Do note though: my three images have been Photoshopped: Auto Contrast, slight brightness adjustment, if necessary *** and Color Saturation +8.*** plus USM.
Very few digital SLR cameras produce color that is punchy enough for me, so I generally find that I need to increase Saturation. Not much with these samples, in order to keep the colors realistic.
Some RAW conversion software programs allow you to adjust Color Sat. before processing the images, but the Kodak (and others) do not. Hence, I did so in Photoshop.
One of the more distressing facts to me is that Peter or Charlotte can get such great images, yet Kodak didn't get the same cameras to people like Dave at Imaging resources, or Steve at Stevesdigicams. These sites get tons of hits and each hit on either site will be hurting the camera.
Kodak should have hand delivered in person the best possible unit as the reviews are whats hurting them, along with their terrible delievey time.
However your images both show what the camera is capable of. I already made the move to Canon, no going back now.
Paul Caldwell wrote:
One of the more distressing facts to me is that Peter or Charlotte can get such great images....
...However your images both show what the camera is capable of...
Hmmm. Just as with the 1Ds, without posting 100% crops along with these reduced images, you really can't get any actual idea how 'good' the image is. Heck, my P&S digital could have taken some of the reduced 640-pixel images shown above! You certainly can't see things like noise and aliasing, let alone the superlative resolution that a 14MP sensor affords.
PS: Yes I've seen some of the few 100% crops that have been noted. I would think it would help immensely in these threads to post two images (reduced and 100% crop) when talking about image quality. I know if I were considering purchasing a 14n (as I was months ago), it would be necessary info for deciding between it and the 1Ds. I'm not trying to bash Kodak (I had considered the 14n), however it's still not even a viable option, months later...
Edited by Jeff Warner on Mar 31, 2003 at 06:09 PM GMT (Reason: del. email notif)
Jeff, I tried to post a full-res image on my site, and the server choked. If you give me an idea of how big is big enough, I will take down some of the other pictures on my site and put up a full-size image or two. I can promise you that the RAW and processed files (TIFF) look just like the crops only quite a bit better. Also let me know which ones you think would be best to post.
Only caveat is that I'm going on vacation on Monday, so I would need to do this work tonight or tomorrow (I always find a way to put off packing).
Paul: I'm not sure how different the cameras were.
Steve and I had the same Firmware.
Mine was a production model, but I don't know what difference that made.
People on another Forum think I'm paid by Kodak to "defend" this camera, but honestly, I made some images of spectacularly high quality, at ISO 80 to ISO 200 especially. Even at ISO 400, in decent light, image quality is surprisingly good.
Yes, the camera does have other issues. (In low light/low contrast, esp. at high ISO.) Of course, when I was shooting film, 90% of my photography was at ISO 50 or ISO 100, at exposures not exceeding 1/15 sec., so for me, the other "issues" would not be a huge problem.
On the other hand, it's tough to judge image quality from a small, heavily compressed JPEG on a forum. I could send you - or anyone who asks, a 4MB Tiff - a crop from any of my posted images, by E-mail.
I usually post a 300-400 pixel dimension selection of a representative portion of the image. I try to include an area with both sharp details (for the 'resolutionists') and areas of shadow (for the 'noisificators'). I trust you'd pick as good an image and selection as I would...
Thanks for all the work you've put into showing the 14n's capabilities, it's been quite enlightening.
Jeff: Since the file size has to be 150K max. on this forum, a crop from a 38MB image would need to be tiny.
But I would be happy to send a 4MB TIFF (or a larger JPEG with minimal compression - 4MB) to anyone by e-mail. That would include a larger portion of the image.
Just tell me which image, and roughly which portion of it, you want to see.
Okay, I think I get it, Jeff. So let me take a shower (6 hours of muddy yard work today), and then I'll try it. So when you say a selection, that means that I should crop out a piece (per your description), save it at level 12 jpeg, and post that, right? (I feel really dumb about this by the way.)
charlotl wrote:
So when you say a selection, that means that I should crop out a piece (per your description), save it at level 12 jpeg, and post that, right? (I feel really dumb about this by the way.)
Yup, that's it. An easy way (instead of using crop tool, assuming PShop) is to set your selection for, say, a 300 x 400 pixel dimension (Style: Fixed Size), then drag to select any area (size/perspective thing also works for crop tool, I think, but then it will reduce your selection boundary to the resolution if necessary, which you don't want). Then you can drag the selection around to where you want it, then choose Image:Crop, and JPEG, etc.
Peter:
I know it's a really small portion of the image, but it seems to be the most reasonable way of 'communicating' with the many people on this forum. As we all know, the huge file sizes present a problem for many, although having an original file would be optimum. As long as the small (could be 640 pixels!) 100% selection is reasonably representative, it communicates volumes more than the de-ressed full-size images alone. The discussions about 'clumping' and aliasing would have been much more beneficial with 100% crops to show what was being discussed.
Thanks also for your input on all of this!
PS: For an example of the 1Ds' output, I recently put together a quickie webpage with 100% crops. Although in this case I had concentrated on showing resolution, see the crop examples at:
^^ yep, that is a great way to show off what a camera can really do. i'm impressed by the 1Ds gallery you've prepared. it certainly does the camera justice.
Peter Burian wrote:
OK, Jeff, I'll do that tomorrow. It's 11 pm here.
My only concern is artifacts, introduced by JPEG compression as in the Office Door image on your Web site. (See artifacts around the lettering.)
Peter
I agree. I used moderate compression for these (i.e. 6.5 or 65), and it does indeed show, in some areas. I've found that using 10-12 shows little, but then we again run into file size issues...
charlotl wrote:
Jeff, should I sharpen the little cutouts before posting
If you have already sharpened the image, I would not. I would try to present it with the 'normal' amount of sharpening that you would use to print the file at high resolution. None of my 100% crops were sharpened, as the full-size files had already been prepared (i.e. sharpened) for printing.
Ah, ha. I keep a TIFF that is the same as my processed negative. Then I make a copy that is sized and sharpened for printing. (You can image just how many DVD's I burn in a month.) So, I've been making my little pictures from my processed neg. I'm saving one copy unsharpened and one sharpened.
The last picture in the gallery was taken with the first version of the firmware on a pre-production camera in very flat light. It shows the kind of images you see in some of the reviews. It was handheld at 1/30 sec., so it's not especially sharp to begin with. I will try to retake that picture when I return from vacation to show the differences between firmware versions.
Daschund, two of the photos are per your request (unsharp, sharp). Sharpening, of course, makes a world of difference. I would love for Fred to write a custom action for the 14n. I tried his D1x action, and it just doesn't quite do as well on these images as it does on the D1x.
Charlotte and Peter, I own my own server, and can throw up a few full-sized JPEGS saved at 10-11 if you like. Include webpages with details (or I can make them with info provided). I can also do tiffs, but I want to keep below an additional 100 GBs of transfer for April.
John, I just sent you the gerberas file saved at 9 JPEG in PS. I cropped the original just a little to get rid of some extraneous stuff on the right. Also the bottom of the image is a little weird because the flowers were in celophane (sp?) wrappers.
Thank you for doing this! I guess I should pay for more space for my site.
This way we can have an idea of what we can expect...