works as advertised, not a single lockup with my D4 or D800E.
Currently while I leading a tour in Hungary both of my new Nikon bodies, a D4 and a D800E, are locking-up. This is happening at least a few times each an hour! The camera stops in the middle of shooting and green memory card access light on the back of the camera stays on. The only way to get the camera working again is to pull the battery. By doing this though you lose the image or images that were not written to the card yet. I was hoping to wait until I return to the US to try the firmware update fix but I would rather not use them in this state so I am downloading the files now. Thankfully Nikon released this firmware update now, I hope it will fix the problem once and for all. By the way I read that the lock-ups were attributed to a certain menu setting combination but this was not the case on my bodies. So I am updating my firmware as I write this, hopefully this will do the trick.
Normally I dont give firmware updates much priority especially when I am on the road working. Even if the update did some major changes I would never change firmware on the road to avoid the chance of having the camera bricked (dead and unrecoverable) while updating, this I would leave me stuck without a working camera. I know from experience what its like to be out of the country with a couple of broken cameras (my record is three) and it is not a good feeling, trust me.
Follow these Nikon USA update links for D4 and for D800 owners, note that the normal D800 and D800E use different firmware, see the links below.
Nikon Firmware update links at the Nikon USA site:
D4:
http://support.nikonusa.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/17815/~/d4-firmware-a%3A-1.01-%2F-b%3A1.01
D800
http://support.nikonusa.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/17811/~/d800-firmware-a%3A-1.00-%2F-b%3A1.01
D800E
http://support.nikonusa.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/17813/~/d800e-firmware-a%3A-1.00-%2F-b%3A1.01
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