Nikon D850 Firmware C Upgrade to 1.10

This is the link to the new firmware download:

Nikon | Download center | D850 Firmware

 

These are the changes according to Nikon:

 

• The camera now also supports direct Wi-Fi connections to devices running SnapBridge. For more information, see the “Addendum to the User’s Manual” in which this feature is described. Before using this feature, upgrade to the following version of the app:

• Fixed the following issue:

I have just upgraded my D850 to verify the procedure.

Thanks, Shun. It sounds as though hell has frozen over and Nikon have actually added a feature in a firmware update? That said, possibly because I've used SnapBridge approximately twice, I'm struggling a bit to tell the difference between this and the previous Snapbridge functionality. Is it that you now don't/do need to be connected to an existing wireless network vs setting up its own network?

 

I got my firmware updated by Nikon a couple of weeks ago when I got a sensor clean. I should have waited...

Andrew, it sounds like you have used SnapBridge two more times than I have.

Well, I was doing my usual "take a photo of the screen on the back of the camera so I can tell my wife what I've just seen" when I thought "oh yeah..."

You can also connect the camera via wifi to third party software, not just Snapbridge. Also software for a computer, not just mobile phone. Quite a significant upgrade from the Snapbridge-tied previous firmware.

This allows practical transfers of even large jpgs and with reasonable speed and shorter connection times. But the connection is lost if I turn off the camera. That part does not happen when using the bluetooth connection. The bluetooth connection took a long time to establish and transfer times of very small jpgs was slow. 30s for 2MP; now I can transfer a 45MP basic jpg in 5s to iphone 6.

 

I will try next a studio shoot with laptop and some third party software and see if I can get it to work in a practical way. I know a wired connection is faster but I am always worried about tripping.

Edited May 9, 2019 by ilkka_nissila

Andrew, in the past you had to connect to Snapbridge via Bluetooth LE and only then you could make a wifi connection. Now you can just use the D850 wifi like with any device, without the bluetooth step. So things are faster and you are not limited to using the Snapbridge app.

 

With Bluetooth LE the advantage was that the connection would stay on when the camera is off and you didn't have to re-establish the connection to continue after turning the camera back on. But both the establishment of the connection and transfer times were slow. And people had problems making the connection in the first place.

Thanks, Ilkka. On the occasions I'm going to want it, that sounds useful. (I always had the bluetooth stuff turned off anyway except when I explicitly needed it, because I don't like the camera battery going flat on a shelf, and I'm a little nervous about having random radio transmitters enabled when I'm on flights, although I'd be fairly horrified if it was actually a major issue.) I'll upgrade and investigate. I still only expect to use it occasionally, but - as with video shooting - when I want it, it's nice to have.

 

Which third-party software are you trying?

Which third-party software are you trying?

 

qDslrDashboard has been mentioned to work by other people testing the new firmware. I will probably try that.

Thanks - I'll look into it.

Am I the only one that see the fun in the fact that the Z-series FW was announced months in advance, whereas this just pops up out of the blue?

 

Granted, I would also prefer getting face detect af and RAW video, but still...

Am I the only one that see the fun in the fact that the Z-series FW was announced months in advance, whereas this just pops up out of the blue?

 

Granted, I would also prefer getting face detect af and RAW video, but still...

All the Nikon Z mirrorless pre-announcements, such as the lens roadmap for the next 2, 3 years and up-coming firmware upgrades, are designed to create confidence and boost sales to a new camera system with a brand-new lens mount at its infancy such that it lacks some features (e.g. eye-detect AF) and choices for native lenses. To date, the Z system only has 5 different native lenses from Nikon, and 2 of the 5 are 24-70mm with plenty of overlap.

 

OTOH, the D850 is in the well-established F-mount system with 60 years of history.

qDslrDashboard / ControlMyCamera seems to work fine, allowing typical remote control and file transfer operations. LV image is displayed, you can focus, adjust settings, take shots, download images etc.

qDslrDashboard / ControlMyCamera seems to work fine, allowing typical remote control and file transfer operations. LV image is displayed, you can focus, adjust settings, take shots, download images etc.

Thanks for testing and reporting Illka. Does it transfer RAW or just JPEG?

I upgraded the firmware and installed qDslrDashboard. Just wow! This is what wifi connectivity should have been all along. Simple to connect with wifi, no bluetooth needed and it works flawlessly. qDslrDashboard is a quite a bit of software. Now you can really truly use this camera with the remote. Just make sure you shoot RAW+JPEG because it takes a while for the RAW to be downloaded to the Android. If you shoot RAW+JPEG the software will download the JPEG. Running it on Samsung Tab s2 and a Huawei Y9 (2019). Just perfect :)