Sony F3 Firmware v1.5

Now for v1.45 I can easily see this only being for the SCL-Z18X140 lens control. A minor update for most, though an important update for a few.

Which begs the question, what will the other features be?

As an aside, did anyone else have some quirky things happen for the last update. Like I had to reformat the cards for them to be recognised, and some menu items seemed to disappear, but were there after rebooting again?
 
It's also worth remembering that Sony has that SR-R1 recorder that communicates with the F3, and the whole XMPilot wifi metadata. Who knows, they may have minor fixes, tweaks, or updates for those features. I doubt many of us will ever notice though.

And the SR-R1 is supposed to get an uncompressed option soon, which again, might require minor compatibility tweaks.
 
Hi Peter - have you any footage you can share with us shot with your SCL-Z18X140 lens? Best wishes, Sparky
 
Spent the past 10 minutes going through the menus. Haven't found any workflow adjustments to the menus. Boot time of the camera was about 8 seconds.

Given Sony made an extraordinary effort to ask users for their input on the new firmware, I think we can still expect a significant improvement in the 1.5 version of the firmware.
 
Andrew Stone said:
Spent the past 10 minutes going through the menus. Haven't found any workflow adjustments to the menus. Boot time of the camera was about 8 seconds.

Given Sony made an extraordinary effort to ask users for their input on the new firmware, I think we can still expect a significant improvement in the 1.5 version of the firmware.
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I doubt it, unfortunately...
Our Sony PMW-F3 is officially "transferred" to "old hardware" with this minuscule last firmware upgrade. Another "proof" that Sony has other "toys" to worry about is the fact that even new OEM EVFs (introduced with F5/55) are not compatible with "ugly duckling" F3... At least I did not find any information or picture online that would state otherwise. It is a reality, our F3 is bound for scrap yard sooner than later. Don't hold your breath on any "firmware bling" from Mama Sony...
 
Tata Steva said:
Another "proof" that Sony has other "toys" to worry about is the fact that even new OEM EVFs (introduced with F5/55) are not compatible with "ugly duckling" F3.
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Steve don't forget that Sony had the F5 and F55 under development for a LONG time, including when they made their pitch to F3 owners a few months back asking them for workflow and feature improvements to roll into the 1.5 version of the F3 firmware which BTW they haven't released yet.

Sony would not be so fickle as to give deliberate false expectation on this particularly when they got people like Ned Stoltz and Alister Chapman to be the messengers of this. The amount of bad faith they would generate out of this would be significant to their key user base, to say the least.

I don't think it is time yet to dump on Sony Professional.
 
Tata Steva said:
I doubt it, unfortunately...
Our Sony PMW-F3 is officially "transferred" to "old hardware" with this minuscule last firmware upgrade. Another "proof" that Sony has other "toys" to worry about is the fact that even new OEM EVFs (introduced with F5/55) are not compatible with "ugly duckling" F3... At least I did not find any information or picture online that would state otherwise. It is a reality, our F3 is bound for scrap yard sooner than later. Don't hold your breath on any "firmware bling" from Mama Sony...
Click to expand...

Disagree. They did do some extensive research with professional users as so what we want in future firmware as Andrew points out. The F3 is very much alive and still being made. A compatibility issue with a future piece of hardware does not mean the camera will not have future firmware releases. Every few posts someone needs to post their skepticism about a significant update, but everyone needs reminding that Sony had showed a major interest in F3 updates and Peter has said that they have been working to fulfill those requests.
 
Sure Gemtlemen!
i would like to be wrong on this, but all this dragging with anything related with our camera makes me skeptical... Nothing would me happier than having cool "new features" added to this camera ( firmware or hardware) as I intend to keep it for some time, and not dump it "like it's hot" on use market for ridiculous price...
 
I agree. The fact that Peter C. wrote that version 1.5 will now be 1.45 to me means that there is no 1.5 coming and this is a minor update. He could have written that there would be a more major feature update in the future, but did not. I suspect that the decision has been made that this is a "mature product" and we will not see many more changes, if any.
 
rather than leave us to our speculation, perhaps someone more knowledgeable and with inside information can disabuse us of our misconceptions...?
 
lasikdenver said:
I agree. The fact that Peter C. wrote that version 1.5 will now be 1.45 to me means that there is no 1.5 coming and this is a minor update. He could have written that there would be a more major feature update in the future, but did not. I suspect that the decision has been made that this is a "mature product" and we will not see many more changes, if any.
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I would draw rather the opposite conclusion from the same data. Choosing to renumber the update numer implies it excludes functionality that had been planned for 1.5, and that perhaps they realized that while said functionality is delayed, they could go ahead and release the minor functionality that is ready now.

For instance, one feature that may be coming in 1.5 is compatibility with the new SxS Pro Plus cards. But those cards may be delayed in production, and therefore so is the firmware coding.

If they don't plan to release any more updates, they could have just called this 1.5
 
Also the fact that 1.5 was teased in the first place would lead one to believe that there was some more significant updates planned. The fact they decided to release 1.45 now is only in response to a particular piece of hardware...there has not been any retraction that 1.5 is to still come to fruition.
 
Duke M. said:
Now for v1.45 I can easily see this only being for the SCL-Z18X140 lens control. A minor update for most, though an important update for a few.

So, what exactly does this minor update do?
I have the SCL-Z18X140, and although I have yet to use the zoom feature on the lens, ( simply use it as a "variable prime" ), it would be good to know that there's an option to use an external zoom control if this is indeed what this update does initiate.
........and if so, what external zoom controllers are / would be compatible with the camera after this update. I know of none.
Where, how, would a zoom control connect on the F3?
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My understanding is the lens control box will be called CBK-DCB01.

It will connect to the remote/spare port on the bottom-right of the back of the camera - the one used for 3D-Link.

As for compatibilty with other manufacturers lens controls, I have no idea. I suspect it's a digital control not an analog one, so we'll probably have to wait until it's in the field for 3rd party engineers to start figuring out how it works.
 
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