D90 firmware wishlist

[Osslund]

1: Selectable 24p/25p
2: Manual control of shutter and ISO
3: Fix Stairstep
4: Higher bitrate
5: Manual aperature

Number 1 would make it perfect in PAL world with 50hz lights and integration with videoclip.

Number 2 would allow for clean low light scens.

Number 3 would make the AE fix obsolete.

Number 4 would make for greater images without artefacts.

Number 5 would make the manual adjustments complete!

[BMFM FILMS]

Is it possible for them to fix these things? Would a firmware upgrade really be able to do all that? if so then hell yeah I'm all for what you just mentioned.

[Rylan]

That sounds really good.
But are they known for firmware upgrades?Or do we rally outside the offices and beg them?

[Matthew Bennett]

If I could ask for one thing and one thing only, it would be:

FIXED BITRATE, ie like the Canon 5D.

This means the bitrate would stay at it's full capacity, around 1.8 mbps, which it is fully capable of doing, as we all know.
This also means the bitrate would not bottom out everytime there is a blur in the focal area, or a dark room, or a silhouette against anything...

Heaven...

Aargh!!!! (I just know it wont happen)

[Rexbron!]

1: Selectable 24p/25p
2: Manual control of shutter and ISO
3: Fix Stairstep
4: Higher bitrate
5: Manual aperature

1 and 2 are totally firmware fixable but 3 and 4 are, afaict due to the limited processing horsepower inside the camera and there is nothing they can do after the chip has been designed.

As for 5, use aperture priority or get a non-gelded lens.

[Osslund]

Number 4 would be fixed AND higher bitrate and that would place it as number 3!

How do we push Nikon to do this?

[Lammy]

How easy would it be for a good programmer to make a custom firmware?

I remember back when a d80 had those hacks, and even mobile phones have hacks to make their camera/video recording better.

[Carl]

How easy would it be for a good programmer to make a custom firmware?

I remember back when a d80 had those hacks, and even mobile phones have hacks to make their camera/video recording better.

Thats sounds really nice!

[bearing]

If I could ask for one thing and one thing only, it would be:

FIXED BITRATE, ie like the Canon 5D.

This means the bitrate would stay at it's full capacity, around 1.8 mbps, which it is fully capable of doing, as we all know.
This also means the bitrate would not bottom out everytime there is a blur in the focal area, or a dark room, or a silhouette against anything...

Heaven...

Aargh!!!! (I just know it wont happen)

Thats a good suggestion, just a comment. The codec (MJPEG) isn't made to lower the bitrate in simple scenes. That is just a side effect of using JPEG-compression. In still mode there are big differences in filesize of the JPEGs between simple and complex scenes as well. To make a constant bitrate codec they would have to make an algorithm which, for every picture, tries different JPEG-compressions until it hits the one which gives the expected bitrate.