Nikon makes old batteries new again, with firmware for 11 Coolpix cameras
posted Wednesday, April 24, 2013 at 1:20 PM EDT
Nikon has released a whole slew of firmware updates over the last few days, covering almost a dozen different camera models: ten from the Coolpix S-series, plus the Coolpix P7700 premium compact.
In 10 of the 11 updates, the change made is identical: resolving a firmware issue that could potentially cause the camera to refuse to charge a fully (or nearly) drained battery pack. The problem affected the Coolpix S205, S3000, S3100, S3300, S4000, S4100, S4300, S6200, S6300, and S9300 when used with the EH-68P AC charging adapter and UC-E6 USB cable, and essentially made the battery unusable once you'd discharged it to a certain point. unless you had access to an external charger or unaffected camera with which to recharge it. Now, you can put those batteries back in use once you've applied the firmware update, available from the links below:
The Nikon Coolpix P7700 also gets new firmware, but it's not affected by the recharging issue found on the S-series models. Three changes are made in its firmware: a problem preventing exposures of one second or longer for all but the first exposure in a bracketed series has been resolved, the accuracy of the virtual horizon function improved, and the interval between exposure-bracketed shots reduced.
You can find the new firmware for this model at the link below: