I had the benefit of actually shooting with the 14n in our studio today and was very pleased with most of the results. We shot a variety of samples and I will be posting some of these for comparison. The firmware is not final and thank goodness for the advent of write acceleration and large capacity CF cards. The camera has the ability to save both a RAW and JPEG image at the same time to the CF card. Needless to say this eats up space REALLY fast with the DCR (RAW) file at 13.4MB and the JPEG at 4.5MB a piece. The balancing function is very nice where you can zoom in on your Macbeth card using the LCD, select a patch and perform a white balance. Here are two quick images. This was taken at 1/125 f/19 one Speedotron at 800ws with a small soft box on the right and white foam board as a refelector on the left. The lens was a Nikon 70-180 Micro. NO SHARPENING performed... I need to examine some jeans and plaids that were shot which I think had a little too much noise for my liking but this might be due to the fact that I was looking at a JPEG using 10:1 compression, hopefully the raw file is a little better
Added at 7pm: The bottom one is a crop from the top image not another shot.
Thank you. Maybe now all the "boobs" (not on this site) that have been bashing the 14n and Kodak will zip it and get on with taking photos? There may even be a few trying to buy back their old Nikon glass or get a lower interest rate on their credit cards!
Let us know how your other shots look when you get a chance.
Bill
The ISO was either 80 or 100, I was fiddling with that right before taking this shot. It appeared that the engineers at Kodak were experimenting with an ISO 64 since when I turned the dial it showed for a moment and then reverted back to ISO 80 as the lowest possible setting. My personal thought (read: I'll be using my own money) will be to wait till June when the firmware gets a little more refined. The lenses I mounted were the Nikon 70-200VR, 17-35/2.8, 70-180 Micro, and the 28-105/3.5-4.5. At one point while I was outside with the 17-35 the camera kind of "wigged" out on me (it would not save an image to the CF card). My only explanation for this is that I had formatted a Lexar USB card on the computer after downloading some images and inserted it into the camera without doing an in-camera format. I am awaiting a Match Print to see how the moire is handled and will keep everyone posted.
lovely colors...i think you have a great technique in lighting....thus, your shots still don't stand really out from previous dslr....perhaps more shots posting are on the way?...my 2cents
If you want to see some more samples from the 14n take a gander at Charlotte's site...she's posted a few images. http://wordsandphotos.org/stilllifeandart.htm
One comment she made was about the fork in the second photo (the link was broken for me earlier today so I did not get to see some of the images till a few moments ago). She was using a 105Micro and on of my test shots I used the 70-180Micro and also encountered a purple fringe in the specular highlights. Odd coincidence. It was suggested that this could be due to the design of the Micro lenses but once these start getting into the studios I think we will see if this is actually an issue.
Ohh, before I forget. We printed some fashion shots today on our Kodak Approval with jeans, plaids and some checkered capris and NO moire!!! However, the way I accomplished that was using the moire filter and smoothing in photodesk 3.0 which added a touch of softness to the image. IMO, Kodak should really rename that slider to something other than smoothing.
I'm not sure anyone can judge any camera, based on a single image, particularly one made in controled conditions, with studio lighting.
I know several of the "boobs" who have a test sample of the Pro 14n. (I do not, yet.) And I guarantee you that none of them are "boobs."
Charlotte's images are great, but I would love to see all of her Pro 14n images, in full size, before conversion from RAW, and discuss her experiences with the camera in detail.
Peter Burian, Contributing Editor
PHOTO LIFE magazine
Peter, I could not agree with you more. Granted this is just one image, they are fairly large so I'm not too keen on saturating my available bandwidth for the benefits of this forum. No Offense Everybody The remainder of the images I have shot have been to test the camera for fashion and textile catalogs. I have some concern about noise in the shadows but I want to wait until the firmware gets updated before passing judgment.
No disrepect to anyone in the industry who is judging the camera. I was referring, and I apologize for not being more specific, to the individuals who have spent an inordinate amount of time bashing Kodak, the 14n, and anything to do with the camera based on no conclusive information.
These recent photos, and Charlottes images not in studio, go a long way toward what a lot of Kodak professionals are waiting for. The final version of the 14n.
This is what makes Fred's forum unique. Intelligent discussion not blathering, uninformed, drivel. (Lets not go down the path of the marketing mistakes Kodak has made on this. dpreview is full of that).
No disrepect to anyone in the industry who is judging the camera. I was referring, and I apologize for not being more specific, to the individuals who have spent an inordinate amount of time bashing Kodak, the 14n, and anything to do with the camera based on no conclusive information. >>>
Bill: Yes, on the other hand, some of the Web digital magazines have test samples of the Pro 14n, and all of them have seen the sample images that Kodak provided a few weeks ago. Some have published Previews based on those and these are worth considering -- as a preview, anyway.
You'll see them all publishing more specifics on the Pro14n in the next few weeks -- unless they decide to wait and test only full production models, instead of their current test samples. Frankly, I think that is exactly what they will do since the current samples DO have some issues -- so they tell me.
I never rush to get an early beta test sample. I'll pick mine up at KODAK on March 18, and it should be closer to final (also the Firmware) than the current test samples that were sent out in February.
With all due respect to ALL manufacturers, I think they would all be wise not to send out beta test samples, pre-prod models, sample images made with such early version of the cameras, etc. The advance publicity rarely helps them because the final production model is usually better. Why don't they all wait and send out only the excellent final cameras as test samples? Who knows but they ALL seem to do that ... or with only a few exceptions.
Cheers!
Peter
Edited by Peter Burian on Mar 13, 2003 at 07:00 PM GMT...Show more →
Since you are in the studio, youcan also over expose it a bit, and exposure compensate in PhotoDesk..
This will decrease the noise and increase the color accuracy even further!!!
Somewhere near 50 ISO the highlights will begin to clip, so be careful pulling it too far..
Great to see you on this Forum, Jay. Sorry I missed you at the PMA show.
I'll be getting the camera (and an instruction session) from Kodak Canada next week for my tests, for a Review in the June issue of PHOTO LIFE. (see www.photolife.com)
Cheers!
Peter
btw, folks, Jay Kelbley is the guy in charge of the Pro 14n development, etc., at Kodak USA.
Peter, I posted non-lighting controlled pictures on my site last night. The server choked the time I tried to post full-res files, so I'm still trying to find a way to post the rather hefty full-size images. (A fully processed (in Photo Desk and in Photoshop) TIFF file weighs in at 77 MB.) Even when I use the PS Save for Web command, PS tells me that the files exceed the size the feature was designed for and that I may experience some out of memory errors and slow performance.
However, the way I accomplished that was using the moire filter and smoothing in photodesk 3.0 which added a touch of softness to the image. IMO, Kodak should really rename that slider to something other than smoothing.
The remainder of the images I have shot have been to test the camera for fashion and textile catalogs. I have some concern about noise in the shadows but I want to wait until the firmware gets updated before passing judgment.