Nikon updated the D5 firmware to version 1.3. Not a lot to this update, with one new “feature” and four bug fixes for things that most people wouldn’t notice.
The new feature has to do with a button-assignable addition called Recall Shooting Functions. This can be assigned to the DOF Preview, Fn1, Fn2, AF-On, the lens Fn button, or the center of joystick (press).
What you get when you press a button assigned to Recall Shooting Functions is that the exposure mode, shutter speed, aperture, exposure compensation, and ISO setting—which may include Auto ISO functions—are restored to a saved setting while the button is held.
Unfortunately, the implementation is a little bit of a kludge. How do you set those things to be recalled? Well, you do it in Custom Setting #F1, where you assigned the button. There’s now a new Update Saved Settings option when you make this button assignment, and you use that to store the settings you want recalled. There’s also a “force autofocus” ability you can assign when the button is held.
Frankly, Nikon is getting this wrong (while doing the right thing). As has been discussed before, what they really need to do is combine the consumer camera C1, C2, and C3 with the professional camera banks. In other words, just add C1, C2, and C3 to the Exposure mode options set by the Mode button, and let them remember the banks information, too.
The four bug fixes are things you probably wouldn’t have encountered (two of them have to do with Ethernet shooting, one was what names were displayed in the Time Zone and Date function, and the final one “corrects” the reported focal length value with the 400mm and 800mm lenses when the TC-14EIII or TC-17E is used.
