Notably, the new firmware adds
- Improved noise reduction for low light usage
- Powered zoom lens features to work with the new X-Series lenses
- 25p mode for PAL cameras
- 30p mode for NTSC cameras
- Improvements to auto focus
- Improvements to burst mode
The better online discussion as to what the new firmware provides is likely to be here.
Noise reduction – I shot a test clip before and after, using 1080/24p video mode at ISO 2500. There is a noticeable improvement but noise is certainly visible – just guessing but it seems it could be as much as 40% to 50% less noise. It is possible that the noise improvement is better at ISO 3200; I believe 2500 is the highest the native image sensor goes to in video mode and 3200 is done through software signal processing. I think. I have not looked at the noise in terms of still images.
HBR – I previously wrote that I wasn’t sure what was happening here. My mistake. On PAL cameras, this is a new 25p mode and on NTSC cameras this is a new 30p mode. My mistake was that I had inadvertently rendered my new 30p video as a 24p mp4 file, which meant some frame blending had occurred. To correct what I wrote previously, the new HBR/1080/30p looks great!
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