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Digital Photography: Kodak's Latest: The DCS 620x
by John Rettie

I was somewhat surprised when Kodak announced the release of the DCS 620x, the newest model in its line of professional digital cameras. When Nikon introduced the D1 digital camera last year I was convinced that Kodak would probably stop developing cameras based on Nikon bodies and concentrate on Canon-based cameras . I was wrong.

Instead the latest two Kodak cameras-the DCS 330 and now the DCS620x are Nikon-based cameras. This means owners of Nikon lenses have a far wider choice of professional camera bodies than Canon users. This situation continues to surprise everyone since Canon has so many professional users, especially in the news and sports photography fields, where digital cameras have been widely adopted.

As its name suggests, the DCS 620x is derivative of the 620 camera that was introduced last year and is the third model based on the Nikon F5 SLR body. Essentially it looks and feels the same as the 620 and the 660 and operates just like an F5, from a shooting aspect. The big difference, though, is inside where it sports a different 2-megapixel CCD that has a new color filter pattern. The camera is aimed at photojournalists who want a camera that will work well in low-light conditions or can be used for fast action photography. The new chip allows the camera to have a range of ISO settings from 400 to 6400.

According to Kodak the new CCD uses a new color filter pattern that captures color in the CMY color space instead of RGB. It claims this leads to less noise and greater color saturation. I certainly had no complaints about the images I obtained in the short time I had to use of the camera.

The DCS 620x continues to have two PC card slots for storage. Until recently this meant using a PC card hard drive which is not terribly renown for durability. Nowadays one can find PC card storage devices using flash memory that are similar to the smaller Compact Flash cards. Indeed, CF cards can be used with an adapter as can the IBM Microdrive, which will soon be available with a capacity of 1GB. The camera I tested had a 160MB PC card that only held about 80 shots before they had to be downloaded to a computer. As always, I found a PC card reader, such as Microtech's Cameramate, much more convenient and faster than using the Firewire cable.

A new function in the latest DCS cameras allows the camera to convert the raw Kodak TIFF files to JPEG files in the camera. Unlike most cameras, which do this process on the fly, the Kodak camera takes several minutes to process files. As on all other DCS cameras, the raw Kodak TIFF files saved by the camera have to be processed in the camera or by a Kodak plug-in on the computer, before they can be read by Photoshop. The images are opened up in the plug-in as a sheet of contact pictures, which can be manipulated individually or in a batch and then opened in Photoshop or saved as JPEG files for later use. I still find this process laborious compared to opening JPEG files downloaded directly from other cameras. However for critical use, post-processing of images can produce better images. In reality though I find there is not a lot to gain in most cases. One also needs more storage capacity in the camera as each image takes up about 1.8Mb of space compared to half that for a high-quality JPEG file.

Even though this camera only has a 2 megapixel CCD, compared to 3.3-megapixels in the latest consumer digital cameras, it produces excellent images. This is because the chip is physically larger and each pixel can capture greater color depth. In addition, the camera has much more sophisticated processing capabilities. Besides the obviously more expensive CCD the camera can operate at a faster pace. It can shoot a burst rate of 3.5 frames per second for up to 12 images. I only found myself waiting for the camera to catch up on two occasions-during a fast paced 480-shot photo session.

The new camera also has a serial port enabling it to communicate with GPS receivers and cell phones. In addition the second PC card slot can be used for a PC card modem.

All in all, this camera should appeal to photojournalists and sports photographers who need to shoot at high ISOs. I did not get a chance to try it out in low- light conditions but I gather noise levels only become noticeable above an ISO of 3200, which is more than can be said for films of this speed. Kodak has also become more realistic in its pricing. The DCS 620x has a list price of $10,495, while the regular 620 remains on the market at a reduced price of $6995 for the body only.

Nikon D1
Since I reviewed the Nikon D1 digital camera a few months ago I have had several e-mails from readers who are concerned about a color-balance problem with the camera. Specifically there are D1 owners who find their cameras have a distinct magenta color shift especially when photographing light colored Caucasians. I have just received another D1 camera for review and I plan to run some tests myself to see if I can replicate the problem myself. I am not sure if it is a common or isolated problem. Judging from the numerous comments on several web sites, the majority of D1 owners are very pleased with the camera. Hopefully, I will be able to shed some light on this color shift complaint in my next column.

Cable Modem Router
Since last year I have been using a cable modem for accessing the Internet instead of a dial-up modem. It has proven to be one of the best upgrades I have ever experienced in 20 years of using a computer. The ability to have the Internet "live" whenever the computer is turned on is the most worthwhile aspect of using a cable company as an Internet provider. Any of you who have worked in a large office will likely have experienced being connected to the Internet through a T1 telephone line. The connection obtained by a cable modem is very similar.

The majority of people in the U.S. do not yet have access to the Internet through a cable modem, as many cable TV service companies have not upgraded their infrastructure for cable modems. In addition, even where it is available currently, it's mainly only offered for home use. All of this means that there are only a limited number of photographers who can potentially sign up with a cable provider.

The alternative to a cable hookup is DSL service from the telephone company. Again though service is spotty and not available in all areas. The advantage is that, if your phone company provides the service, it is piped into your building through the regular copper telephone lines.

I had hoped to try out DSL in order to compare it with cable service but could not justify signing up for both services. Generally DSL costs about $50 per month compared to around $30 for cable Internet access. Neither services are totally hassle-free during installation as both the cable and telephone companies are still experiencing growing pains as they roll out these high-speed services.

Both competing services have their fans and detractors. The problem with cable is that the cable is shared among users on each loop. I have only noticed a slow down on a couple of occasions such as Friday evening. Overall though I am very pleased with my cable modem service. A friend of mine has recently installed DSL service and after a couple of early glitches now has it running smoothly. There is at least one web site that can automatically test the speed of an Internet connection in real time. It appears that cable modem speed fluctuates more than DSL but can run at higher speeds on many occasions. Of course, a slow portion of the Internet or even a remote web site itself can bog down the speed of a connection. And there's nothing you can do about it.

Once you've got high-speed access into your building it is nice to be able to share it. Having individual accounts for each computer gets expensive really quickly. However there is a much better way of hooking several computers to one cable or DSL modem and that is by using a special router.

Macsense makes the MIH-120 XRouter which is a broadband Internet sharing hub that takes the cable modem signal and directs it to other computers linked through an Ethernet network. All Mac computers and many PCs now have Ethernet built-in, making the job much easier. At first I thought the process of hooking up the XRouter to the cable modem and using this box as my Ethernet hub in place of the previous hub would lead to problems. Instead, it took only a couple of minutes to type in the net address issued to me by the cable company. Instantly the XRouter took control of this number and from then on the cable company's computer system looks at this box as the assigned computer. The XRouter now assigns separate addresses to each computer on the network and all of them can access the Internet without having to sign on separately.

The only problem is that each computer is sharing the same line which means that if one or more are busy downloading large files access slows down across the network. Generally this is not a problem for me until my son starts streaming MP3 songs or video in real time off the Internet!

One major concern a lot of people have about cable and DSL access is that computers that are always live on the Internet are accessible to hackers. Businesses use firewalls to protect networks in office buildings. This is another distinct advantage to using the XRouter as it provides firewall capability. Besides allowing the router to do its job of splitting a single IP address into a routed subnet of local IP's, it has the effect of blocking incoming access into your network unless that access is in response to a request from one of your computers. If someone on the outside is trying to access your network, the access attempt will be seen by the XRouter as data that's not being requested by someone on your network, so the attempt will be automatically denied, preventing unauthorized access. The XRouter's Virtual Server function can be set up to allow specific types of incoming data to be forwarded through the XRouter if you plan to run a web, FTP, or other type of server within your network.

Presently I am working in an office with a T1 line several days a week and it is really nice to be able to return to my home office with three computers hooked up to the XRouter and have the same high-speed access to the Internet as in the professional office building.

John Rettie is a photojournalist who resides in Santa Barbara, CA. He has been using a camera as a professional for 29 years, a computer for 19 years, and has combined his knowledge of both for the past seven years. Readers can contact him by e-mail at john@johnrettie.com or by snail-mail c/o Rangefinder.