Kodak Professional DCS Pro Back Plus Digital Camera Back
16 Million Pexels And A Whole Lot More
In case you haven't heard, there's a new sheriff in town who just rode in from Rochester. This new sheriff has 16 megapixels, pro-oriented software, gorgeous color, and fits virtually any medium format camera--what's not to like? When Kodak introduced the DCS Pro Back in 2001 they turned a lot of heads. Not only did they introduce the first big square 4000x4000 pixel one-shot color digital camera back since the late, great ($48,000!) Dicomed Bigshot, but they added total portability via on-board CompactFlash storage, a built-in LCD screen, and the ability to shoot without being tethered to any computer. Nice. While speculation in the pro photo world was that the price would be in the unprecedented sub-$30,000 range, Kodak shocked once again with a list price of $21,995. While that may seem awfully steep compared to a Nikon CoolPix 5000, a machine of this quality, capability, and pedigree was shocking news indeed. In the year since its debut Kodak has improved the back, officially renamed it the Kodak Professional DCS Pro Back Plus Digital Camera Back, and actually held the price steady. Instead of a two-camera application, as in the Pro Back, the Plus model adds the ability to interface with a number of other cameras, including fully manual cameras. Since I shoot digitally with Megavision and Better Light cameras for still life work and Canon D30 and EOS-1D SLRs for everything else, the Pro Back Plus was high on my list of pro digital devices to check out. |
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Staggering Specs |
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The $20,000 back shows up in a relatively pedestrian brown cardboard box. Inside you'll find the back with adapter for the camera of your choice, a nifty little cordura carrying bag for the back, a rechargeable power pack, studio-based AC adapter, and FireWire cable for use with a PC or Mac computer. My review sample did not include any sort of professionally printed manual, just the Owners Manual for both hardware and software that is also included in PDF files on the install disk. |
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Handsome Design |
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The CCD Array |
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The Pro Back Plus doesn't present you with quite the same dilemma. The AA filter certainly eats away at some of the native sharpness of the chip, but it still renders a reasonably sharp file and does a tremendous job of taming color artifacts. Even when shooting a catalog of very intricate embroidered handbags I found almost no color aliasing or moir problems, a much better performance than either of my Canon D SLRs. Learning Curves Ahead |
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Onto The Hassie It
Goes Since I was in the midst of some product work at the time I went for the FireWire arrangement. While Kodak offers software for both PC and Mac computers, DCS Capture Studio 1.6, the software that allows you to shoot and capture on the fly is only available for the Mac, although Camera Manager and DCS Photo Desk are cross-platform. I powered up Capture Studio, plugged the camera in and everything worked, first time out of the box. Kodak requires that you install a viewfinder mask, since the Pro Back Plus captures a 1.5" square chunk of the Hasselblad's 21/4" square format. The resulting 1.5 multiplier factor makes my wide angle 50mm lens a normal 75mm, and turns my normal 80mm into a short tele 120mm. I'm used to this multiplier factor on everything else I shoot with, so it's no big deal for me. |
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Kodak Software Kodak knows how pros work, so you can either capture an image directly by pressing the shutter of the camera or by clicking the little shutter release icon on the screen. Once an image is captured the raw data DCS file is immediately written to your hard drive and is presented on the screen as a thumbnail image. To see a larger preview you simply double-click on the thumbnail and the image-editing window opens. Unfortunately, Capture Studio is no speed demon. Clicking on the small image window to view at 100 percent doesn't just zoom in, but opens another window with a larger view. This seems clunky and certainly slows the entire process down. Since Kodak knows that photographers need to very accurately color manage images, Capture Studio is a deep and powerful color management tool. Kodak recommends "Pro Photo RGB" as your default colorspace, and this creates images that open in the Adobe RGB colorspace with exceptionally good color. Kodak not only allows for multiple working colorspaces, but finally answers the pleas of pro shooters by including a color profile creation tool within the software. This allows you to accurately create a profile not only for the camera back, but for the camera back working under your lighting conditions. Infinitely more powerful than a simple gray balance, Kodak allows you to shoot the industry standard Macbeth Color Chart at the start of every session, create a working profile and then apply this profile to every image in your shoot folder. It works very, very well. Working on an image in Capture Studio allows you to edit 16-bit color for maximum dynamic range, and allows you to perform color, tone, sharpness, and noise reduction on raw camera data rather than a processed RGB image. The advantage is that manipulations made within the Kodak software should produce a cleaner, better file. The downside is that the software is slow and clunky when compared with batch processing RGB files in Photoshop. The Power Of Looks The power of the Looks palette is staggering, and makes the Pro Back Plus a nearly universal back for product, portrait, and wedding photographers. Unfortunately, the software does impede the workflow a bit, since every time you need to change Looks you need to find the colorsync folder, since the software doesn't automatically default to this folder (as it should). |
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A Workflow That Works Once you get used to this workflow it makes perfect sense. Getting in the habit of burning CD-ROMs of your raw files creates an archive of images that can be used in the future without any changes or manipulations. Taking Your Images In Hand Image Results Dust Magnet Worth Its Weight In my tests I found large prints made on a Fuji Frontier digital "C" printer were better than images optically printed from color negative stock. You heard me--better. In general I found that DCS Pro Back Plus files shot with the Portrait Hi-Color Hold Look enabled were very close to 21/4" Ektachrome transparencies that have been drum scanned. While I felt the files weren't quite as crisp and alias free as my scan back files for studio product photography, this camera produced images that are better than all but a handful of very expensive dedicated digital backs. If shooting is your business and you can justify the purchase price, the Kodak DCS Pro Back Plus should represent a serious tool for making money. As a commercial photographer I'm tempted to buy one, but if you shoot portraits and weddings you should immediately contact your Kodak Professional dealer and arrange for a trial of one of these beauties. While the Phase One H 20 back features the same chip and some pros feel it delivers even better images, it does not at this time offer the seamless portability of the Kodak unit, nor the sub-$22,000 price. Kodak even offers refurbished units from time to time, so check the Kodak Professional web site. (At the time of this review Kodak still had several original Pro Backs for $16,995 available.) For more information, contact Kodak Professional at (716) 724-4903, fax: (716) 724-4148; www.kodak.com. |
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