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Rangefinder
Magazine First Exposure: Kodak DC2
Pro 14n by John Rettie
Without a doubt the digital SLR camera that created the most buzz one year ago at the all-important Photokina exhibition in Germany was the Kodak Professional DCS Pro 14n camera. With a full-size 35mm frame (36mm x 24mm) CMOS image capture sensor containing 13.9 million pixels, the camera promised to deliver medium-format quality in a Nikon-based camera body—and, for under $5000. Sadly, Kodak was unable to get the camera to market until spring of this year and a lot of the initial enthusiasm was tempered. Nonetheless, the camera has now been available for a few months and many wedding, portrait, studio and commercial photographers are finding it’s a camera worth adding to their stable. The 14n has a custom-made magnesium- alloy body built around the guts from a Nikon N80. Rather than graft a digital back onto the film camera body, as it has in the past, Kodak has developed its own lower body, which results in a much more integrated and compact-sized camera. Compared to the donor Nikon, the 14n is quite different in shape and size from the top plate down. Nevertheless, the camera’s layout of function buttons and LCD screens is similar to Nikon’s own D-series of cameras so there is less of a learning curve if you are already familiar with the D-series. Apart from one or two unintuitive navigational aspects of the menus, there’s no reason not to quickly learn one’s way around.
Captured images can be reviewed on the larger than normal 2.0-inch LCD on the camera’s back. Image visibility is no better or worse than on other pro cameras, but disappointingly it’s not possible to zoom in on an image. This has really become a prerequisite for photographers who’ve gotten into the habit of checking focusing and details on images by chimping immediately after capture. Apart from the ability to use Nikon F-mount lenses at their intended focal lengths, the other benefit of a full-size image sensor is a brighter full-size viewfinder. This is immediately apparent as soon as one looks through the eyepiece. Helpful grid lines are also visible on the viewing screen, and they can be turned on and off via the function menu. In addition to the camera’s regular small LCD status screen on the top, there’s a second one below the monitor that provides additional information such as ISO settings and storage card capacity in the shooting mode. In playback mode it provides the filename and folder name. When the main LCD monitor is being used to access menus, the smaller LCD screen provides help messages. It’s nice to see Kodak keeping this second status screen as it has been dropped on some other newer cameras to save costs.
If you need a camera that’s fast in operation you’ll be disappointed in the 14n. It takes about four seconds to boot up. It is capable of shooting at 1.7 frames per second, but once seven raw images have been shot, one has to wait about 12 seconds before shooting while the camera is busy writing the 14MB files to the storage cards. If you’re shooting JPEG files the burst rate drops to four or five images as the camera operates more slowly because it has to process the file before saving. These speeds partly depend on the speed of the storage cards, but even the special WA (Write Acceleration) Lexar cards only appeared to shave a second or so off the above times, which were recorded with a Microdrive. Of course, these times don’t matter in a studio setting or even for some wedding photographers, but they certainly make the camera less effective for sports or news photographers. Although I was not able to try it, Kodak offers its DCS Camera Manager software for controlling the camera via a computer, which would obviously be ideal for studio photography. In operation, the camera has a well balanced feel despite, or perhaps because of, the unusually fat base that contains the battery. The 1800 mAh Lithium-Ion battery is uniquely shaped for the camera. I found it would only last for a short while before going flat. Again though, this shortcoming can be avoided in a studio by using the included AC power adaptor.
Of course, the most important part of the equation in any professional digital camera is the quality of the final (4500x3000) 13.5MB image, which expands to about 39MB file once opened in an image-editing program. When shooting in well-lit situations at the basic 80 ISO setting, the resultant image quality is excellent. Details such as individual hairs on a model or veins on a flower show up clearly, and there is plenty of dynamic range. Kodak admits that current results at higher ISO settings are unsatisfactory, and we found that true since the images became noisy. I was also disappointed in the image quality when set to capture at the 6MP resolution (3000x2000). It did not appear to be as good as that obtained by the Canon EOS-10D. Since there is virtually no gain in operating speed, this option seems wasted. In my opinion, you’re much better off shooting everything at full resolution and then down-sampling later, as needed. Kodak recommends shooting images in the Kodak DCR Raw format so the resultant “digital negative” files can be processed by Kodak’s excellent DCS Photo Desk software on a computer. In this way the maximum amount of information is captured and plenty of post-processing options, such as exposure and color temperature, can be provided. Raw files can be read directly by other programs, but like other professional cameras, a JPEG file can also be saved simultaneously if an image needs to be viewed quickly before processing. The 14n has two slots for storage cards. One holds a Compact Flash or Microdrive card, while the other holds a smaller Secure Digital (SD) or Multi Media (MMC) card. It’s possible to set up the camera to save images to one card first and then switch to the second once the first has filled up. Or the camera can be set to save raw files to one card and JPEG files to the other. A third option is to save images to both cards simultaneously for redundant back up. Most digital cameras offer firmware upgrade options, available to users for download at the manufacturers’ web sites. I have done this several times over the years, but in most cases the changes are minimal and do little to improve the camera’s overall functionality. Kodak offers the same service; however, it has designed the 14n with much more upgradeable functionality than other cameras. Kodak promises substantial improvements to various operating aspects of the camera as its engineers develop the camera in the future. Indeed, I got to use the camera on a couple of occasions two months apart. In that period Kodak issued several firmware updates that sped up the camera’s boot-up time (from six down to four seconds) and improved the picture quality at higher ISO speeds. Cynics might say this is a way for manufacturers to release cameras before they are fully developed. But reality is that software and accompanying electronic components are continually being improved. It is a great idea to be able to continue updating products easily without requiring the purchase of new equipment or expensive upgrades that need to be performed by a manufacturer’s own technicians. In my view, the Kodak Professional DCS Pro 14n can essentially be considered as a replacement for a medium format camera more than a 35mm camera. It has the ability to produce medium-format-quality images in controlled situations. Therefore, it’s best suited to photographers who can work under slower conditions and, shall we say, who use a more thorough thought process when taking pictures. The 14n is not necessarily a camera for photojournalists, sports photographers or rapid-fire shooters. If you bear this in mind you’ll find the 14n is a camera more than worth considering. 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 magazine.
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