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Rangefinder
Magazine First Exposure: John Rettie
A decade ago Kodak lead the way in high-end digital cameras based on 35mm film cameras. For example the DCS 460 was the first SLR camera with a six-megapixel image sensor when it came out nine years ago. At the time it was an amazing camera, even if it did cost $30,000 and could only shoot one image every 12 seconds because it took so long to store each image. Worse yet, it did not have an LCD screen to check images after capture. Since then Nikon and Canon in particular have continuously improved their offerings and lowered prices. For a while it looked as if Kodak would abandon the pro market for digital cameras. Not so—two years ago Kodak surprised everyone with the announcement of the DCS Pro 14n camera body. As it had done previously, Kodak upped the ante with a new image sensor with a greater number of pixels than ever before. What’s more—it was aggressively priced, which was more than could be said for most of Kodak’s previous pro-level cameras.
Unfortunately, the camera’s rollout did not go as smoothly as Kodak would have wished. It was not generally available until six months after it was fist announced, and then many purchasers found it did not meet expectations. Gradually, its initial woes were left behind as Kodak delivered firmware upgrades regularl. The upgrades seemed to take care of some, if not all niggling problems. As photographers came to accept the camera’s limitations, it began to garner respect as a camera capable of delivering great quality images under the right circumstances.
This past February, about one year after the 14n’s availability, Kodak surprised everyone with the announcement of a new version of the camera. Although the body is identical to the 14n, it has a new name and an all-new image capture sensor and accompanying electronics. What’s more: the camera became available almost immediately, and by first accounts it is delivering the expected superior results. Its suggested retail price is also unchanged at $4995. The DCS Pro SLR/n is still the segment leader with a 14-megapixel CMOS image capture sensor that covers the full 24x26mm image area of a 35mm film camera. Kodak says the sensor in its sixth generation professional digital SLR camera has a new pixel design coupled with enhancements made within the manufacturing process that improve sensitivity, response and image quality. As before, the imager is still being made by FillFactory in Belgium, rather than by Kodak itself.
Although the SLR/n still looks somewhat clunky with its varied surfaces and heavy base, it actually feels solid, which it should be since it’s built on a ruggedized magnesium-alloy body. In use, it handles nicely, with a good-sized handgrip and thumb grip on the back. Although there is a vertical shutter release, the camera is not so elegant for vertical shooting. There’s no contoured handgrip, and the base of the camera is too large. The two all-important command dials fall to hand easily. One is in front of the shutter release, while the other is behind the top plate right where one’s thumb rests. Other camera controls, such as the bracketing button, meter settings and modes, are pretty much laid out as one would expect on a Nikon film camera. This Nikon-like layout is not surprising since the Kodak body uses many components from the Nikon N80 film camera. On the digital side, there are two LCD screens on the back. The large two-inch color LCD image review panel also provides a clear menu of easy-to-read black-on-white text for the numerous settings. A smaller black-on-green LCD screen, below the first, displays chosen settings at a glance. In addition, as menu items on the main display are shown, a two-line description of the function or action is shown here. It’s like a very useful on-camera “help” system.
As before, the camera includes two storage card slots—one for CompactFlash/Microdrive and the other for a Multimedia card. What’s really convenient is images can be copied from one to the other in the camera. Also, a RAW image can be saved to one card while a JPG version is saved to the other simultaneously. It offers flexibility while shooting as well as safety in having two storage mediums available. One interesting new feature is a menu option that shows how fast data can be written to each card. It was amazing to see the substantial differences between various cards. Yet despite these differences, they all took about 10 seconds for a file to be written to a card after capture. Talking of speed, the SLR/n is what I would call a medium-speed camera. It is rated at 1.7 fps with a buffer of 19 images, thanks to 512MB of internal memory. In most cases this amount is fine, but I did find myself running up against the buffer a few times. Then again, I am fast shooter. Anyone used to medium format cameras will find its speed plenty sufficient, but I would not expect a sports photographer or photojournalist to be satisfied. The new sensor produces a final image of 4500x3000, just slightly smaller than before. The biggest change is an available ISO range from 6 to 1600. The higher ISOs beyond 800 are not fully calibrated—meaning some image artifacts might appear under certain conditions. In addition, ISO 6 is only available via a special menu, and then it can only be used for long exposures up to 60 seconds.
Kodak has demonstrated some decent photographs using these ISO settings. I did not have time (pun intended—I guess one-minute exposures take a long time) to really experiment with these settings. In some quick tests I found some subjects produced really noisy images, while in others the results were acceptable. Under controlled situations, such as a room interior, this slow ISO rating could be useful. In order to obtain the fullest detail from an image, it should be captured in RAW mode and then processed through Kodak’s Photo Desk software. At the time of review it was not possible to open RAW files within Photoshop, although this capability is promised in the future. As an alternative, the camera’s JPG images use Kodak’s unique Extended Range Imaging technology (ERI), which produces ERI-JPG image files that work as standard JPGs, but include the dynamic range and color gamut of RAW, 12-bit, DCR camera files. One useful improvement on the SLR/n is an orientation sensor that detects camera orientation and automatically rotates images for correct reviewing. This function has become the norm on digital SLR cameras in the past year. Other features on the camera include a veritable array of custom functions, a microphone for recording sound notes, a pop-up flash and a PC flash sync socket.
Kodak has also announced it will offer a factory-installed PocketWizard wireless remote for tripping flash systems. And as part of the camera’s coverage, Kodak will warrant the inclusion of this option. As always, Kodak has designed the SLR/n to be easily upgraded via firmware. Each firmware upgrade improves the camera’s functionality and quality, as I discovered during the time that I tried the camera. For example, by the time you read this review, version 5.0 of the firmware should be available. This upgrade will add processing algorithms that are optimized for certain sets of lenses. What’s most significant is that owners of the 14n camera can have their cameras upgraded by Kodak to include the new sensor and new electronics for a reasonable price of around $1500. A modified camera will be named 14nx to differentiate it. This is the first time a manufacture has made such an option available.
In order to get a second opinion of the camera, I allowed John Lamm, a well-known photographer whose work appears regularly in Road & Track magazine, to try the camera during a magazine assignment. He’s a Nikon shooter looking for a high-resolution camera for producing double-page spreads in the magazine. Consequently, he was particularly keen to see how it performed while he photographed a Lamborghini Countach. Overall, he was satisfied with the images he obtained. Here are his thoughts: “The camera looks bulky but works just fine, especially with the handgrip strap added. Even without instructions, I figured out how to do everything fairly quickly. It is slow, but in a shoot of this sort that wasn’t a huge problem. But I would not want to do an auto race with it or action shots on a road test. I do love the size of the images, and the color looks reasonably good—the blue in the license plate and yellows on the car. I love being able to do a JPG and RAW at the same time.” About the only thing he didn’t like was battery life, which struck him as being a lot less than on his Nikon D100. Judging from my brief time with the camera, I would have to agree with Lamm’s opinions. The Pro SLR/n delivers good-quality images that should meet the demands of studio and portrait photographers who have been accustomed to using medium format cameras. John Rettie is a photojournalist who resides in Santa Barbara, CA. Readers can contact him by email at john@johnrettie.com or by snail-mail c/o Rangefinder.
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