A bunch of NC2000Es

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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Ashley_Pomeroy
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A bunch of NC2000Es

Post by Ashley_Pomeroy »

A chap called "nsxdream" on Ebay seems to have got hold of a bunch of NC2000Es, which he is auctioning off one at a time. The current one is #120450076976. At first I thought it was a relisting of an earlier camera - there is similar damage to the camera body's green strip-light - but the photographs show different details (this one has a velcro strip on the base, no strap, and the frame counter reads 0) and the user himself tells me that he has a bunch.

The cameras come with the original firmware on four small plastic memory squares, of a design unfamiliar to me; they have what appears to be a metallic clasp along the middle of one edge and are described in the auction as "floppy discs".

The last one sold for about £32, with the same again in shipping from the US to the UK. I would be tempted to pay that just out of curiousness, but it would be pointless because there's already an excellent article about the NC2000E on the internet, and the world does not need another. Based on mir.com, the big differences between the NC2000 and the DCS 420 are that the NC2000 has a slightly smaller horizontal resolution, a much longer burst mode, a 1.5x cropping factor, and a wider and higher ISO range, which seems much more reasonable. It would be amusing to submit images to Alamy - it is after all a top professional camera endorsed by the Associated Press, no less!
NikonWeb
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Re: A bunch of NC2000Es

Post by NikonWeb »

This particular seller is also a member of this forum (under a different user name). I bought my NC2000e from him a couple of years ago. He buys and sells a lot of this stuff.

This camera should be considered a collector's item. For real world use, there are better options.

Regarding the "small plastic memory squares" - you're kidding, right? Such diskettes were the only removable storage devices only a few years ago. Or maybe I'm getting old.. :-)

Jarle
Ashley_Pomeroy
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Re: A bunch of NC2000Es

Post by Ashley_Pomeroy »

Webmaster wrote:Regarding the "small plastic memory squares" - you're kidding, right? Such diskettes were the only removable storage devices only a few years ago. Or maybe I'm getting old.. :-)

Jarle
I was tempted to add "they are described in the auction as floppy discs, which is puzzling, because they are clearly not discs, and they do not look floppy", but that's an old joke. I can still recall the days when people were very excited about those new Zip discs that could hold 128mb or so; there were even PCs that had these Zip discs built in.

And then seemingly overnight 1gb USB memory sticks came along, being given away with breakfast cereals. I found one on the street a while back. Ten years ago it would have been worth hundreds of pounds, now it's just disposable.

I think it still has a certain amount of real-world use as a posing camera. The examples in the auction definitely look well-used, and the logo and branding and sheer size would be enough to convince most people that they are professional cameras. The shutter sounds just like a real camera. I pity the poor men and women who had to carry them around with fast 200mm lenses and/or powerful flash units and bags of PCMCIA cards, spare batteries, screwdriver, hot mirror filters, etc. These men and women were titans. We walk in the dispersing contrail of their auras.

A while back, whilst I was taking pictures with my DCS 460, a tourist asked me to take a shot of him outside the British Museum; I had to tell him that it was a film camera, there was no way he could see the picture, I couldn't send it to him. It would probably have rendered his flesh tones in a displeasing way.
snapabraham
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Re: A bunch of NC2000Es

Post by snapabraham »

I'm really digging the nc2000e I picked up. (BTW Ashley, I meant to thank you too for your feedback. I thought it was Jarle's post as well.

I snapped a few more downtown Bridgeport pics on the Flickr set as well as the blog.

I have to say, I think that "out of the box" the nc2000e is better that the Nikon D1 I used to own.
I paid over $5,000 for the D1 in 2000. I had the hardest time getting a good picture. I mean, Matrix metering was all over the place, whereas the nc2000e gives a pretty good rendering in Program mode with Matrix metering. (I know, I know, I'm a "pro." I'm supposed to shoot in manual according to many of my colleagues!) But for just quick grab shots where you don't want to have to think about the shot, the nc2000e is surprisingly good.

However, I will say that I would not be comfortable having to rely on it for my assignments, due to it's age for one thing. But it's nice to tote it along on assignments to see what I can get out of it. Actually, a photo from it did run in the paper I work for today. Link to photo here:

http://www.ctpost.com/default/photo/The ... 177235.php

So, it was nice to actually see a photo from this obsolete camera get into print again. It just goes to show you that the camera is just a tool. It doesn't matter how many pixels or fps it has, it's still the photographer who makes the picture. :-)
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