Gotta DCS520 coming :)

On the cheap and BOXED with only 26K on the clock - looking forward to it, I had the 420 a while back and the internal battery died so sold it as parts but enjoyed the funky 1960s colour from the thing (high IR contamination) so trying again with the 520.. I've used the 760 but not the Canon versions, it looks like an early mockup of a 1D by the pics

Can the batteries be re-populated with Eneloops etc?

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Please ignore the Typos, I'm the world's worst Typist

Adam-T said:

AdamT wrote:
On the cheap and BOXED with only 26K on the clock - looking forward
to it, I had the 420 a while back and the internal battery died so
sold it as parts but enjoyed the funky 1960s colour from the thing
(high IR contamination) so trying again with the 520.. I've used the
760 but not the Canon versions, it looks like an early mockup of a 1D
by the pics

Can the batteries be re-populated with Eneloops etc?

Click to expand...

You're a real whore for old cameras', aren't you ?

I have a 520 since 2001, brought from a local newspaper when they upgraded to 1D's. I used it for a couple of years, mainly for motor sport. Of course, 2MP is a bit limiting but if you don't crop too much A4's are fine. I get mine out once in a while and am still amazed at how good it really is (except for resolution). I find the CAF is still up with many modern DSLR's, especially for subjects moving towards you.

As for the batteries, I have never found them a problem. Good for 300-500 shots per charge. The real problem is the charger as if the battery voltage gets too low it will not charge the battery (I'm sure many good batteries have been chucked because of this). If you are not already aware of the solution, the trick is paper clips and a 9v battery ! see here http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-4419-4424

As to the cells, I think I remember that the cells were larger than AA's (5/4 AA seems to ring a bell). I see no reason why you could not pull apart an old pack and replace the cells, much like people do with D1 packs. Fortunately my three packs are still holding a good charge, even afer 4 years, but not much use.
Have fun with your new toy !
A couple of shots with the 520 from 2001.





And resolution is not bad for 2MP





--
John W

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer, but wish we didn't - Erica Jong:

Here is another 520 gallery

http://www.jonlayephotography.com/dolphinschargers/

The shots starting with 2B2P... are with a DCS-520

Member said:

You're a real whore for old cameras', aren't you ?

Click to expand...

LOL - they're a lot more interesting than the new ones (D90 - BIG Yawn - 500D / D5000 - Double Yawn / Oly E620 - Triple Yawn / Sony A230/330/380 - totally Comatose)

Member said:

sport. Of course, 2MP is a bit limiting but if you don't crop too
much A4's are fine.

Click to expand...

I used to get decent A4s from the Nikon 950 in 1999 so the AA-filter-ess A520 ought to be a breeze - the AA filter has either broken or been sold on as the cam has an empty lens mount, there's no IR block there so I'm expecting some DCS420 type contamination, I guess I can hack a Sigma SD10 one to fit?

Member said:

amazed at how good it really is (except for resolution). I find the
CAF is still up with many modern DSLR's, especially for subjects
moving towards you.

Click to expand...

I should think so, this isn't some joke consumer AF like the 5D-II or 50D or something, its a 1N which = 1DS accuracy but only 5 points..

Member said:

many good batteries have been chucked because of this). If you are
not already aware of the solution, the trick is paper clips and a 9v
battery ! see here

Click to expand...

Thanks for the link, have been kickstarting Nicads and NiMhs for years like that - another trick when they're totally dead and Crystals have formed stopping charging altogether is to Reverse blast the things for a second with a powerful bench PSU then do the 9V trick

Member said:

A couple of shots with the 520 from 2001.

Click to expand...

Excellent good stuff there !! . looking forward to it

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Please ignore the Typos, I'm the world's worst Typist

Thanks Jon - good stuff there !! . the 520 seems to have less issues than the 14N (no italian flag for a start)

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Please ignore the Typos, I'm the world's worst Typist

I had a Canon D2000 for a while - it was good for confusing people who assumed it must have been a follow-up to the 1000D - and I was pleasantly surprised. Nonetheless I eventually got rid of it, because I rarely carried it around; it was too large and heavy to carry with a second camera, and too limited to carry on its own.

Mine had the infrared filter. I found that it still had a certain degree of IR contamination, but not to an awful extent. ISO 800 was surprisingly decent although it looked better in black and white, without the blue channel. The odd vertical grip arrangement - with the button set back from the edge - was novel at least. It looked the business.

I never found moire to be an issue. I liked the concept of being able to develop RAW files into JPEGs after the fact, rather than having to shoot RAW+JPG. Also, with two 2gb cards it would take something like 1,900 images, and the two cards were hot-swappable.

I ended with a few unanswered questions. Firstly, what kind of flash automation did it use? It didn't communicate with my ETTL flash unit, but my flash unit was an off-brand clone that might not have emulated all the subtleties of ETTL. The EOS 1N body was pre-ETTL, but the brochure I saw a while back specifically mentioned ETTL. Secondly, given that it was an old body, could it use the small number of Sigma EF lenses that work on the Canon D30 and D60, but not the more modern cameras?

On a broader note, I'm curious as to the existence of the Canon D6000. The only photograph I have seen of the camera had the nameplate obscured; it seems to exist but I have never seen a picture of one.

Ashley Pomeroy said:

Mine had the infrared filter. I found that it still had a certain
degree of IR contamination, but not to an awful extent.

Click to expand...

Mine may have then (more like a 420) - should be interesting ;-)

Ashley Pomeroy said:

I ended with a few unanswered questions. Firstly, what kind of flash
automation did it use? It didn't communicate with my ETTL flash unit

Click to expand...

Hmmm, the review here states it should be full E-TTL but the Pro70 is ETTL but doesn't work with flashes other than the 220EX and 380EX - in TTL mode, 550s, 420s, 580MK2s etc just don't work - you need those two specific flashes.. Hopefully the 520 will be compat with later EXs , could always grab an EZ cheaply anyway

Ashley Pomeroy said:

On a broader note, I'm curious as to the existence of the Canon
D6000. The only photograph I have seen of the camera had the
nameplate obscured; it seems to exist but I have never seen a picture
of one.

Click to expand...

for Japan only if I remember rightly .. I avoided a few D2000s in the past due to lack of firmware updates and lack of compatibility with RAW converters which do handle the 520, all on heresay of course , I never tried one. the cam is quite funky as it looks like a possible mockup of the "future" EOS-1D ;-)

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Please ignore the Typos, I'm the world's worst Typist

The D6000 did exist but was never sold in the US. It was a poor seller in Japan and rarely comes up for sale. But the D6000 and DCS-560 were the same camera, one sold by Kodak and one by Canon

Hi Adam,
This was my first dslr in 2004, I used it for portrait/modelsessions

for which 2 mp is no problem at all, I guess it won't satisfy when doing landscapes..

Mine had no IR filter, and I hated the color shift to magenta, so corrections were always applied. The data retrieval from overexposed raw files is ver very impressive, similar to the dcs 760.
I had the canon version btw, the D2000.
I will remember its as a great camera.
here are some samples:







Ulli

Fabulous samples - thanks for sharing (I was thankfully using the 1DS mk1 in 2004 for work .. what corrections did you have to do, it's just arrived and pointing it throuhg a window via the AC adapter it doesn't look as bad as the DCS420 was (which was so Alien City, only Auto colous in PS7 worked ) but I can see the shift ..

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Please ignore the Typos, I'm the world's worst Typist

It's arrived and it really does look like a 1D Mockup ;-) - you can see where Canon got their ideas from for the 1D series, most things are placed similar - definately looks a big step up from the even more Home-Made looking 14N (proper glass over the LCDs etc) anmd of course its based on a Pro body.. ..

I got the old flat top charger (I guess the more intelligent slant charger only came with the later Nikon 720) and two Batts, a Kodak Premium (Nimh) and a "Premium Gold KD-723XM" which is on recycle as I Type .. Both were flat enough to make the LED in the battery door flash and "bc" come up on the top LCD.

Cam seems to work OK - some muck on the CCD but that should be easy to clean as its a bigg mirror box with an APS sensor in (though not as easy as the 420) ..

I got the cam, Body cap, the two mentioned Batts, Elpac PSU, Charger and its PSU, Manual, three PCMCIA/CF adapters and a pile pf AC leads for every country imaginable

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Please ignore the Typos, I'm the world's worst Typist

I took some pics of the 520 alongside my worn out 1D MK1 to show how close they are ergonomically (I mean the Kodak bits even) and the size difference .. the 520 isn't as big or bricklike as the Nikon F5 based versions, isn't as "Pregnant" as the 14N and the portrait button is far more use than the 14N also ..

Ashley, if you want to use these pics in your blog then please feel free to do so, so long as you credit me for them - you can have the full size versions if you need them



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Please ignore the Typos, I'm the world's worst Typist

Adam,

Indeed the dcs 500 series are more compact then F5 based series; the heigth difference is clear in the advantage of the 500 series.

Regarding to the corrections I did, was mostly done within photoshop raw: firstly setting the white balance to daylight preset, whcih worked very effective most of the time, but there were cases where the magenta cast was harder to remove, so that involved adjusting individual color sliders in either hi,mid or shadowrange. I always cursed the prev owner that he didn't warn me about the missing ir filter.

Now, with my dcs 760, i am happy the ir glass is present. I will use that cam next month again for some modelsessions in indonesia. somehow the kodak sensor gave me

great tonal results in the typical asian light quality(prob caused by the extreme air pollution by either traffic/industry or the always present fine dust in the air which makes the light very very diffuse....)

Jean Ulrich Brer said:

most of the time, but there were cases where the magenta cast was harder to remove, so that involved adjusting individual color sliders in either hi,mid or shadowrange.

Click to expand...

Ahh well, I thought there may well be a selection of settings which worked every time, it's certainly not as bad as the 420

I'll see if I can cobble one from an SD10 in

--
Please ignore the Typos, I'm the world's worst Typist

Hi Uli,
I thought you sold your 720! will you take your sigma 28mm 1.8 with you again?
Used that lens a couple of days ago for a party ...just great!

Have a nice time in indonesia! I am sure I will see some nice samples again fotoapparatuur..

Hi Henk,

Somehow I never couldn't part of the dcs 760, after switching to Canon 1Ds & Olympus E-3 I still find the raw files of this kodak better, especially when it comes to retrieving hilight detail.
Unfortunately I was so stupid to sell that 28 1.8..........
I now only have my 85 mm with me when goin to Indonesia.

Or borrow me your 28mm , when i give it back to you I will include a Rayflash unit as "rental fee"

Yes, I already planned some models shootings; streetsession in jakarta kota tua(some sort of ghost town consisiting of old dutch colonial buildings) and a beach shoot on a small resort island bidadari(also alot of dutch remains there..)
I already prepared 9 batteries and 10 pcmcia cards with cf in it....lol..

My friends over there will prob wonder why i use such old cam, there its high end Nikon and Canon only.......

HenkL said:

Hi Uli,
I thought you sold your 720! will you take your sigma 28mm 1.8 with you again?
Used that lens a couple of days ago for a party ...just great!

Have a nice time in indonesia! I am sure I will see some nice samples again fotoapparatuur..

Click to expand...

Jean Ulrich Brer said:

I already prepared 9 batteries and 10 pcmcia cards with cf in it....lol..

Click to expand...

LOL - is 9 batteries Enough ? ;-) .

Regarding storage, My 520 came with 3 PCMCIA holders and I have two of my own (after the 420) and considering the RAWs are 2Mb each and with the new firmware you can use 2Gb cards, there's enough storage there to burn out the camera !!! - you're in the same boat with 6Mb files and 20Gb of potential storage :-0

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Please ignore the Typos, I'm the world's worst Typist

Haha I hope its enough for a full day shooting(well lets say 6-7 hours total)..
the problem is i am prob tooo far away from any ac socket for recharging.

6 batteries are still brandnew and have undergone the burn-in procedure(3 times charge/discharge) to maximize the power. I use both 2 gb & 4 gb cards with 133x

speed, faster prob isn't supported by the dcs 760, and slower cards drain the batteries more. I need to buy a few cf more, because after backing up to my powerbook, i will keep each used cf apart, so i have 2 copies of each session during my stay overthere.
btw i bought my batteries from both a german and chinese ebay reseller.

while both use the same branded batteries, the german price was 25 euros a piece, while the chinese ask 10 euros only.....

AdamT said:

Adam-T said:

I already prepared 9 batteries and 10 pcmcia cards with cf in it....lol..

Click to expand...

LOL - is 9 batteries Enough ? ;-) .

Regarding storage, My 520 came with 3 PCMCIA holders and I have two of my own (after the 420) and considering the RAWs are 2Mb each and with the new firmware you can use 2Gb cards, there's enough storage there to burn out the camera !!! - you're in the same boat with 6Mb files and 20Gb of potential storage :-0

--
Please ignore the Typos, I'm the world's worst Typist

Click to expand...

Jean Ulrich Brer said:

speed, faster prob isn't supported by the dcs 760, and slower cards drain the batteries more.

Click to expand...

Ahh, I've just come back from a shoot with the 520 and noticed the battery meter drop to 1/2 on a long write session (256Mb Sandisk basic blue card) then recover back to full after ! . I didn't think these cams would benefit from anything faster, I have an 80X Lexar 2Gb , have to try that !!

Jean Ulrich Brer said:

btw i bought my batteries from both a german and chinese ebay reseller.

while both use the same branded batteries, the german price was 25 euros a piece, while the chinese ask 10 euros only.....

Click to expand...

Name of seller??? .. My Kodak NiMh is as weirdly dead in that it won't charge but is over 4V - I think a couple of cells are totalled and the rest OK, dunno how to fix that without splitting the Pack .. the 3rd party one is fine..

Not sure about the 500 series but I read the 600/700 series profit from 133x speed.
The HK based ebay seller's link is here:

http://cgi.ebay.com/BATTERY-FIT-KODAK-DCS-520-DCS-560-DCS-620-DCS-620x-NEW_W0QQitemZ270392142265QQcmdZViewItemQQptZBatteries_Chargers?hash=item3ef4a0a9b9&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A12%7C66%3A2%7C39%3A1%7C72%3A1205%7C293%3A1%7C294%3A50

AdamT said:

Adam-T said:

speed, faster prob isn't supported by the dcs 760, and slower cards drain the batteries more.

Click to expand...

Ahh, I've just come back from a shoot with the 520 and noticed the battery meter drop to 1/2 on a long write session (256Mb Sandisk basic blue card) then recover back to full after ! . I didn't think these cams would benefit from anything faster, I have an 80X Lexar 2Gb , have to try that !!

Adam-T said:

btw i bought my batteries from both a german and chinese ebay reseller.

while both use the same branded batteries, the german price was 25 euros a piece, while the chinese ask 10 euros only.....

Click to expand...

Name of seller??? .. My Kodak NiMh is as weirdly dead in that it won't charge but is over 4V - I think a couple of cells are totalled and the rest OK, dunno how to fix that without splitting the Pack .. the 3rd party one is fine..

Click to expand...