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Average rating:
3.96
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Kodak DCS Pro 14n13.7 megapixels | 2" screen | Full frame sensor
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Average rating:
3.96
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Opinion: If you're interested in shooting perfect pictures with enough light.. there is nothing on the market for this price (does roundabout 1200 dollars on ebay) which delivers this quality pictures even now in 2007. However it needs processing to get a handle on things, if you have enough light, with a good lens (non DX that is). Otherwise it will produce mediocre (or less) results. Post processing is a must to get the most of it.This makes it hard to use and makes it only really usable for professionals. Perfect for studio operations.
Problems: The problems already mentioned by others: high iso performance is terrible especially in the blue channel. Low light performance is a no go with this cam.
It is slow when you shoot in JPG.. but if you are a professional, you will not really use it anyway.
Opinion: I have been using the Kodak 14n since June of 2003. This camera is great for outdoor use when using the ISO of 80 up to ISO 160. Any ISO above ISO 400 grain city and even photoshop can't help you out.
Problems: A lot of grain above the ISO of 400. If used indoors and in poor lighting as doing weddings. Be careful and test your shoots before the wedding. If possible ask someone at the church to turn all the lights on full power you will need it.
Opinion: Probably the best color and tonal range of any DSRL in the market as may 2005.
Image detail at lower iso, it is second only to 1ds mark2.
Usable autofocus.
Great buffer with 512mb memory, up to 20 frames.
Problems: This camera can be confortably used only below 200iso.
It can be used up to 400iso in fairly good light and having good care for exposure.
Opinion: It just delivers.
Opinion: Great camera. Dual memerory card feature, save jpegs to cf card and raw files to sd card. Lens selection is affordable thanks to numerous companies offering the nikon af d mount on their lenses. Bought mine form cdw at under 2400.00 with all supplied items listed including usa warranty, battery, charger, cables etc.. Your wait for a professional digital camera under 2500 dollars is over.
Problems: No problems, and want to point out that kodak support personal answers emails quickly...
Opinion: This is not a D70, and it's not aimed at people who were inept at taking pictures with film. This is a hardcore digital camera that is probably the world's best calibrated for ISO sensitivity and color rendition. And if you want a full-frame Nikon-mount digital. Kodak is the only game in town.
It's about as hard to learn to use as one of the more exotic medium format film cameras, but once you learn how to use it, it produces spectacular results. If you don't have discipline in shooting, or have no patience for learning, do not buy one.
My one piece of advice is to use the best lenses you can afford. Unlike the Canon 1Ds, this has no antialiasing filter to spoil the resolution of good lenses - and no massive automatic sharpening to make up for lousy ones - your results will be directly proportional to the quality (and hence price) of your glass.
Problems: On-screen review is a little bit slow. So it will discourage you from chimping.
In-camera Jpeg (FW 5 and higher) takes some learning (exposure bias, correction, sharpening, etc) but it iis simply spectacular. Through a Frontier machine, it is unbelievable.
Doing both RAW and small JPEGS slows the shooting down.
The viewfinder could be brighter. But it is par for the course in DSLRs.
Opinion: the only two things i want to add, cause everything is said by other users is.... that you have to select carefull your lenses. many will not work, but you will find finally some which are fine for the 14n.
the noise problems have two faces in my opinion.
1. as other stating no problem till 160iso and with iso 6-25.
2. the higher isos are fine if you just use the camera with 6mp raw resolution. this reduce the noise about more than the half.
i measured the noise level with noise ninja, in daylight the camera works fine till 800asa in raw mode 6mp !!!. it is even comparable with the fuji s2,- which is the best lo light camera at the moment. but the things change drastically if the kelvin temperature lowers to 4000 kelvin or under. than the blue channel becomes crazy and creates unusuable noise levels......
the price ( including the 1000$ rabate kodak gave the last months) is a great value for the money. buy the 14n and a lologht camera as the S2 and you have a great and affortable digital setup, including a backup camera which is a good thing for profs.
Problems: kodak should look more carefull to the quality of the cameras. many arrive broken or with malfunctions. this seem to continue with the new SLR/n and their faulty sensors which produce color shifts.
Opinion: This is the king of the DSLR world after the latest firmware upgrades (Now 4.5.5)
But you must do your recearch to learn how to use it, steep learning curve....!!
Opinion: You'll be very happy with this camera if you place it in an environment
where it will excel. I don't do photojournalism or editorial work with this
camera unless there is a ton of light around. Camp out at 80 ISO and you'll be
happy with the results but make sure that your shadow areas are within the
bounderies of the chip's performance arena.
The detail in the files is outstanding. Nothing competes with it for price and
quality just yet.
My clients have been very happy with the results especially when I shoot
tethered. Very cool to have the images
come up on my G4 Powerbook right then for the client to see and make
adjustments.
Makes for a very fluid leadership environment where everyone has a say in the
final image and can contribute to an outstanding image.
Kodak support is outstanding and the people there are proactive and the
software and firmware updates are fantastic. Every complaint I have is
registered and influences the upcoming software and firmware updates.
I only shoot DCR files and the Photo Desk software is excellent at giving me a
heads up on the quality of my images as I shoot them. The Loupe function is
way cool.
Because of the quality of the Kodak software I'm reluctant to get a second
camera that isn't Kodak because of the ease of use. If the SLR/n solves the
noise/high ISO problems I'll stick with Kodak. If not then I'll start looking at
CCD based cameras.
The 1:1 ratio is great and is another reason why I'm reluctant to move to
another platform.
Battery use isn't an issue with me.
Having the ability to open my shutter and blow off dust is very handy in the
field. Just make sure you're not in a sandstorm when you do that.
Check out my website (www.difphoto.com) to see 14n images and click on
"contact' to give me feedback and your thoughts. Keep in mind most of the
images are from the 14n. A few are film.
Problems: Here are the caveats to the warm and fuzzy ratings;
Low light shooting produces garbage images filled with way too much noise.
Don't go there unless you like that kind of look. Like I said, this isn't a camera
for All Things Digital but it does great once you get to know it.
Stay between 80 and 125 ISO. Everything sucks above that.
Extreme differences in highlight and shadow areas can create a halo effect that
appears to be a result of excess light bouncing off of the chip to hit the rear
of the lens and then bouncing back again to make a "ghost" reflection. Weird
but managable if you know the abilities and limitations of the camera.
The current 14n has a maximum of 125th of a second flash sync but in pro
shooting environments I have to pull back to 90th of a second with my radios.
Reason? The Kodak gurus say that there is a delay of some kind between
shutter actuation and flash acuation. (I don't shoot on camera flashes, only
power packs.)
If you shoot with the radios at 125th you'll get a faint dark band on the top of
the image if you're shooting horizontaly and the band appears on the left if
you shoot verticly.
I haven't shot with a PC chord directly conntected to my power packs and I
don't mind the inconvenience of radios too much.
I use the new Pocketwizard Plus (Best bang for the buck!) to keep my
Speedo gear from frying my camera with an uncontrolled pulse of electrical
feedback.
The radios provide great freedom and safety but I have to pull pack my sync
speed a bit. It's a little annoying because when I shoot out side with Speedo
gear I have to hang out around f16-f22 in order to get the look I want and
the only way I can do that is if I pull back my ISO to it's lowest possible
setting. I haven't experimented yet with artificially pulling back to ISO 64 yet.
I assisted a photographer who had an older digital camera that got zapped
because his camera was directly connected to the power packs. He didn't have
a radio slave or a surge protector between the camera and the power pack.
The thing is a pig to hold but I didn't buy it because it looked sexy. The
verticle shutter button is awkward so expect the problems and suck it up.
My schnoz will bump the buttons on the back and can be irritating as long as
the wrong buttons aren't pressed.
If you use a VR lens in a studio environment, shut off the VR. You'll get some
irritating blur in the images.
Run a test on all your lenses to watch for slight variations in exposures. Only
one of my lenses is dead-on with exposure but I've taped exposure correction
notes to all my other lenses; I have a 300 f2.8, a 20-35 f2.8 and a 70-210
f2.8.
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