DCS 645 & Photodesk

[ddolde]

ckljscxnAUNCIOUdbhciouyZDHcoiuy

[cmma]

I have been using the Kodak DCS 645C for near a year now and I feel flattered to have such reknowned professional as Michael to have chosen the exact gears (camera, lenses and back) as me and I cannot agree more with his review except on his comment on Photodesk.

If one uses PD 3.1 one needs a very fast PC (I am using P4 3.0 G) because it is really slow. But one can always use the faster mode to open your RAW file, kind of preview but much bigger (actually full screen) then the preview screen you get in Camera Raw. Then apply all adjustments you want and you will get instantaneous response. When this is all done you open the file in the better mode to look at the final result (this is the step that is slow but actually only 30 secs on my PC).

I always reset noise reduction to none, which is always set at advanced by default. Actually no nosie reduction is necessary at ISO 100 and 200. After the NR is turned off you will find stunting details that you didn't see before. I think the NR is what causes the DCS files to look plastiky, as described sometimes and the finest kind of details will be lost whenever NR is on.

Now that PD 3.1 has its own USM, I will do it there. Not that the photos need much sharpening, actually many a times no sharping is needed, but I sometimes use USM with threshold set at 5 to 8 so that any noise there is not enhanced but most of the details and so this is sharpening and NR in one step. May be even this is not neceesary now there is Neat Image, but boy it is so slow!!

When the proper profile is chosen (PD come with 8 profiles, but I mostly use Product) the result is some stunting pictures which I can never get from Camera Raw or any DSLR.

I strongly urge Michael to give a second trial for PD. Otherwise he may has missed the best of his new gears and may be he will find that DCS actually gives higher quality pictures than 1Ds ( I don't mean to belittle 1Ds but I think or can see that Zeiss lenses are just superior to any lenses that Nikon or Canon can produced in the context of optical and color resolution - but then this may not be a fair comparision since we are comparing MF lenses to 135 lenses).

Now that PD 3.2 is coming, I think things can only get better and then I do not have to migrate to Mac just for the use of Capture Studio, a Mac only RAW proceesing software for DCS  for professionals - as decribed by Kodak( they say PD is for serious amateaur !).

[C.M.Ma]

At the bottom of the view menu you will see faster and better.

Choosing faster opens a 20% picture ( on my 18in LCD ) and takes only 1 to 2 secs. Changes in exposure, white balance and look will be instantaneous. You can turn off NR or apply Moire filter here but you will not be able to see the changes. You can also apply USM here. With experience- meaning a lot of experimenting- you can apply the correct values without seeing the change.

After you have done all the adjustments, you click better under the view menu. A full size file will be rendered in about 30 secs and this you can view at whatever size you need.

I think the click WB function gives much better color correction then using the eyedropers in levels or curves in PS.

But then what I miss most in PD is the absence of levels and curves, which you have in Capture Studio ( which also have saturation control, another feature I miss) because without these you can not really fine tune your profile. I heard PD 3.2 will be a bit stronger in this repect.

I hope more people will use PD and push Kodak to put all features in CS in PD or makes CS PC compatible. Their view of PC users are unsophisticated are severely outdated. At the present monent there are more PC only software for digital photograhy then Mac only ones. This tells only one thing ( if the market share of Mac doesn't tell them already) there are more ( much more) PC users out there, and Kodak should regard them more seriously.