Firmware Friday: New features for Panasonic GH5; Pentax K-70 bug fixes; Olympus updates software, too





As summer reaches its end and we head into fall, the first weekend of September is here, and with it, our regularly-scheduled Firmware Friday post. This week's roundup is a bit of an unusual one, though, as we've already told you of the week's biggest news, and the bulk of what we have to discuss is actually software, rather than firmware.

But be that as it may, let's get right down to it!

Panasonic GH5

We'll start off this week with a quick recap of the planned version 2.0 firmware update for the Panasonic DC-GH5. Scheduled for release at the end of this month, it will be adding support for tethered shooting and 4:2:2, 10-bit ALL-Intra video capture. It will also improve both autofocus performance and 4K / 6K Photo modes. You can get the full story in our earlier article.

Pentax K-70

Ricoh, meanwhile, has released firmware version 1.11 for the Pentax K-70 DSLR. Following on from the v1.10 release which landed a year ago, it makes but one change, correcting an issue in earlier firmware that the company says could cause "unstable performance". You can download the update for installation on your own Pentax K-70 from the company's website.

Olympus Capture and Viewer 3

And finally for this week, we come to Olympus, whose updates are actually in software rather than firmware. Olympus Capture for Apple's Mac OS platform has been updated to version 1.2.1, and is said to have improved transfer speeds. There is no equivalent version for Windows users at this time, so it's possible that the fix was Mac-specific.

Olympus Viewer 3, meanwhile, has been updated to version 2.3 on both Mac and Windows platforms. There are unspecified bug fixes for Mac OS machines alone, while the other updates are shared between both releases. You can also now add opening / closing text and pan / zoom effects to time-lapse videos using Viewer 3, and support has been added for new camera models. (Most likely, the just-launched Olympus E-M10 III.)

In all three cases, you can update your software through the application itself. Viewer 3 is updated by opening the Update menu and then selecting Update Software. Capture, meanwhile, can be updated through the Help menu, selecting the Update Software option.

And that's it for this week! Be sure to check back next time for more firmware news...

(Camera parts image courtesy of Kelly Hofer / Flickr; used under a Creative Commons CC-BY-2.0 license. Image has been modified from the original.)