It has been an extremely busy week for me that I completely missed the release of Canon PowerShot SX1 IS’ firmware update that will allow the previous version of the camera — those shipped between December 2008 and February 2009 like the one I have — to shoot in RAW format.
Newer SX1 IS cameras would have the RAW support built-in and therefore needed not be updated.
I’ve just updated the firmware of my PowerShot SX1 IS and thank god, no untoward incident happened during the updating process. I’ve never gone through the experience of updating the firmware of a camera and the fact that I managed to do so goes to show that the installation process is really very easy.
How to update Canon PowerShot SX1 IS’ firmware
Firstly, you need to have three things: a memory card with at least 8MB in capacity (that’s MB, not GB), a USB cable and all four AA batteries in the camera (they don’t need to be freshly charged but definitely not near flat because the updating process will take about five minutes)
Secondly, format the card using the camera’s menu function. Make sure you have transferred all the pictures from the card to your computer because formatting the card will erase all of them… don’t say I didn’t warn ya.
Thirdly, download the firmware update for Canon PowerShot SX1 IS here. Before downloading, you need to enter the serial number of your SX1 IS which can be found at the bottom of the camera.
There are four things that you need to download: the firmware file, the installation guide, the camera’s new user manual, and the Digital Professional Photo software that allows you to edit RAW pictures.
Fourthly, follow the instruction on the website, and several clicks of the mouse and pushes of buttons later, you camera will be ready to shoot in RAW.
SX1 IS needs more than RAW firmware update
Now that my SX1 IS is capable of shooting RAW, I can now have more shooting options.
That said, I feel that Canon should have included other upgrades as well, such as to improve the JPEG image quality by at least 10 per cent. The image quality is not bad but it is not excellent either.
