Kodak colours

D

dalex_257

Messages
1,339
Name
Alexey Danilchenko
Edit My Images
Yes
Have been shooting with Kodak SLR/n since the mid summer. Liked it so much that my D300 is now gathering dust mostly. For all its shortcomings the Kodak does have a great colour out of the camera. I also to my surprised after D300 found that I very rarely need to do any postprocessing at all - set the WB right and all the colours fall into place. Initially the differences may seem subtle but the amount of tonal variations Kodak captures in raw files is superb.

Edit: more photos added (in new posts). I'll keep adding them to this thread to keep it going for Kodak.

A few examples from my trip to France

p544268193-6.jpg

p792669565-6.jpg


And a floral one:
p1110754172-6.jpg
 
Last edited:
Nice!!!

I was at that bridge (2nd shot) this year. Great location and nice town.
 
Thanks. The bridge is Pont Valentré in Cahors (south of France). The first photo is Château de Belcastel (also south of France).
 
I do like these shots, colours are excellent indeed. Also really like your composition and eye for a good shot. Haven't been to that part of France for many years, the sky in your shots reminded me how beautiful it is. I must also look up some info on your camera, I am not at all familier with it.
 
Jao said:
I do like these shots, colours are excellent indeed. Also really like your composition and eye for a good shot. Haven't been to that part of France for many years, the sky in your shots reminded me how beautiful it is. I must also look up some info on your camera, I am not at all familier with it.
Click to expand...

Thanks. Some info and photos here - its in Russian so use Google translator please. And some article as well. And review here (though take it with a grain of salt).

I came to the old Kodaks because I didn't really liked the colours my D300 was producing. Moving from film to digital (Nikon film bodies then D70, D200) was a good experience but I always yearned for those film colours and as I went to newer bodies it gets progressively worse. The cameras advanced (low noise, handling, AF etc) but in one respect something was getting worse. And it still is with newer bodies. Doing some research it transpired that most of the current camera manufacturers crave high ISO performance more than anything else so chasing that goal something had to give and it was the colour fidelity. Basically in all modern DSLRs colour filters on a sensor Bayer array are not really R,G and B any more. They are much weaker versions (to allow more light) so for example Red filter let a lot of green as well and so is Blue. As a result some colour variations become metameric (i.e. indistinguishable by sensor). Camera manufacturers "cater" for this by generating camera profiles that tweak the colours and boost them but it does not help the cases where the subtle colour variations gets lost. It also has a side effects that make the colour shifts more likely when you tweak exposure and WB in PP.

Kodaks for all the camera shortcomings had their colour filters modelled by the colour response of the films (their spectral response is very close to that of film). Shooting it over this summer I was just amazed how good it was. What is interesting the colour out of the camera is very good but it also a lot more stable for PP - does not shift and remains consistent when you change WB, exposure and contrast. True the high ISO on that camera non existent, some features are left to be desired comparing to modern cameras and it requires a really good converter to make it shine (RPP or Capture 1) but I'd say its truly worth it.
 
Last edited:
Alexey, many thanks for the information. Very interesting the issue of high ISO versus colour rendition. Looking at your shots with this camera just makes me think Kodachrome!

I think I shall learn more about these cameras. In the meantime thanks for sgahring your knowledge and information.
 
Thanks - its an interesting camera in many respects. The feature I love it for is this really non destructable colour. It survives near saturation point (blown highlights) and extereme PP quite well and did surprised me many times. A real pity no one in current camera manufacturers takes this into consideration and produces/cares about great colours anymore. I mean in Nikon camp the last "great colour" camera was D2x after that it all went down.

I know what you mean about Kodachrome - love that film look from many photos I have seen even though I was not able to shoot it myself.

Re. Kodaks - the SLR/n has also one very interesting feature which I would have found very useful in any modern cameras. It has a very interesting low ISO implementation (ISO 6 to ISO 50). The native ISO of the camera is 160 and it does not go to low ISO the way Nikons and Canon's do today (they basically overexpose and correct). Kodak does a series of short ISO 160 exposures and stacks the up - similar to using median stacking in Photoshop. As a result you have exceptionally clean (noise wise) low ISO files with the help of eliminating non stable elements as well (like moving objects etc). An it's of course is helpful to do things like blurred water in daylight without ND filters.
 
You have convinced me to add one of these cameras to my wish list and I am now on the lookout for a decent used one, if I an get one for the right price. I have some older Nikon glass that I think married with the kodaK could yield some interesting shots.

The low ISO option sounds very interesting indeed. It would seem many of the features of this camera would appear to have been forgotten by current manufacturers.

Keep sharing your shots from that fine instrument.
 
Jao said:
You have convinced me to add one of these cameras to my wish list and I am now on the lookout for a decent used one, if I an get one for the right price. I have some older Nikon glass that I think married with the kodaK could yield some interesting shots.
Click to expand...

If you going to get one - a few advices then if I may :) :
1) get SLR/n not the 14n (the older version has a few problems that were cured in SLR/n)
2) never shoot with in-camera JPEG, only raw (their in camera JPEGs are really awful)
3) LR 4 (or recent ACR) will work quite good with these raws (previous versions were not so good) but it would truly shine with RPP for raw conversion followed by PP in LR or PS.
4) get prepared for slow down compared to modern digital cameras (which is not the bad thing for good photography)
 
dalex_257 said:
If you going to get one - a few advices then if I may :) :
1) get SLR/n not the 14n (the older version has a few problems that were cured in SLR/n)
2) never shoot with in-camera JPEG, only raw (their in camera JPEGs are really awful)
3) LR 4 (or recent ACR) will work quite good with these raws (previous versions were not so good) but it would truly shine with RPP for raw conversion followed by PP in LR or PS.
4) get prepared for slow down compared to modern digital cameras (which is not the bad thing for good photography)
Click to expand...

Sounded interesting......went to Google to investigate further...then I saw the price. :LOL::LOL::LOL:
 
Last edited:
limpet9 said:
Sounded interesting......went to Google to investigate further...then I saw the price.
Click to expand...

Sorry not quite got it the price of what and where? SLR/n goes on eBay for around 300-400 pounds now depending on condition. Not bad for a full frame camera...
 
Last edited:
dalex_257 said:
Sorry not quite got it the price of what and where? SLR/n goes on eBay for around 300-400 pounds now depending on condition. Not bad for a full frame camera...
Click to expand...

It`s probably me, the first page I saw on Google was a review of the SLR/n which mentioned a price upwards of $3000.

I`ll have a look on the Bay
 
limpet9 said:
It`s probably me, the first page I saw on Google was a review of the SLR/n which mentioned a price upwards of $3000.

I`ll have a look on the Bay
Click to expand...

Erm that is probably something from the past ;-). When it was released retail price was 4.5K USD but these prices have long passed.
 
More Kodak colours. This time autumn ones - went to Winkworth arboretum yesterday.

Kodak SLR/n, Nikon 28-70, ISO 6 (first), ISO 160(the rest). Processed in RPP (WB+Velvia50 profile) and sharpened in LR afterwards.


p1223885652-6.jpg


p1223922166-6.jpg


p1223920510-6.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top