Ok, so this blog is a work in progress as the announcement of the Nikon I am advancing campaign seems to have been delayed(it was originally due for January 19th). I first heard about the new firmware update program via Nikon Rumors who had access to a leaked press announcement that had made its way onto the web. It seems that the recent D750 light leak issue had put a downer on this so perhaps they have put it back for those reasons? Who knows but as soon as they release the new firmware for the Nikon D800 I aim to upgrade one of my bodies and keep the other as it is and compare them in the following ways.

New Nikon white balance algorithms

When Nikon released the D800, D600 and a few other cameras a lot of users seemed to notice the white balance always gave a green tint, I haven’t seen it in mine but on the odd occasion whether psychology has any hand in it, I have seen images with a green tint coming from my camera. I always correct it whether its just the scene or the camera but I aim to compare the white balance on the current camera firmware against the updated firmware

New Metallic Picture Control with sample images

This will be interesting as Nikon are describing it as “providing photographers with a unique high-contrast setting which is both natural and eye-catching”. My guess is that its bound to look like a HDR image but I could be proved wrong.

New Electronic shutter with sample images

Now I will definitely be keen to test this out on the D800, especially for landscapes to see if it provides a sharper image. Also will it mean quicker shutter speeds higher than 1/8000? If so I really want to try it out at capturing raindrops during the day.

Flat Picture Control

I have rarely played around with picture controls and I’m still uncertain as to whether it affects RAW files anyway but i’ll be sure to go ahead and test the new Flat and Metallic Picture controls against existing picture profiles.

For now that is all I know Nikon will be improving or changing with the new I am advancing firmware. However as it is a new campaign, it looks like they are hinting that new improvements will always be added which surely must be Nikon following in the footsteps of Fujifilm’s Kaizen philosophy which has proved successful and hasn’t seemed to harmed sales of future cameras. Although I’m quite sure my friend Colin would have upgraded his original x100 to a later model by now if he was stuck on the original firmware :)