Kodak DCS 760

Looking back at the last three reviews written just a couple of years or so ago, I might preface this review with the thought "how the mighty are fallen". Having once lead the DSLR world throughout the 1990's and in to the new millenium, Kodak are now out of that business, concentrating on consumer digicams and supplying CCD's to other manufacturers. And who would have predicted that when thay first released the DCS 760, which was the ultimate pro DSLR in 2001? The 760 is a camera built without compromise. Its huge, heavy, and very strong. Being based on the Nikon F5, its performace as a camera is top notch. Even old screw-driven lenses are quick. I use the 760 alongside one of the last in Kodak's line of DSLR's the 14nx (the 14n with upgraded sensor). The 760 is superior to the 14nx in every respct except ultimate resolution, where the 14nx's 13.5mp sensor simply has more pixels than the 6.3 in the 760. However, the difference in use is not that great, and for many purposes the 760 is superior because it is built on the F5 body, not the N80 innards of the 14nx. My sample is mint: 5,500 actuations, coming from a research lab where I guess it has seen only rare use. Some samples of the 760 have been hammered as it was a popular choice in portrait studios and for wedding pros and also in commercial work, so be careful to check the shutter actuations and physical condidion of the unit. In just a few years, the price has fallen dramatically. Now, for the price of an entry-level Nikon D70 or whatever, you can find 760's on ebay and used in dealers. the price I paid in GB pounds, 650 plus VAT, it top end - they can be found cheaper, if a little more used, and this beast is still in a whole different league from the D70 and its ilk. I'll be using the 760 mainly for outdoor handheld macro work and studio product shots. The 14nx I will continue to use where its higher reslution is important. Buying a used DCS 760 now is like buying a classic luxury sports car. Its no longer the latest or the fastest out there...but just feel that quality!

Massive build quality, durability, versatility, the culmination of Kodak/Nikon combined expertise as at 2001; image quality.

weight, 6mp now entry-level (but leading edge when introduced). Raw workflow almost essential. Check your has the latest firmare (user upgradeable for free from Kodak website)

Various

Not tried

I've been a fan of Kodak digital products since 1997 when I got my hands on a DC-120. I'm now on my third Kodak, stepping up from a 1998 DC-260 which I still use. It's a large camera. No question about it. It's bigger than the Nikon F5 base in every dimension. The neck strap is a must. The construction is excellent. You cannot break the hinges on the memory/battery door as it's held in place with pins that slide out of leaf springs. I like hitting the door, making it "break" off and then snapping it back together to show people what good design really is. Frills aside, this camera is designed to do one thing, and that's take pictures. It only takes a second or so to boot up, and the camera is ALWAYS in take pictures mode! There are no silly dials for review, file management and other nonsense. The camera will always take pictures no matter what menu you are in. The idea of taking pictuers is lost with some digital cameras that are more like video games, whick beep and chirp and take useless 2 second video clips. The menus for controlling settings for the camera are pretty simple, and you can operate the buttons even if you are wearing gloves. The buttons are near your fingers, so it's easy to hold up and fiddle with when you need to. Picture quality is impressive. Kodak claims and ISO rating of 400, which you can do, but it will look grainy in most cases. I generally stick with ISO 200, and have no problems taking pictuers in daylight. Shadows may be grainy, but it's nothing tragic, film has grain too. At 6mega pixels, the pictures are mostly useless for sending to friends unless you shrink them down to useful sizes, which can be done in the free Kodak Photodesk program. Workflow with this camera is more comples than my 1998 camera because the camera takes pictures in a magical Kodak format only the Kodak program, and a Photoshop plugin can read. This is not really a bad thing, as you can take a “bad” picture that’s exposed wrong and “fix” it in Photodesk because of the large dynamic range of the camera. You’re sort of out of luck of you underexposed, but if you overexposed a few EV, you can actually get a perfect looking picture, without odd digital noise like a Photoshop plugin would make. The files the camera makes hold more data than say a typical jpeg which you cannot adjust too well. It gets more exciting. The camera has two type II PC card slots, and you can write pictures to TWO cards at the same time. One card will always have the Kodak DCR file, and the other can store either JPEG or TIFF of various quality settings, which you set in the camera menu, or in the Kodak CameraManager program (controls all camera settings from a computer, and allows for tethered shooting straight to your computer’s hard drive). New Kodak firmwares for this camera support a jpeg format called “ERI” which has extra data in EXIF tags in the file giving you a spooky ability to control exposuse like with the DCR files. Any program that can view jpegs can view ERI jpegs, straight off you memory card or hard disk in the camera. There is a photoshop plugin from Kodak that let’s you play with the extra data in the ERI jpeg if needed. I question Kodak’s claims of battery life. I tend to get a few hundred pics per battey if even. Luckily, Polaroid sells a higher than Kodak capacity battery pack for this camera. It’s not built as nice at the Kodak pack, but at about $70, it’s cheaper and works fine. If you are scared of large heavy devices, you’ll be dissapointed. If you are worried about having a solid camera that takes Nikon SLR lenses, takes wondeful pictures when used correctly, is a “mature” product that will be supported for years and has features that are actually useful, you might consider this camera.

Solid camera, you can beat robbers with it. Kodak software for this camera is excellent, ERI Jpegs are amazing.

Auto color balance is a joke. Be sure to set your white from a picture you take, in the menu. It takes 30 seconds total to get your color balance dead on in new lighting. Not a big deal, but you need to do it. Reds look orange. You can correct this with a color profile, i make my own with a Q60 card. There is more hassle with a pro camera than a consumer one, but when you take the extra few minutes, to do things right, you'll see the difference. Consumer cameras assume stuff for you, this one won't,you're in total control.

Consumer digital camera of various sorts

I've called Kodak with questions about flash sync, and why you want the Nikon DX series flashes for this camera. Kodak always had an answer. Kodak support is impressive, even for silly things like rechargeable batteries.

This camera is perhaps the very finest Digital SLR made today. It is based on the venerable Nikon F5 body. This is the super heavy duty pro workhorse. This is of little value if the camera doesn't produce great images. The Kodak imager delivers the best 6MP images I have ever seen. It accepts most Nikon lenses. It ISO goes from 80 up to 400. Perhaps the strongest feature is the Photodesk software. You can batch process images as well as individual ones.

Great images, strong software, great tech support.

Heavy camera, about 4 pounds without a lens.

If you''re willing to pay the price, this is the best professional digital SLR on the market(my purchase includes the anti-aliasing filter - $1,000). I researched the market for a year and shot with a Nikon D1 for a solid month on dance competitions. Though I liked the D1, it does not compare to the image quality of this camera. Most of my business is portraiture (weddings, children, family portraits) therefore, it is imperative to have this quality. I used to shoot medium format (mamiya 645) and I can honestly say that you cannot tell the difference in a print from the two formats. I have only had the camera a month and have spent musch of this time getting to know its abilities. The 8 x 10''s are flawless out of a Kodak 8660 dye-sub printer. I could go into the the specs and what the camera will do but, if you are going to buy a professional digital SLR, I suggest you do the research. You need to purchase the right camera for the market you shoot.

- Image quality - Built on a Nikon F5 body (easy learning for nikon users) - Multiple file folders created in the camera - Camera manager software (have had no problems)

- Inability to change file sizes, even though it has not been a problem (I use a Dell laptop-48 gig hard drive/ 512 mg ram/ 1.2 gig pentium 3 processor- I burn cd''s to back all my shoots and it maintains the computer speed) - Weight of the camera- just over 4 pounds - Price

-I have used a Nikon D1 extensively (never used the D1x or D1h). They are good cameras but I have had problems with the D1 locking up and simply had to drop the battery out of the camera, put it back

Never used but I have not heard any complaints, they are suppose to be very good and expedient.