Updating firmware

Hello - I've just (today) taken delivery from SRS of a K30 kit with the 2 WR lenses, and a free 16mb Sd card. The firmware version is apparently 1.0, but is it correct that to update the firmware, I need a 32mb card?

The only digital camera I've had up to now is an Olympus 370 (uses xD format) - I've used film slrs for over 35 years, (Canons) but the K30 ticks all my boxes!

No, you won't need a huge card to update the firmware. The files are actually quite small.

Thank you I'm looking forward to learning how to use it as soon as I can get out! I am impressed by the manual - a solid little lump of paper!

Yes probably 32mb is about the minimum. Note that's megabytes not 32Gb (ie Gigabytes!) You'd be hard pressed to buy one that small now, but it doesn't have to be that small.

John K

OK - I am an utter wazzock! The card is 16gb so more than sufficient! I am going back to bed - I will hopefully be more recovered and not as stupid tomorrow

Thanks for your help chaps.

Yes, a 16Gb is fine. Delete the file from the card once you've performed the update, and make sure the battery is fully charged before you start to prevent it failing part way through.

John K

b - bits
B - Bytes
m - milli
M - Mega
g - acceleration due to gravity
G - Giga

A 32Mb card in a K-5 shooting RAW would hold one image

It wasn't long ago that was considered a huge amount of memory and the first cards with it cost a fortune.

John K

my first pc (a 486) had 4 mb of memory, and 640 mb hard drive, and that was a pretty good spec!

Indeed. I had a massive brick sized 20Mb Hard drive once. think it was a 5 1/4" platter job. here's a comparison pic with a modern sized one.






I can also remember when 4Mb of SIMM Ram chips were over a £100. A few months ago I bought 24GB of RAM for the same price. That's a 6000% increase/£

Hah, you measure RAM in MB????

Long, long ago in a distant universe I teamed up with a pal at Uni and built one of the first microcomputers available with a grand total of 0.5K (yes K) of RAM. A term later we had got a little bored with having to write assembler for everything and spent a fortune (£80 or almost an entire terms 'income') expanding the RAM to 2K which let us run a TinyBasic interpreter on it -- luxury!

I still have the 'Firmware' thingy which came with my K10D -- never had it 'updated' as cannot understand the instructions and it still WORKS OK so why bother ?

Depending which version you have installed you may be missing out on features and bug corrections as follows:

Changes to V1.20
1. Correspond to PENTAX REMOTE Assistant 3

Changes to V1.11
1. Correspond to development in the RAW data camera when multiple exposing.
2. When built-in flash is used the luminescence control by the trailing-shutter-curtain sync was corrected.

Changes to V1.10
The following function has been added in version 1.10
1. Wireless control of external flash through built-in flash.
2. Instantly return to centre AF point by one push of button in AF select mode.
3. Possible to change ISO setting by dial at TV/AV mode.
4. ISO setting change by dial while the ISO setting is being displayed on the LCD by pushing OK button.
5. Green button function in M mode is available at TAv mode (Hyper manual).
6. AV and TV switch by dial at P mode.
7. Instant return to the default value by green button at strobe light compensation.
The following contents have been corrected.
1. In rare case, vertical stripe at long time exposure.
2. Released “B exposure” and show battery empty sign when using B mode.

The procedure is normally quite straight forward and painless

John K

It sure was. My first PC was a 286, had 1MB of memory and a 20MB hard drive.

Andrew