hi all

FYI (and FWIW)

recently attended one of the Kodak Pro SLRn intro days and it proved
very useful, especially being able to try a few of my own Nikkor lenses
on the camera and go away with a few test shots to look at - recommend
that anyone interested in the camera attend one of these days (they're
free too!)

nice big sharp files and pretty straight forward shooting, even with no
metering on my older lenses, and full frame means my wides are still
wides...

haven't had much time to check in great detail the files I have and none
printed yet but some initial points to note IMHO

from my point of view, moire still looks to be about the biggest problem
with this camera - pylons outside the building were very handy to check
this (and chromatic aberration - see later) and indeed showed obvious
and significant moire in the fine detail - what did surprise me was that
significant moire was also visible in many of the leafy trees along the
distant horizon, something that really concerns me as an
outdoor/nature/landscape shooter..... though in the grassy foreground
there is none as far as I can see so far 

whether moire can be sorted post-shooting via software remains to be
seen - a quick try of the anti-moire filter in Kodak Photo Desk had
limited/no effect on the pylon moire, but did improve moire in the leafy
trees (though this was on full effect so not sure what side 'damage' may
be occurring)

Kodak have opted for not using an anti-aliasing filter in front of the
sensor in order to get the sharpest picture possible - AFAIK the a-a
filter helps reduce moire effects at the expense of sharpness and
cameras using a-a filter have sharpening algorithms to compensate for
this (please, anyone, feel free to correct me/enlighten me if this is
not correct....)

chromatic aberration also a problem (depending on lens and subject) but
the camera appears to have a system of software-compensation for each
particular lens (once the lens-programming has been done and the camera
is 'informed' of which lens is attached) - unfortunately not able to
check this in operation

noted the appreciable difference in quality between Nikkor wide and a
Sigma wide (though comparing the 14mm Sigma to 28mm Nikkor a bit unfair
- it did quite well actually) and also in fixed and zoom-Nikkor (even my
beloved (sharp) old 80-200 had quite bad CA at 200!!....) - more likely
that software can sort this though, hopefully

I'm dragging my feet a bit over the camera due to it's inability to
provide any kind of metering with my older non-CPU lenses (especially
the longer ones) though Martin Evening of Kodak (who was at the intro
day I attended) suggests that metering may be done using the histogram
and taking advantage of the camera's wide exposure latitude (compared to
film) and exposure adjustment of RAW file in Photo Desk software - how
practicable this may be in the field remains to be seen....

The Kodak Photo Desk software seems very useful, especially the exposure
adjustment (and other adjustments, eg interior mixed lighting/colour
balance) available with RAW files - still playing around with this

hope to do a few test prints soon

wish Nikon (and Canon) would run similar intro 'try before you buy' days
to their (equally expensive) cameras...... would love to do some of my
own checks on the Canon 1Ds - might even tempt me to go the whole bundle
and switch from Nikon?!.. ;-)  unless they pull their finger out and
come up with the rumoured D2x soon......

again, thanks to Kodak for the free intro day

cheers

Geoff

Geoff Dor� Photography
Nature - Landscape - Travel
http://www.geoffdore.com

gdp(at)geoffdore.com

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