Firmware Friday: Pentax K-S2 autofocus improved; Canon XF200-series camcorders get IP streaming
posted Friday, July 3, 2015 at 3:37 PM EDT
With July 4th fast approaching, our Firmware Friday roundup is here to help get your camera or camcorder performing at its best before you shoot the fireworks. And this week, it's Pentaxians and Canonites who're getting the tweaks they need -- specifically, owners of the Pentax K-S2 DSLR which we're currently in the process of reviewing, as well as the Canon XF200 and XF205 camcorders.
Pentax K-S2 focus improvements
Since still cameras are our main focus here at Imaging Resource, we'll start our roundup with Pentax. The company has just updated the Pentax K-S2 to firmware version 1.02, and there are a few worthwhile improvements in the new release. Perhaps most importantly, performance and stability of the camera's phase-detection autofocus system has been improved.
There's also a fix for a problem that sometimes caused DNG-format raw files from the K-S2 to be processed incorrectly, and the recording volume of movies shot with an external microphone has also been adjusted. You can download the new Pentax K-S2 firmware version 1.02 here.
Canon XF200 / XF205 IP streaming
That's it for Ricoh's Pentax brand, but what of the Canon XF200 and XF205 camcorders? Well here, the new firmware version 1.0.3.0 is focused on adding new features, and improving existing ones. Perhaps most significantly, support for IP streaming has been added, meaning that you can now use these camcorders to broadcast live video. You can also now record slow and fast-motion video in MP4 format.
In addition, the zoom should now function better when using the Browser Remote application to control the camcorder remotely, and the user interface used to configure network settings has been simplified. Get the new Canon XF200 version 1.0.3.0 firmware here, and the Canon XF205 firmware version 1.0.3.0 firmware here.
And that's it for this week's Firmware Friday. Check back next time for more firmware news, and if you're in the United States, have a great July 4th!
(Camera parts image courtesy of Kelly Hofer / Flickr; used under a Creative Commons CC-BY-2.0 license. Image has been modified from the original.)