The body remains exactly the same but it has a totally new CMOS imager which has different characteristics that at first glance would appear to be significant improvements. IMHO the really important point is that Kodak have also announced that they will re-chip existing 14n bodies with the new imager so effectively they will be the same camera - this is a real break through as they will be the first camera supplier to free us from the exorbitant cost of throwing away a perfectly good "lifetime body" after a year merely to keep up with the manufacturers latest improvements. I really think that Kodak are to be commended for this and I hope it sends a message to Canon and Nikon that this is the way forward though somehow I suspect that they will still want to defray their costs by selling us their expensive jewellery as a setting for a simple piece of silicon chip and some associated circuits
The new CMOS chip is far more sensitive than the old one, indeed the base speed for normal exposure is now 160ASA extending upwards to 1600 ASA - when using the "Longer Exposure" facility the speed can be lowered to 6ASA. I was able to shoot some files at "Focus" and directly compare with my 14n. The pictures were taken in mixed lighting with fluorescent, tungsten and daylight in the same area.
The ProSLR actually appeared to have less noise at 400ASA than the 14n at 100ASA and the ProSLR seems to have a much better AutoBalance setting. I always thought the 14n was rubbish as it gave a base setting of 4500K for normal daylight which I felt always gave a magenta cast - on A/B the new chip gave me a colour temperature about 700k higher than my existing 14n which would seem to be about right. The new chip had no magenta cast on A/B and the trademark 14n magenta fringing in the highlights seems to have been virtually eliminated as has the magenta ghosting off point light sources. There was far more blue sensitivity so with the camera working under tungsten conditions there was a palpable increase in the blue cast in daylight areas which I felt was more akin to film and which I rather liked. Noise in the blue channels was really much better and at 1 sec was absent at 160ASA and just slight at 400ASA.
I noticed that there are new noise controls settings and although Kodak claim, quite rightly I think, that there is less noise on the ProSLR at 400ASA than the 14n at 100ASA this appears to have in part been achieved by an increase in noise processing which I thought marginally reduced sharpness. However as I was shooting hand-held I cannot be emphatic about this and anyhow the camera was still showing extraordinary detail and it was 2 stops faster so really I think it was doing very well.
Yellows were very clean and even and skin tones looked smooth, even under the mixed lighting. The ProSLR comes with a firmware upgrade which has incorporated what I am proud to say is the "Sheil Nose Lock facility" which means that one can prevent your nose pressing buttons and hence altering critical things like colour balance whilst in the middle of a shoot - having shot for half a day on a windswept Lakeland ridge on "Office Fluorescent" I am thrilled with this!
Kodak claim that the Lens Optimization issue has been solved but I had no way of testing this although my shots taken with a 17-35mm ED-AFS zoom at 17mm showed quite excellent results with no visible falloff in light transmission or deterioration of colour in the corners or edges. I was not able to test the claimed enhanced performance of the "Long Exposure" facility beyond 1 sec. At this speed the image was clean and virtually noise free - far better than the 14n - and Kodak claim that the extended exposures, whilst still set in the same clunky way via the Menu controls are also similarly better.
There is still no facility to set the colour temperature in incremental steps ands somehow I suspect that there never will be as this facility, whilst trailed in the original instruction book, appears to be a no-go area when discussed with anyone from Kodak.
The ProSLR is supposed to be on sale in mid/late March and they will be re-chipping old 14n bodies shortly thereafter - the price in the US is supposedly going to be $1500 and I was told that here in the UK we will be paying about �925 which I reckon is a 10% premium.
As I say I was not able to do any really extended shooting with this camera but from my limited time it certainly seemed a huge improvement on the 14n and my feeling is that if this new chip really does prove to be as good as my initial impression, then this camera is a very serious contender when it comes to digital SLRs. The simple fact that Kodak seem to have initiated a simple process of chip upgrade gives one real hope for the future with the prospect of being able to keep costs down being, IMHO, a real selling point which any prospective buyer should take into consideration. After all their problems with the 14n and their seeming inability to do anything other than shooting themselves repeatedly in the foot, it is really good to feel bullish about the new camera. I have no doubt that a longer examination will reveal odd quirks but given Kodaks proven ability to upgrade their firmware and the real power of PhotoDesk these quirks should be swiftly dealt with.
One should note here that the new chip produces a Raw file with different characteristics to the existing 14n so that one needs to download a new FFModule plug-in to enable Photoshop to process the Raw file. This means that any existing programme which handles raw files [ 'iView' etc ] will need to be upgraded. Unlike the 14n launch, Kodak state that all the necessary software / firmware is available from their web-site but have not had time to check that.
It is a pity that Kodak have not seen felt able to issue pre-release models to professionals to break - no doubt Amateur Photographer will be given the honour of telling us about it. I rather doubt that Kodak will find much market in amateur circles - indeed, they seem to be tacitly admitting this as they have closed their telephone help-line - as quite honestly the file sizes are so huge that the real issue is becoming one of computing capacity and speed. Anything smaller than 1Gb cards are a waste of time and with my 667mhz / 1024Mb ram G4 laptop taking about 70 secs to open a tiff file from raw process time is now a horrendous part of any work flow.
But that as they say, is another issue. Having been so badly deceived by the 14n launch I am hesitant to say that the ProSLR will be the total answer - especially with only such a fleeting acquaintance - but I must admit that considering the hurry in which I took my test shots and the total mixture of lighting I thought the results very impressive and I am really very optimistic that this new version will be good.
So I think I will be enjoying the light again - may you do likewise.
Mike St Maur Sheil
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