[djklmnop]

Hmm.. This digicam looks pretty promising.  It would work great for wedding photography, quick portraits, or even to replace polaroids for studio work!  I'm pretty tempted..

It's such a tough call, for $4,000 I could probably get a hell of a lot more image quality off a large format camera and save a considerable amount of money.. lots of trade-offs on both ends.

Any thoughts?

[drphoto]

This should be WAY better than just a replacement for Poloroid. (of course Kodak doesn't have the best rep on the planet for digital products) But 14MP full frame CMOS??? wow.

If you shoot in RAW mode (which is the only way to go serious work) you should be able to get 100MB files easily.

It seems you guys don't like digital, but the pro-grade cameras like the D1X and the FujiS2 (6MP)are in some ways already better than film.

Bettter? Wider dynamic range than trans film (at least on the shadows....longer 'toe' if you will) and superior color fidelity, which stems from the fact that you accurately white balance them.

And even w/ only 6MP, I can shoot double page spreads, because the RAW mode is 12bit/channel. (more info there than you'd think)

Digital printing has finally gotten pretty good too, especially if hardware calibrated or using something like Colorbyte.

Of course nothing rivals a well made gelatin/silver print or a Ciba, but hey I'm not doing art....just trying to make a buck.

My motto: "Creating tomorrow's landfill.....Today!"

Anyway...check it out. I think its more like $4500, but a steal at that price if its all that's promised.

[Night Wolf]

why would you need 14mp? all the more mp do is just add size to the pictre


dunno, but my Toshiba PDR-3300 is 3,2mp and I usualy use "small" setting and sometimes" half" but never full as for my 17" monitor in 1024x768 res. the pictures are just to  damn big.

[Curt]

Night Wolf,

You don't need many pixiles (Mp) for display on a computer monitor which usually is about 72 or 96 ppi but, for printing now that's another story.

To get a standard quality photo you need at least 300 ppi of print. What that means is that if you want to make high quality photo printouts using the full screen imiages you have which probably are 1024 x 768 your prints will wind up being very small.

1024 / 300ppi = 3.4" Wide and 768 / 300ppi = 2.56" High.

A photo 3.4" x 2.6" is too small for most needs, especially if you want to crop. This is why you need more Mp. Most people like to print up tp 8" x 10", or even larger.

I was so surprised with my first digicam 5 years ago (768x480 I think) when I tried to print a quality photo and it came out about 1" x 1.5"  

I'm shooting 4 Mp (Cannon G2) now for my stuff and never print larger than 8" x 10", usually much smaller for my applications.

Now as you said your not shooting at the max for your camera which you can if you start wanting to make more prints.

[Night Wolf]

I was told 2mp is good for 4x6 and 3mp was good for 8x10

my camera is 3.2mp I have small (640x480) half (1024x768) and full (2048x1536) and each size can have *, **, *** quality setting. my camera also has full manual controls, which is very nice once I get used to it.

as it is now, I only use my camera take picturs and send to friends online, and use like a digital photo album, which is just haveing a whole bunch of pictures in a folder and each differnt catogory has it's ownb folder

proably the reason why I don't print is becuase I don't have a printer worthy of photo printing, and also when you print pictures, it just eats up the ink really bad, what is it, like 20 pictures and you need new ink?

BTW I have a HP 612c, but aquired a Lexmark Z42, both are in need of ink, and the Lexmark needs a power adapter, the HP is parallel and the Lexmark is USB, I have had the HP for about 3 1/2 years, and never used the Lexmark as I have no way of testing it out. but what is the better printer? and ::::ahhh:::: which would be better for photo printing? I think the Lexmark has a much better dpi rating.....

[Curt]

That's about correct, 3Mp for a good 8" x 10".

2048 x 1536 = 3,145,728 pixels

2048/267 (print houses say 267ppi is OK) = 7.67"
1536/267 = 5.75"

So, for a pro magazine spread the 3.2 Mp can do a 7.67" x 5.75" but, we all stretch it to an 8" x 10" for personal use.

Remember you will  have to shoot at 2048x1536 if you do want to print.

I've printed 2Mp to 8x10 and they looked pretty good, just a little soft.

I like the Canon 900 for printing photos, very nice image and cheap on ink. Check out the reviews. It's rated as one of the very best and costs less than $300. They say it's the cheapest printer for using ink.

I'm not familiar with the printers you have but, many improvements in photo printers have been made in the last couple. Their fighting to keep up with the new cameras.

[drphoto]

I think its easier to think in terms of file size rather than pixels. An 8x10 @ 300ppi is 20.6MB. The (near) 6MP D1X produces a native file size of 17MB. A 3 MP camera won't cut it, other than for snapshots.

Where things get murky...is that by shooting RAW mode, which is 12 bit/channel, you can get much better interpolation up to bigger files. I routinely go up to 50 MB.

I think Epson makes the best photo quality inkjets. The latest generation 7 color units rival Lightjet for quality.

To cut your ink cost to practically nil, you can convert to continuous inking. Kits are available from inksupply.com for about $150. The kit consist of a modded printhead that is fed by refillable 4 oz bottles.

[jqp]

Now 1GB compact flash micro disks are available - just in time

[Night Wolf]

my camera dosn't have a RAW mode, if I take pictures in full stars with best quality, they are about 1.2mb

my Toshiba PDR-3300 got very good reviews, it MSRP for $350, but Toshiba direct has it for $280 (standerd camera, they have alot of other packages) the camera uses Secure Digital type media, but alot of places were saying how the Toshiba PDR-3300 has full manual controls and other stuff only found on $700+ cameras

the package I go came with:

PDR-3300 (which comes with a small, basic carry case, 8mb card, carry strap, usb cable, video cable, remote, ACDsee software and some other stuff)
extra 16mb card
4 1600mah batteries w/charger
small case for carrying etra batteries and media etc...
and a real big, and really nice case to hold camera and everything else

all for $329, not too bad

I really like my camera, just wish it had a mic for recording audio along with video, oh well

[nathanm]

It's about freaking time they came out with another full frame SLR.  And I'm really surprised they made such a leap to 14MP.  Usually it goes 1 megapixel at a time.  That Contax model is sweet, but 8 grand?  Not for me!  Now it'll just be another few years 'til I can afford one.  heh!  The sample shots I've seen from the new Kodak are lovely - finally we are starting to get closer to the look of a drum scanned transparency.  Still a little ways off though.  I still can't fathom dropping all that cash knowing that next year or two the pixel count will almost double.  I wish you could buy a body and upgrade the CMOS\CCD when the newer one comes out, kinda like film.  Too much internal circuitry I suppose...

[djklmnop]

I agree, Nathamn.  I hear all this talk about 6 megapixel cameras, then suddenly 14 whopping megapixels!!!  I never realized that these companies were interested in pushing technology but this looks promising.   The only thing I hate is that by dropping 8k or so on a digital camera, I can expect to upgrade by the following year.   It is much more refreshing to know that if I purchased a Large Format camera, my image quality will be top notched, and it would take a LONG time before digital reaches it's quality.

But for convenience, I would definately use digital.  I often do test shoots for models and this tool could drastically cut down on the turnaround time.  But again, the price is too prohibive considering the technology race.

[nathanm]

I suppose you could get a medium format body and then you'd have the option to shoot film or get say the Phase One digital back.  A lot more flexibility there, but major money I'm sure.  It's kind of a shame that there aren't any upgrade paths in the lower end 'prosumer' models.  A digital camera these days doesn't have much life expectancy whereas folks kept using well-made film bodies for years and years and always had at least 14 "megapixels" as it were, at their disposal for the price of a roll of film.  

The technology keeps getting better and I'm sure we may eclipse film one day, but it sure is expensive doing so!

[drphoto]

The 14MP cameras don't make the pro-level 6MP obsolete.

I mean my retouching workstation is still powered by tricked out circa 95 Daystar Genesis. A dynosaur computer wise...but I can still easily push around 200MB files, so its not 'obsoleted' by the newer machines.

Though they may seem expensive, these cameras pay for themselves very quickly. Not just in film/processing but efficiency. I made a comment to one of my asssistants last week that the 'X' wasn't a camera, but a money making machine.

Even though what I do isn't art....I think these cameras spur creativity. Because you can just shoot what ever the hell you feel like. If its crap...delete it. When it cost real money, you are more selective, which often results in doing 'what is safe'. (ie: what you know you can sell)

Digital rules!! (at least for commercial work)

Anybody want to buy some Hassleblad stuff or a nice Sinar 8x10?

[Night Wolf]

The 14MP cameras don't make the pro-level 6MP obsolete.

I mean my retouching workstation is still powered by tricked out circa 95 Daystar Genesis. A dynosaur computer wise...but I can still easily push around 200MB files, so its not 'obsoleted' by the newer machines.

Though they may seem expensive, these cameras pay for themselves very quickly. Not just in film/processing but efficiency. I made a comment to one of my asssistants last week that the 'X' wasn't a camera, but a money making machine.

Even though what I do isn't art....I think these cameras spur creativity. Because you can just shoot what ever the hell you feel like. If its crap...delete it. When it cost real money, you are more selective, which often results in doing 'what is safe'. (ie: what you know you can sell)

Digital rules!! (at least for commercial work)

Anybody want to buy some Hassleblad stuff or a nice Sinar 8x10?

yeah, I agree, I find myself just taking pictures of anything for the hell of it, if I don't like it, I hit the delete button, but it is real easy to send to friends online now, and that is one of the best things about the camera, and making my own custom digital photo albums  

[nathanm]

Kodak's got three sample shots of what appear to be three lovely ladies, but upon 14 megapixel inspection you may understand how ultra high detail isn't exactly "flattering" for portraits!  The girl in the center almost looks corpse-like in the big version.  You can practically analyze the molecular structure of her makeup! Gadzooks!

Technically speaking though, it is quite some impressive image quality.

[Lex]

WOW, 14 mpixels, impressive!  I guess I'll stick to my 5 MP.   Thanks for sharing it.

Lex