D300 Firmware Info Needed

Reading some sites last night, some of the improvements listed by Nikon with the latest D300 1.03 firmware

upgrade is improved AF and improved Auto WB. Wondering if those that have performed the upgrade have noticed a

difference in these two attributes? I don't have the battery issue that some have. But I do feel my D300 does

back-focus once in awhile and not sure if it should go into Nikon or if the firmware update may solve this?

 

And if anybody has a link or two on how to do the firmware update on your own, other than the Nikon site, this

scaredy cat would apprecaite it. I'm currently away from my usual support of Nikon service centers and pro shop

who has always gladly done this for me over the years. If I botch it up, I have to courier it...

 

Thanks all,

 

G

Hi<P>

I'm sure some folks here will correct me if I'm wrong, but I looked at the info for the latest D300 firmware when I downloaded it and I'm sure I didn't see any mention of the firmware correcting anything other than the battery problem some people are having with the D300.<br>I haven't installed the upgrade yet as I have not had any issues with the camera. My apologies if I'm wrong and I know I'm not being very helpful with your question.<P>Paul

From what I've seen I also didn't see anything about it correcting anything but the battery problem. I haven't even witnessed the battery problem so I haven't done the upgrade just yet.

thanks, guys. Yes, it appears I was reading statements that pertained only to the D3. well, I have no battery problem so I'll forget about going through the trouble!

 

Sorry for the useless post, Shun.

No problem, Garrison.

 

I have never upgraded the firmware on my D300 either, and I have a very early model, purchased just a week after the D300 first became available in November last year.

The main reason is that I see no benefit at all from any stage of the upgrades.

I am sure that the risk for upgrade is tiny, but even so, why take such unnecessary risk for essentially no gain?

"but even so, why take such unnecessary risk for essentially no gain?"

 

Exactly. I think I'll leave well enough alone. The odd time it does back focus on me though.

In my opinion it is very unlikely that backfocus (front-focus) will be resolved by a firmware update other than giving you the possibility to set an offset for a given lens. I believe this option is already available in the first firmware?

Has anyone ever seen any evidence that an upgrade did any more than is officially claimed for it?

 

I suspect not.

I'm in the same position with my D40 since I don't think I need the latest upgrade and I'd have to fire up my Windows box just to separate the two files out of the EXE. (Yes, you can use a Nikon DSLR using purely Linux software!).

"Has anyone ever seen any evidence that an upgrade did any more than is officially claimed for it?"

 

Not with a Nikon camera - but I did not search for this. I see this often in other areas though. Not all corrections of errors want to go public :-P

<I>Has anyone ever seen any evidence that an upgrade did any more than is officially claimed for it?</I>

<P>

Unfortunately, we have, but in ways different from what you think.

<P>

Not too long ago, we had a D3 firmware upgrade version 1.10B that would in some cases corrupt some NEF frames if you are shooting at 9 frames/sec. Nikon quickly retracted that upgrade and then provided another patch a week or so later. But if your valuable images were corrupted in the mean time, tough luck.

<P>

<A HREF="http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-9309-9408">

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-9309-9408</A>

<P>

Back in 2005, Canon provided a firmware upgrade version 1.0.4 to the 20D. But that upgrade would completely lock up a very small percentage of the cameras. For those unlucky ones, their only solution was to send the camera back to Canon for repair. Canon quickly withdrew that version and replaced it with v1.0.5 a couple of days later.

<P>

<A HREF="http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-6460-7298">

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-6460-7298</A>

<P>

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

i have done the upgrade, by following the instructions literally. just put the firmware file one by one on a compactflash card, make sure battery is full and upgrade Firmware file A and Firmware file B. It was a piece of cake.

I bought a D300 7/4/08 and did the 1.03 firmware update the day it arrived. I never used the D300 before I did the upgrade but I can confirm the upgrade was very easy and that camera works great.

I'm about to do the upgrade, because I've had "no battery" problems with one of my D300s on a 70-200. I never sent off to

service for this problem and not sure it's the lens or camera or hardware or software. But I'm going to do the upgrade to

remove one possibility.

There are reports that there were other fixes in the D300 firmware update. Specifically, faster 14 bit shooting and improved auto focus tracking.

 

This this link for more info, including Thom Hogans comments

 

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1039&message=28642150