We've got a thread going
here in which people have been posting early reports on their experiences with the new features of the updated firmware. So far, nobody has had significant problems and overall impressions seem to be very positive.
A couple of thoughts re questions raised in this thread:
-- One advantage of the raw + JPEG format is that if you use, or work for a firm that uses, a digital asset management system that does NOT support the R-D 1's raw format (iView MediaPro, for example) the raw + JPEG option gives you a way to work with it. You can dump your take onto a computer, use your DAM system to screen, edit and select the best shots, and then run ONLY those through the raw conversion process.
With the advent of photo editing software that does display raw files directly (such as Adobe Bridge and Lightroom) this capability may become less important, but there are a lot of legacy DAM systems and image databases for which it will be useful.
-- I haven't spent a lot of time working with it so far, but to my surprise writing a raw + JPEG file doesn't seem to take appreciably longer than writing just a raw file with the original firmware. The firmware update also bumps up buffer throughput somewhat; you now can shoot three frames in quick succession vs. only two before, and that applies whether you're shooting raw only or raw + JPEG.
-- What little I've been able to try so far suggests that the defective-pixel-mapping feature does work; it may not do a perfect job, but it seems to help quite a bit. This is mostly relevant if you shoot primarily JPEG images; raw images are less affected to begin with, and most raw-processing software has its own ability to matte out defective pixels.
-- Another new feature that definitely seems to work is the claimed reduction in noise when shooting at EI 1600. Details are in the other thread, but a short summary is that in a very quick test I made, the new firmware reduces overall RGB noise by about 8 percent.
We probably should consolidate these two threads, or start a new one to collect firmware-update tips and results...