Nikon Rumors: Z8 and Z9 Firmware updates in December?

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fcotterill

fcotterill

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Perhaps a Xmas surprise? Although rumoured only. Precapture RAW will be gladly received.

nikonrumors.com

New Nikon Z8/Z9 firmware updates rumored to be released soon (new pre-capture in RAW feature?) - Nikon Rumors

New Nikon Z8/Z9 firmware updates are rumored to be released soon – most likely in December. One possible new feature that could be released is “pre-capture in RAW”. Pre-capture for JPG already exists in the Z9: “How Pre-Release Burst works. Once Pre-Release Burst is set, you can confirm...
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JoelKlein said:
30fps RAW,
If Nikon could do it, why not release it that way?
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i’m guess for he and he* they probably didn’t write the code, they are probably using sw libraries from intopix. it seems likely that intopix now has a more optimized library or maybe they developed an fpga version or such
JoelKlein said:
Will it suddenly become capable of shooting 40fps RAW next year?
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while anything is possible based on how much we don’t know, if my first guess is correct i’d say it is unlikely in the existing hw. you don’t often keep making huge jumps forward. you work to optimize it and after that there are likely diminishing returns
JoelKlein said:
And add global shutter too?!
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nope. that would require a new sensor
 
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fwiw this one has a bit more specific rumors

nikonrumors.com

Rumored Nikon Z9/Z8 firmware updates roadmap - Nikon Rumors

I received this Nikon Z9/Z8 firmware roadmap covering the firmware updates that should appear in the future – I am not sure how legitimate this information is, so treat it as a rumor (you are on NikonRumor after all): 45M 30fps RAW continuous shooting. Continuous shooting speed switching...
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My wish list:
  • RAW pre-cap
  • A way to map Subject Detection options to a button (paired with AF Area Mode selection, like they have it in the i-Menu)
  • Different shutter sounds for the Z8 (Z9 now has this)
  • Shutter Delay (Z9 now has this)
  • Make the dedicated AF Area Mode button on the left side mappable to all other functions
  • The ability to save more than one Recall Shooting Functions setting and map to multiple buttons
 
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Another option would be to have reduced FPS for pre capture, say 10 fps. In fact, even if pre capture at 20 fps is -possible, it will be good to have 2 different fps settings, one for pre-capture and one for normal shooting.

Cameron T said:
I don't understand your question. Yes, that's pre capture. Have you ever tried using it yourself? Or read the manual section on it?

I imagine in he/he* we could get 30fps precapture
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Cameron T said:
I don't understand your question. Yes, that's pre capture. Have you ever tried using it yourself? Or read the manual section on it?

I imagine in he/he* we could get 30fps precapture
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I didn’t try pre capture because it’s JPEG.
I’m just trying to understand the facts.

The Z8/9 has a physical amount of RAM buffer. When shooting 20fps RAW loosles, with a Delkin black card, the buffer would fill after about 4 seconds. when it’s filled, the fps would drop and begin stuttering.

My question: If Nikon allows 30fps, it will eat into the 4 seconds, and begin stuttering around 3 seconds. Correct?

Now, with pre capture RAW, and you hit the shutter, the buffer is basically already full, like the 3 or 4 seconds are up, and begin to stutter immediately.

That’s my thoughts, and that was what I meant to ask.

I know there are ideas to use HE*, even with HE*, and a Delkin black, can the Z8/9 buffer keep up with 30fps? Or if the pre capture is RAW?

All calculations are back to the drawing board.
 
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JoelKlein said:
I didn’t try pre capture because it’s JPEG.
I’m just trying to understand the facts.

The Z8/9 has a physical amount of RAM buffer. When shooting 20fps RAW loosles, with a Delkin black card, the buffer would fill after about 4 seconds. when it’s filled, the fps would drop and begin stuttering.

My question: If Nikon allows 30fps, it will eat into the 4 seconds, and begin stuttering around 3 seconds. Correct?
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No, because it doesn't write to the card. It'll stay in the buffer and just rewrite the buffer, which is faster than writing to the card.
 
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With pre capture RAW, if you press the shutter, and keep it pressed for about 4 seconds, the buffer full of data has to write it all to the card, all while new data is coming in.
The writing to the card is slower from the new stream of data getting in to the buffer, so it must begin to backlog and stutter in the first second.

Correct me if I’m wrong
 
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You are wrong. It only writes to the buffer, and not the card until you fully depress the shutter, and then you only get the last (up to one second depending on settings), and not as long after the shutter either.

Please read the manual on how pre capture works.

Once you're shooting normally, you're shooting normally and if you're shooting for 4 seconds after the fact you're probably wasting frames somewhere
 
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JoelKlein said:
With pre capture RAW, if you press the shutter, and keep it pressed for about 4 seconds, the buffer full of data has to write it all to the card, all while new data is coming in.
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With pre-capture cameras normally save the last ~1s to a circular buffer when you half press the shutter.

So if your buffer has 4s worth of shots when you fully press the shutter with pre-capture on, you'll end up with 1s worth of shots before you fully pressed it and 3s worth of shots after the press.

So if it would have normally started to stutter after 4s, with pre-capture it will stutter after 3s.

This is no matter how long you keep your shutter button half-pressed*.

You should actually see this in the frames remaining counter in your EVF as it ticks down at half pressed until ~1s has passed and then it stabilizes to the remaining frames value untill you fully press the shutter buton.

*Nikon has a gotcha in that the pre-capture feature stops buffering after 5 minutes and you need to re-engage it. (Try to keep a camers and lens steady on the same subject for 5 minutes...).
 
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JoelKlein said:
With pre capture RAW, if you press the shutter, and keep it pressed for about 4 seconds, the buffer full of data has to write it all to the card, all while new data is coming in.
The writing to the card is slower from the new stream of data getting in to the buffer, so it must begin to backlog and stutter in the first second.

Correct me if I’m wrong
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You’re at least partially correct here, maybe completely. I’m trying to follow along with all the comments. When you are shooting normally at 20FPS and run into the buffer at 4 seconds, the camera begins writing the first image to the card immediately once processed, followed by the subsequent images until you completely fill the buffer. When using pre capture, the camera doesn’t begin writing the images until the shutter button is pressed storing the images in the buffer dumping them after the predetermined time, say 1 second for example. So with 20FPS and 1 second pre capture, you would have 20 images in the buffer to be written to the card immediately once fully pressing the shutter button and then sending 20 fps consecutively to the buffer/card for as long as you press the shutter button until you completely fill the buffer and run into stuttering depending how fast the camera can write to the card. In your example of 4 seconds, you would certainly get less because the pre captured 20 frames are already in the buffer and sent immediately to the card and didn’t begin writing to the card after the first image was captured as if shooting normally. I would estimate you might you get your 1 second of precapture and maybe up to 2 seconds after before stuttering, but it will really be dependent on card speed. Now if you use HE* instead of lossless compressed raw, I think it would be able to keep up just fine with the faster cards. Another consideration is whether in an instance of using precapture, what situation would require you to keep shooting for more than a second afterwards as normally you are trying to capture a specific moment of action that you may not be quick enough to otherwise; I’m sure some have use cases though. I don’t think 30fps lossless compressed with pre capture is possible, at least not 1 second worth, but may be with HE, HE*.
 
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I think this firmware is just a fantasy. I will be surprised if it arrives.
Ok that’s what I keep saying. I will be delighted to be wrong but I have to admit 4.10 is actually meeting my needs very well already. If Nikon adds more features I will happily install then but I am not sure I need more.
 
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ccirelli said:
My wish list:
  • RAW pre-cap
  • A way to map Subject Detection options to a button (paired with AF Area Mode selection, like they have it in the i-Menu)
  • Different shutter sounds for the Z8 (Z9 now has this)
  • Shutter Delay (Z9 now has this)
  • Make the dedicated AF Area Mode button on the left side mappable to all other functions
  • The ability to save more than one Recall Shooting Functions setting and map to multiple buttons
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I agree. #2, 5 and 6 are simple programming and absolutely necessary. Especially, on points 2 and 6...
 
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To sum it, I am 100% correct. Pre capture does eat in into the buffer.
One might say that I’m still getting the 4 seconds, because pre capture adds the 1 seconds, followed by the next 3 on the shutter.

And I was referring to pre capture RAW with 30FPS RAW, it would be almost impossible to utilize it before the buffer is backed up.

Regarding the question as to why I would keep the shutter pressed for 4 seconds? That’s a different topic. But in short: Conowingo.
The critical fish run takes between 4-6 seconds.
 
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I feel the confusion arise from the word "buffer", it is just high speed memory. it could be more than 1 dedicated memory that serve different purposes or a single memory but logically separated for different usage like our computers and phones.

If it were the latter, one can have the raw data dump onto an allocated size (1sec sized raw data) that overwrite itself with new raw data on shutter release is half pressed, as long as the shutter is half pressed.

When shutter button is fully pressed, raw data gets processed likely sequentially with the data in the 1 sec memory first while the rest of the data gets buffer to memory waiting to be processed.

Once processed, the stream can now be written to the cards which depending on the cards speed, queued data will be buffered yet to another section of the memory to be written.

Our concept of buffer is just the Rxx number remaining which is just a front that Nikon shows for ease of grasp. What happen under the hood can be a whole lot more and depending on implementation, optimization might be possible which might lead to improvement. Hopefully 😁
 
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Joel N said:
I feel the confusion arise from the word "buffer", it is just high speed memory. it could be more than 1 dedicated memory that serve different purposes or a single memory but logically separated for different usage like our computers and phones.

If it were the latter, one can have the raw data dump onto an allocated size (1sec sized raw data) that overwrite itself with new raw data on shutter release is half pressed, as long as the shutter is half pressed.

When shutter button is fully pressed, raw data gets processed likely sequentially with the data in the 1 sec memory first while the rest of the data gets buffer to memory waiting to be processed.

Once processed, the stream can now be written to the cards which depending on the cards speed, queued data will be buffered yet to another section of the memory to be written.

Our concept of buffer is just the Rxx number remaining which is just a front that Nikon shows for ease of grasp. What happen under the hood can be a whole lot more and depending on implementation, optimization might be possible which might lead to improvement. Hopefully 😁
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That is possible. Nikon could have more chip real estate inside to unlock as they see fit… maybe they have the global shutter capability too. Who knows?!
 
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