Kodak ProSLRn

Hi Folks,

I've had my Kodak for a few days now and got a chance to take a variety of shots this weekend in different lighting conditions. You can see some sample photos with EXIF in the comments here:

http://www.reefpix.org/gallery/album38

The camera is full frame Nikon F-mount. It has a 512 meg buffer, meaning that I can take 15 RAW photos before the camera slows down! Other nice features are dual media slots (CF and SD), magnesium body, 10-pin control port, etc.

The nicest feature is that images are 4500 pixels wide x 3000 pixels tall. That means that I can take a vertical crop of an image and it will come out the same size (3000t x 2000w) as an image from a 6 megapixel camera... A print of a ProSLRn file at 300 dpi will be 15 x 10. A 16x20 will come out at roughly 200 DPI.

In good lighting, 100% crops at ISO160 look GREAT with incredibly fine detail:

Here's the full-sized shot:

ISO160 F8 @ 1/500th Nikkor 70-180 Micro at 70mm.

In low light at ISO320 the images had noise in the shadow areas. This noise depends a lot upon where you set the shadow value in Adobe Camera Raw, as most cameras just clip these shadows to black. Here's an example where I did everything I could, but still have green noise:

Not a lot, but it's there.

Some thoughts so far based on my short time with the camera and discussions w/ other photographers are:

1) This is NOT a JPEG camera. To get the incredible dynamic range out of the shots, use Adobe Camera Raw. You may also need ACR to knock down CA in the corners of wide angle shots and it does wonders at knocking out magenta aliasing. The JPEGs that come out of the camera are not as good as the S2 or D100.

2) Shoot at the base ISO (160) or use another camera. Controlling your lighting is very important. This will probably mean macro shots will look better than wideangle.

3) The camera is incredibly tolerant of overexposure. The dual surfboard shot was overexposed by at least a stop but was easily brought down in ACR with excellent results.

4) Battery usage with the microdrive: I was able to shoot about 3 cards worth of photos (3 gigs total) before needing to rechage. That included leaving the camera in sleep mode for a few hours.

5) It takes forever for the image review to appear on the LCD display. I haven't measured, but probably 5 seconds at least...

6) The viewfinder is better than my S2 and about the same as the D100.

7) It was nice to get full-frame fisheye shots from the Nikkor 16mm. They are VERy sharp corner to corner. Shots with the "consumer" Nikkor 18-35ED were acceptable, but I think this full-frame camera demands professional quality lenses.

More thoughts and sample photos as they become available.

If there are any other ProSLRn shooters who would like to share, please jump right in. I can't wait to take this camera diving!

Cheers,

James

These are the commnets that I posted on the DP Review Forum....I received my camera last week and have been testing it extensively. I think this will be a great uw camera but my hope is that Kodak will improve the post processing software, Photo Desk. This is the link to the full thread on DP Review http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp...message=9293504

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Greetings to the Kodak SLR forum. This is my first post, although I have been watching this formum for quite some time prior to purchasing my SLR/n.

I am an underwater photgrapher and have been using a D100 in a Light & Motion Titan Housing for over a year. I would consider myself an expert in Photoshop and digital imaging. I teach digital workshops and write for a well known underwater magazine.

Here are the reasons I purchased this camera:

1) I have a number of Nikon Lenses

2) The other high megapixel SLR is just too expensive

3) There is only 1 underwater housuing for the Canon and it too is very expensive

4) A well known uw housing manufactuer in Canada is developing housing for SLR/n which should be shippiing by late summer or early fall.

5) I have been making large 20x30 gilcee prints from my D100 with excellent results and I want to go bigger.

6) With rumors of a new Nikon camera to be released in Sept, I considered waiting but it would probably be another year before a housing would come to the market for anything that Nikon might release later this year.

Bascially, I felt that if I wanted to go to the next level from the D100 I had no choice but the SLR/n.

I have been testing the camera, using I have made no prints from my files ( I( always shoot RAW and covnert to 16bit tif for printing ):

Here are my conclusions so far:

Software:

In comparison to Nikon Capture Editor 4.1, Photo Desk is very weak. I suggest strongly that Kodak software designers take a very close look at the user interface of the Nikon software, as well as Photoshop.

In PhotoDesk you cannot:

1) save RAW settings as separate data files to be loaded into a raw file at later date. You can copy & paste but saving the data files seems to me to be a basic feature that you would see in any good software backage

2) There is no "zoom" tool in the main image view. Yes there is a keyboard short cut, and yes there is a zoom tool in the detail mode, but a zoom tool is a common tool in any photo program

3) The info screen is confusing in its layout, There seems to be no logic to the order of the info.

4) The rendering time, ( in best mode ) even with my dual zeon P4 computer is totally aggravating. The workflow in ACR is MUCH faster, maybe PS in not showing the image at the highest rez. The workflow in PhotoDesk just slows to a crawl when changes are made to any settings.

5) Why is it necessary to make Save As 8bit or 16bit selectable only in Preferences? Why can't that choice be made at the time the file is saved. Sometines I want to save a raw files as an 8bit tif and sometimes as a 16bit tif. The user shouldn't have to go back and forth into preferences to do this.

The bottom line: the user interface and user options are very pedestrian and compared to Nikon or PS, the workflow really sucks.

The Camera:

1) A little large, especially compared to the Canon 1DS

2) The menu functions are very easy to navigate

3) I like that I can change the contrast of the LCD

4) The verticle shutter is a great feature

5) I'm used to seeing the image almost immediatley on the D100 so I have to get used to the few seconds it takes for the image to show up on the LCD

6) I don't think that the image that is displayed on the LCD is as accurate in comparison to the actual file as it is on the D100. It seems a little warmer to me. Maybe the difference is due to the higher rez, I don't know.

7) This camera is ABSOLUTELY MORE NOISEY IN THE SHADOWS than the D100. If I take a raw file from each camera with no sharpening, and default noisie reduction ( none in D100 & normal in Kodak ) at 100% and 200% the extra noise is very obvious.

8) I can take about 15 raw files in a row with the 512mb buffer, which is very nice for what I do. This is a feautre that I was not expecting.

9) I find that given the exact same exposure,same subject, same lens, in the same available lgith, taken less than a minute apart, the Nikon nef file is 1/3-1/2 stop brigher than the Kodak dsc file....

These are my findings so far. The true test for me will be when I start to make prints on my Epson 2200 and shart shooting underwater.

Comments are always appreciated.

--

Rod K

RHK UW Productions & Design

Digital Editor Fathoms Magazine

http://www.rhkuw.com