Firmware Friday: New features and fixes for Sony Alpha A7 III, A7R III and RX0; Nikon Coolpix B700 too

posted Friday, April 12, 2019 at 7:09 PM EDT

After last week's monumental Firmware Friday roundup, the latest in our regular weekly series is more of a bite-sized morsel, bringing with it news of updates for just four cameras in the past seven days. Let's get right down to finding out what's new with the Nikon B700, Sony A7 III, A7R III and the CCB-WD1 Camera Control Box...

Nikon Coolpix B700

Starting off with Nikon, firmware version 1.5 (download here) adds support for SnapBridge 1.2, and fixes a handful of bugs. Full details from the release notes are as follows:

Added support for SnapBridge version 1.2 and later.
Fixed the following issues:
- - If a movie was recorded in “U (User settings) mode” with RAW + Fine or RAW + Normal for Image quality, the Image quality option stored using Save user settings would change to RAW.
- - If Save user settings was used to save user settings with On selected for Multiple exposure, Multiple exposure would revert to Off if the camera was turned off with the mode dial rotated to “U (User settings) mode”.
- - Zoom would be unavailable if the user choose an option for Language but adjusted no other settings during the initial setup process.
- - Interval timer photography would end after 10,000 shots.
- - The camera would sometimes fail to pair correctly with certain Android devices.

Sony Alpha A7 Mark III and A7R Mark III; CCB-WD1 Camera Control Box

Moving along to Sony for the remainder of this week's news, let's take a look first of all at firmware version 3.0 for the A7 Mark III (download here for Windows / here for MacOS) and for the A7R Mark III (download here for Windows / here for MacOS). Changes for both are identical, as follows from the release notes:

Adds real-time Eye AF for animals

NOTES:
- It is not possible to detect human and animal eyes simultaneously
- Eye detection may not be possible and depends on the environment, animal type, and movement of the animal
- Allows you to operate the real-time EYE AF by half-pressing the shutter button or by pressing the AF-ON button
Adds the Interval Shooting function
Allows operation with the wireless remote commander RMT-P1BT (sold separately)
Allows you to assign the [MENU] to a custom key
Allows [MENU] tab operation with the Fn button
Improves the overall stability of the camera

And finally, we come to firmware version 2.00 for the CCB-WD1 Camera Control Box (download here), which can be used both with the RX0 and RX0 II action cameras

Adds the following functions for the RX-0M2 camera:
- Clear Image Zoom
- NOTE: The zoom function is not supported with the DSC-RX0 camera
- One Push AF
Improves the following basic functions:
- Faster transfer of files from the Camera Control Box to a computer
- Allows import of all new files (only newest files) from all cameras
- Allows import of all files from all cameras
- No limit on file size to be transferred from Camera Control Box to a computer (4G was the limit before)
- NOTE: It is possible to transfer movie files up to 40GB
- Allows naming files with shooting time to distinguish simultaneously-shot content
Improves overall operation stability