Valhalla, NY—Fujifilm North America Corporation announced a major firmware update, V.4.00, for the mirrorless Fujifilm X-T1 and X-T1 Graphite edition. The firmware features an advanced autofocus system for enhanced performance when shooting moving subjects and action scenes.
The free firmware is also designed to provide improved autofocus accuracy for still images and video, eye detection, enhanced shutter speed dial operation, exposure compensation control in manual mode, and finer framing grid lines for improved visibility and image composition.
The upgraded autofocus system complements the single-point autofocus system with new zone and wide/tracking modes, which use 77 autofocus points across a wider area to substantially improve the camera’s ability to track and capture moving subjects.
Zone mode allows users to choose a 3×3, 3×5 or 5×5 zone from the 77-point autofocus area. When combined with the AF-C continuous focusing mode, the X-T1 continues tracking a subject in the selected zone. The 3×3 and 3×5 zones at the center offer faster focusing with the use of the built-in phase-detection pixels. In wide/tracking mode, the camera displays the area in focus, identified automatically out of the 77-point autofocus area, and tracks the focus area’s subject across the entire 77 points. This makes it possible to maintain focus on a subject that moves vertically, horizontally or back and forth.
In addition, single-point autofocus now divides the focus area into smaller sections to more accurately determine the distance to the subject for greater focusing accuracy. The built-in phase-detection pixels have increased sensitivity from 2.5EV to 0.5EV. This improvement enables faster focusing in low light and on low-contrast subjects.
The firmware update also provides Fujifilm’s eye detection autofocus, which automatically detects and focuses on human eyes. The function allows users to focus on the eyes even in difficult conditions, e.g., when shooting a portrait wide open to obtain a bokeh background.
Additionally introduced by the update is an auto macro function that switches the camera into the macro mode while maintaining the conventional autofocus speed. Users no longer have to press the macro button to initiate a close-up shot. This update eliminates the macro function assigned to the macro button, permitting photographers to assign a different function to that button.
Other firmware improvements include: an optimized algorithm to deliver a more natural, smooth autofocus action during movie recording; improved shutter speed dial operation whereby shooters can use the command dial to set the full range of exposure times and enabling them to change the shutter speeds across a broader range without changing camera position; and the exposure compensation dial can be used to make exposure adjustments while shooting in the manual exposure mode with the ISO auto setting.
The Fujifilm X-T1 firmware V.4.00 will be available late June. fujifilmusa.com
