Kodak Pro DCS 520 Review
 Kodak Professional DCS 520 |
The Kodak Professional DCS 520 (referred to as the DCS 520 from now onwards) lives up there in the dream world of professional digital cameras. Although out of the reach of most consumers, these cameras are used every day by professional photographers, journalists and serious hobbyists. The 520 is the fourth generation Kodak Professional digital camera, ignoring the first generation the second was made up of the 420 and 460 (2 million and 6 million pixels) based on the Nikon N90s body, the main drawback with the 400 series was the lack of an LCD. |
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The 500 comes in two versions the 520 (2 million pixel CCD) and the 560 (3 x 2 million pixel CCD's - 6 million pixels total). The 500 series is based on the Canon EOS-1N body with Kodak's digital back, processing unit and expanded feature set.
The 500 series are also sold by Canon as the D2000 and D6000.
For this review Kodak were good enough to loan me the following equipment (thanks to Steve Seah of Kodak Singapore):
- Kodak DCS 520 Body
- Canon 28mm Lens
- DPA 340Mb PCMCIA Type III Hard Disk
- Battery & Charger
- ELPAC 885047 AC Adapter (power supply)
Note: because of the size difference between 35mm film and the CCD in the camera you have to multiply the focal length of a lens by a "focal length multiplier", in the case of the 520 this is 1.6 (focal length multipliers are listed on the comparison engine for all pro SLR cameras).
Therefore the 28mm lens supplied had an effective 35mm film focal length of 45mm. Another example would be a 28mm to 70mm zoom lens would effectively be a 45mm to 112mm zoom lens on this camera. (And a 500mm lens would be 800mm !!)
Obviously to get true wide angle you would have to use an 18mm or less lens.
The
520 and the 560 are also unique in that they feature an anti-alias
filter which prevents the effect known as "aliasing" (rainbow
coloured bands on fine detail such as hair / distant fences etc.).
The anti-alias filter sits between the lens and the mirror and can be removed if required by removing a small screw.
This has no noticeable effect on
the viewfinder, exposure metering or focusing systems.
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Photographs of the camera were taken with Canon PowerShot Pro70, most images can be "clicked on" which will display a larger (normally 768 x 512) image in a new window. To navigate the review simply click on the section headings in the frame above. (This review is longer than previous reviews and therefore some sections have been broken into multiple pages, use the 'Next >' button on the bottom of the page to move to the next page) |
