DCS 760 video out?

Discuss older Nikon-based Kodak digital SLRs, including DCS 100, DCS 200, NC2000, DCS 400/600/700-series, etc. Ask questions, post general comments, anecdotes, reviews and user tips.
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Wolfi
Posts: 37
Joined: Wed Nov 09, 2005 8:33 am
Location: german living in south France

DCS 760 video out?

Post by Wolfi »

hi,

What can be done with the video out port on the DCS 7 series? Is there a way to transmit wireless?

thanks

Wolfi
Stan Disbrow
Posts: 601
Joined: Fri May 20, 2005 7:33 pm
Location: Raleigh, NC USA

Post by Stan Disbrow »

Hi,

You can hook it to a video monitor to show the client what you just shot. that's about it.

The 2 MP 500/600/700 units had an optional analog cellular transmission capability. Not that this would do you much good these days.

Stan
Amateur Photographer
Professional Electronics Development Engineer
Wolfi
Posts: 37
Joined: Wed Nov 09, 2005 8:33 am
Location: german living in south France

Post by Wolfi »

Thanks Stan,

That's about fantastic, does this mean that I can use a palm or something else? Means I can see raws?

what is the real resolution of this chip in real world photography compared to film?
Stan Disbrow
Posts: 601
Joined: Fri May 20, 2005 7:33 pm
Location: Raleigh, NC USA

Post by Stan Disbrow »

Hi,

Means you can hook a television (video) monitor, CRT or LCD doesn't matter, and you can see the thumbnail on that which is usually shown on the LCD on the back of the unit. In other words, it makes for a larger screen which you can point towards the client so they're not looking over your shoulder. ;)

You won't see the raw file, per se, just the lower res thumbnail that winds up placed at the beginning of the Tiff file. You can see how low res it really is by opening a Kodak Raw Tiff with a file viewer that understands 'standard' Tiff, but is not a raw converter. In that case, all that gets opened is the thumbnail part of the Tiff file, which is in a 'standard' Tiff format whiel the actual Raw part of the data is ignored.

As far as the resolution compared to film goes, that greatly depends on the particular film you want to compare it to. If we're talking ISO 100 color print (negative) film, such as Kodacolor, I have calculated that the fair compaison resolution would be 10-12 MP for a 24x36mm frame size. So, the 6 MP CCD in the 560/660/760, with it's 1.3x crop factor, compares quite favorable with the same crop factor for print film. Slide (positive) film will have more resolution and higher speed print (negative) film will have less.

The 2 MP CCDs have far less resolution than film, even with the half-frame crop factor, but the signal-to-noise level is much better, so what resolution you do have stands up to enlargement better, at least in my experience. I have lots of shots taken long ago with ISO 1600 color print film, and they make far worse 8x10" prints than do the 2 MP shots at ISO 1600 from either my DCS 620x or 720x units (the 720x is better than the 620x by the way).

So, it all depends on just what film we're talking about, and just what we plan to do in the way of enlargement when printing, but overall I've found that the 2 MP low-light (the 'x' models) are good for up to 8x12" prints and the 6 MP do well up to the 12x18" size (as large as my printer goes) - if one doesn't boost the ISO on the 6 MP unit, that is. There's not enough S/N ratio on the 6 MP CCDs to work well when boosted.

Oh, and the 560/660/760 models are far, far better than the 460 original 6 MP design. I had a 460 to start with, and it wasn't very good at all, while my 560 and 660 were quite a bit better. I'm still using my old 560 these days for what it's worth. ;)

That help? :)

Stan
Amateur Photographer
Professional Electronics Development Engineer
Wolfi
Posts: 37
Joined: Wed Nov 09, 2005 8:33 am
Location: german living in south France

Post by Wolfi »

Hi Stan,

I've been out of town. Not a great improvement to see the thumbnails on a bigger screen I suppose :)

What's the difference between raw and tiff?

Thanks for your explanations concerning film/CCD resolution.

My 720x is broken, sigh, it made great pics.

I have found that the 4 series have less dynamic range. On the 7 series it's quite easy to bring back burnt overexposed highlights, whereas the 4 series have more contrast which I keep in mind while shooting.

Which other differences do you find, I haven't used the 4 series very often yet, files open great in photoshop CS
Stan Disbrow
Posts: 601
Joined: Fri May 20, 2005 7:33 pm
Location: Raleigh, NC USA

Post by Stan Disbrow »

Hi,

Well, TIFF is just a file encoding format. You can put whatever data you want in it.

The 'standard' TIFF has three sets of 8-bit values for each pixel position, which correspond to the Red, Green and Blue colors that make up the actual color for a given pixel.

The Kodak Raw format uses the TIFF encoding, but there's only information for a single color, that which a given pixel is on the sensor, and there's 12-bits of data. So, while they fit the data into the TIFF format, it's not 'normal' TIFF and so viewers can't display it. Of course, the raw converter is aware of Raw data, and so can decode it properly.

There is a small amount of standard 3-color data at the beginning of the Raw TIFF file, and that's the thumbnail. After the thumbnail data, the remainder is in the Raw format.

Oh, and Kodak wasn't the only one that did this trick. Canon did the same with the mark-I versions of the 1D and 1Ds. I presume this was because they had also used the Kodak 520 and 560 as the Canon D2000 and D6000 and carried the Raw format over into the follow-on projects. ;)

Stan
Amateur Photographer
Professional Electronics Development Engineer
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