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p.4 #3 · p.4 #3 · Canon 5D Mark III firmware update in April 30th 2013! | |
erikburd wrote:
I'm willing to guess that there's some shared common code between the EOS cameras, but you need to remember that each camera has different sensors, architectures, hardware, etc. that requires a lot of optimization, development and testing to get right. You can't just "copy and paste" code from one architecture to another. If that were possible, my job would be a lot easier.
EOS and Powershot do share common code. They all use the same operating system, DryOS.
DIGIC is a general purpose CPU (currently ARM AFAIK) plus custom functions in hardware.
Yes, hardware can be different, but the HAL insulates this. How "thick" the insulation is depends on where in the abstraction hierarchy the code in question arises.
Yes, you can copy and paste across one architecture to another. Again it depends on where in the abstraction hierarchy the code in question arises.
We all know that taping some contacts on an extender can allow F8 autofocus on camera that does not support said feature. This is not so reliable as it is beyond the design capability.
One can envision a go-no-go logic decision at the outer level of something like
IF Aperture <= 5.6 THEN
(* allow auto focus (in general). *)
(* select applicable AF points by user and aperture, etc... *)
ELSE
(* don't *)
At the most simplistic level this can change to 8.0, but with possible reliability issues, so not likely the way to go.
In the past EOS 1 series supported F8 AF out of the box. One can infer that in the 1DX dropping this feature supported in EOS 1 for some time, than Canon may have thought F8 not reliable enough(or as reliableas previous) and blocked it out. Maybe marketing said F8 is a not so important feature and HW designed around this spec... and this turned out to be a mistake. Maybe other factors and all of the above. All speculation.
I doubt even Canon would take something out when within HW spec. So maybe we can infer that F8 needs some special algorithm (or tweaks) to work with the current HW to gain a certain level of reliability. From this we might infer that F8 on the 1DX might not be as "good/reliable" as F8 in past implementations even with the new software.
A special F8 subroutine is more than a few lines of code, as my original statement because it would entail extra subroutine at a certain level. Given the 5D AF sensor is likely the same, the 1DX subroutine should be quite applicable. 6 months seems long, in relation to a product development cycle. Maybe 3 months?
Hey, maybe Canon does not abstract things much so it is a lot of work. I've seen it at a major company. A port was a big rewrite. However, I doubt this. Canon is a very conservative company, and changes slowly in most all aspects.
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