Cool Hunting

Phil Askey reviews the new 14 Mega Pixel (Wow!) digital SLR from Kodak (and Nikon). The DCS Pro 14n is available now, but in limited quantities.

The introduction to Phil's Article:

Kodak announced the DCS-14n at Photokina in September 2002, it marked the first Kodak Professional digital SLR since the DCS 720x in June 2001 (15 months). The DCS-14n generated a lot of interest for several reasons; it has a full frame sensor (no cropping factor), the sensor is CMOS, not CCD as used by Kodak in the past, the camera is considerably smaller than any previous DCS digital SLR and importantly it carries a US$5,000 list price. At the time there's little doubt that Kodak stole a large amount of the limelight from Canon's EOS-1Ds which was also announced at the same time, especially as that eleven megapixel full frame digital SLR has a $8,000 list price. Since then however the DCS-14n has been 'forever delayed', with several slipped release dates. The DCS-14n is starting to reach dealers as I write this review but still isn't available in large quantities.

Anyone familiar with Nikon SLR's will immediately recognize the F80 'top half' to the camera, the body itself is custom made from magnesium alloy to Kodak's design, the top is supplied by Nikon. The photographic side of the camera is based on the F80, the electronics and digital portion of the camera by Kodak Professional. The fourteen megapixel full frame CMOS sensor is made by the Belgium company FillFactory and is actually produced by Tower Semiconductor in Israel.