Firmware Friday: New features for Ricoh GR III; Ricoh Theta Z1 also gets some tweaks

posted Friday, July 5, 2019 at 9:04 AM EDT

Our regular Firmware Friday roundup returns this week as an all-Ricoh affair, as the company was the only one to release any new firmware in the past seven days. And with that being the case, it's going to be a very short and sweet roundup indeed.

So what's new from Ricoh? Well, there are two of the company's cameras which have been updated, both models sold under its own brandname, rather than that of its Pentax brand. The pocket-friendly Ricoh GR III gets some new features, while the impressive Ricoh Theta Z1 360-degree spherical panoramic camera also gets some more minor tweaks.

Ricoh GR III

Starting things off with the Ricoh GR III, the release notes for firmware version 1.20 (download here), which just landed yesterday, are as follows:

Added the following enhanced features:
- [Grain Effect]
  [Grain Effect] has been added to [Monotone], [Soft Monotone], [Hard Monotone] and [Hi-Contrast B&W] mode as adjustment items under [Image control] of the　　[Image Process Setting] menu in the [Still Image Setting].
- [Horizon Correction]
  [Horizon Correction] has been added to the [Shooting Assist] menu in the [Still Image Setting].
Improvements:
- From the power off state, the start-up time when starting by pressing and holding the Playback button has been shortened.
- Improved the response of the release when shooting subjects with different brightness continuously.
- In [Auto-area AF], improved the phenomenon that the focus on behind in rare cases.
- Improved stability for general performance.

Ricoh Theta Z1

For the Theta Z1, meanwhile, changes in firmware version 1.11.1 (download here) are as follows:

The displayed device name when connected via Bluetooth has been changed, and connectivity has been improved.
Old: THETA + serial number (THETAYL12345678)
New: Numerical part of the serial number (12345678)
Bug fix

And that's all for this week. Be sure to check back next time for more firmware news!

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