Leica Interesting article on Kodak DCS PRO/14N

M. Valdemar

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New York City
Women and Dreams: Kodak DCS Pro 14n

I have 2 of these cameras and 2 Kodak SLR/N cameras.

I was fascinated by them for a while and bought a bunch of mint ones cheap. I was able to shoot full frame with my Nikkors long before Nikon came out with a full frame DSLR.

They have similar sensors to the Leica M9, and, with very careful technique, can produce magnificent images.
 
The Kodak DCS14 series used a CMOS sensor with analog outputs, made by Fillfactory. Many of the Fillfactory people went on to setup CMOSIS, Cypress bought Fillfactory. The 14MPixel full-frame CMOS sensor was sold for many years after the DCS-14 went out of production, you could order it and the development kit from DigiKey. I suspect a full-frame CCD would have been cost prohibitive. The DCS-460c was over $25K when introduced, had a 1.3x crop factor. The DCS760 was the last DSLR that they made with a Kodak CCD- also 1.3x Crop Factor. I downloaded the long Datasheet for the 14MPixel Fillfactory sensor, before it was taken out of production- if anyone wants it. I have a collection of datasheets, including the KAF-10500 and KAF-18500 used in the M8 and M9, respectively.

Interesting- the DCS14 series uses the same S8612 IR glass that suffers from the corrosion problem of the M9 and M Monochrom.

I was using Firewire with my Pentium III Tower and Dell Inspiron 8000 Laptop to connecpt up with my Nikon D1x, bought a pair when they were first introduced. I have the very first IR DSLR sold my Kodak, made after calling them up and asking for it. I worked with Digital IR sensors throughout the 80s. I did a lot of the high-speed data acquisition systems for them, so high-speed transfer "was my specialty". I wrote a lot of assembly language code fine-tuned using an Oscilloscope to get every last clock cycle for image transfer and processing.
 
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