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Author Topic: Engineers improve processing through firmware?  (Read 2937 times)

Tim Lookingbill

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Engineers improve processing through firmware?
« on: May 15, 2008, 02:13:24 am »

Anyone know if a digicam engineer or camera manufacturer of any brand in general can manipulate the camera firmware in an attempt at changing or improving the algorithms programmed into incamera processing of jpegs after the camera has left the factory?

Can the image settings that control things like saturation, contrast, etc. already set at the factory be manipulated in this manner after the sale of the camera to the consumer? I'ld like or wish that the contrast slider setting on my Pentax K100D would go one more notch lower so much that I'ld like to call up Pentax customer service and ask them to adjust this setting within the firmware.

I'm not holding my breath on that ever happening but it would be nice to have that option and to know whether it exists.

I've tried out Raw processing with several apps but I don't have the patience, money and upgrades required to get serious about it. I'm pretty satisfied 75% of the time shooting jpegs.
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bill t.

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Engineers improve processing through firmware?
« Reply #1 on: May 15, 2008, 03:48:43 am »

The cost of the best, high end, professional-grade equipment with those kinds of adjustments already made available would seem trivial compared to the cost of having a competent engineer hack the microcontrollers in a consumer product.

The software in cameras is usually working hard not just on the imaging algorithms, but also on correcting for issues, errors, omissions in the basic camera design, and sometimes dubious features.  Not likely that manufacturers would want all that stuff hanging out in the wind for public viewing, or that they would dare to intervene trivially in such programmatic houses of cards.

If you are almost happy with jpegs, consider using something like Picasa for RAW conversion.  Last time I looked at it, you could waltz through large numbers of RAW conversions to slightly-better-than-jpeg quality in very little time indeed (like several per minute), much faster than with any of the higher end packages.
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Tim Lookingbill

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Engineers improve processing through firmware?
« Reply #2 on: May 15, 2008, 12:24:24 pm »

Thanks for the reply, bill t.

I kind of thought so. I posted this more out of wishful thinking. Probably easier to just find another camera brand/model that offers less contrasty renderings of jpegs. I know they're out there.

I've analyzed quite a few images from different cameras in my research on deciding which camera to buy and noticed exposure inconsistancies in the rendering of jpegs of similar scenes and exposure between models. I suspect the quality of lens has to be factored in as well.

Wish there was an easier way of finding out which camera model and/or lens combo gives less contrasty renderings of jpegs.

I also notice the higher the price of the camera the better looking their jpegs are in this regard.

Unfortunately there's no Mac version of Picasa.
« Last Edit: May 15, 2008, 12:25:37 pm by tlooknbill »
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BJL

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Engineers improve processing through firmware?
« Reply #3 on: May 15, 2008, 04:46:28 pm »

Quote
Anyone know if a digicam engineer or camera manufacturer of any brand in general can manipulate the camera firmware in an attempt at changing or improving the algorithms programmed into incamera processing of jpegs after the camera has left the factory?
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Olympus has done this at least once. The E-1 firmware was updated to increase the number of levels of sharpening possible for in-camera JPEG's. If I recall correctly, the E-410/E-510 got some firmware updates to in-camera JPEG conversion options too.

By the way, some Olympus SLRs also have the option of taking RAW image and then later doing a conversion to JPEG with conversion parameters chosen or modified after the photo has been taken.
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Tim Lookingbill

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Engineers improve processing through firmware?
« Reply #4 on: May 15, 2008, 10:34:47 pm »

That's the first I've heard of any camera manufacturer improving jpeg rendering options in firmware. Thanks for posting this, BJL. This pretty much answers my question. It can be done.

Things may be looking up for my K100D in this regard. I talked to Pentax tech support expressing my concerns over the contrast slider parameters and Danny, the guy I was talking to, said he'ld pass this on to their engineers state side and see what they come up with. The original K100D settings were programmed at the factory in Japan.

Not going to hold my breath on it happening soon, though.
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