Very happy to have the SLR/n.

It received a lot of criticisms when it hit the market about a year ago. Kodak corrected a lot of these.

Some say the camera is slow. Yes it takes a few seconds to start. But after then, in RAW mode, takes 19 photos before the internal buffer memory is full. Unless you are a sports photographer, asking for say.. 8 frames per second, that is good enough.

Photos have excellent color rendition, saturation, dynamic range. Much much better than the Fuji S2 or Nikon D100.

Resolution is to be seen to beleive. Extraordinary.

Problems: Yes, some for amateur hobbyists. You have to take RAW pictures. With JPG mode, camera becomes slower in writing to the card, and the WB is usually not correct. In RAW mode, you have all the data there, and you have to do some post processing in te PC, before exporting to JPG. The software is excellent, but all this take some time. I remember the darkroom days, and discover once again the joy in getting an excellent picture while doing this.

File sizes are big, as you may expect. You need a fast PC too.

Seyhun

A little on the NEWer Kodak Pro/n

So far so good.

My ideal camera would be a 22MP F5, but it's not going to happen. At least not for 5+ years. The 14MP is touching on medium format and it shows when looking at the clarity and detail of the photos produced. The Kodak is not as fast with the older CAM but is very usable. The full frame is a plus and the 14MP is right between the D2X and the Mark 2. With a little user adjustment, the flash and focus can be anticipated and correct. It's not a Nikon and it's not a Canon. It is its own breed of camera even if it looks like both of its competitors.

The focus is not as fast as the F100. It's not terrible. Once you know how the camera behaves, you can anticipate it. It's not that it isn't a Nikon, it's just different. I've only used the F100/F5 and the manual models so I can not speak for the N90 and below to the Kodak.

The Kodak can use TTL, but has issues with either extremes of black and whites. I shoot white birds pretty often in a controlled environment. Using a SB-28 (I have to try the SB-80 next week) it blows the whites out. Trusting the TTL for exposure, my white birds were washed out. Close ups that covered 80% of the frame was near featureless. When in manual and aperture priority mode, all washed out. I needed to seriously stop down.

The SB-29 TTL does not work at all. I did find using the SB-29 at the lowest setting, Nikon 105, F22, worked pretty well. I could Photoshop it down a stop and the exposure was near perfect. The SB-29 does not work with any Nikon digal models either.

I didn't notice the horrible noise that is reported when changing from ISO160 to ISO800. You have noise, but anything under 400 is very tolerable. 800 is not that bad.

The full frame is something that I like. Mainly because I know what to expect when slapping a lens on. I don't like the DX line at all. When I buy a 14mm I want a 14mm. If I want to reach out with my 300mm I'll buy a 1.7 tele-extender. If I want to move in closer even more after a shot, I can still crop reasonably with 14MP Raw. The BS about the FF being so expensive is just that; BS. When every other vendor is offering a FF camera there is no excuse not to follow.

If I did not own any equipment at all I would have to go with Canon over both Nikon and Kodak. Because I do own near $10,000 in Nikon gear I was seriously looking at the D2X or just jumping ship. I probably would have gone with the D2X anyway, but the Kodak secured my stay.

Why did I choose the Kodak? It actually chose my wife. I'll explain. The New York show at Jacob Javitts center. The Canon area was a mob scene. This should be a hint of things to come. A hint to Nikon to stop serving the appetizer after dinner has already been eaten. I was able to handle a few of the high end models and was impressed with them. Impressed enough that I was considering jumping the Nikon line entirely and taking the loss for my existing equipment. I went over to look at the D2X again because it seemed as if Nikons fate was sealed. It was good, but not as good as the Canon line. I left the Nikon area and a Kodak rep walked up to my wife and told her "she won". I thought it was a 3.1MP camera or something until we found out it was the new pro SLR. She reminds me constantly that it's her camera and I better be nice to her. This is after I bought her a Nikon N80 3 days before. Now I have to scout my house to find all my lenses. Like a ferret, she keeps running off with them. Still, it's a hobby that keeps us both out of trouble.

Summary: All cameras have their quirks and problems. Above is a list of the bad while omitting the majority of good. If you are invested in Nikon seriously consider the Kodak Pro. It's different, but the quality is there. A cameras most important part is film. Without film, the camera is nothing. You can have all the features in the world and lab grown diamonds for lens glass. Without film you have a brick. In this case it's the sensor; a 14MP FF sensor. Kodak is #2 in the small format market right now. #3, Nikons D2X is a 12MP DX sensor. I will not get into the technical and physics part of this but Nikon dropped the ball again by not using a full frame sensor. Realistically, no one will notice the 12-14MP difference just as no one will notice the 14-16MP difference. 14MP sits comfortably in between them both. Canon has the #1 camera in my eye, but should be reserved for people that can comfortably afford it or have a need for it. Nikon keeps making a blunder followed by another blunder. This makes Kodak an option that should be considered before buying any 8+MP digital camera.

If you want to ask a Q my username is my AOL AIM name...

After being disappointed with the image quality of my Nikon D1X, I purchased a Kodak DCS-Pro SLR/N. In spite of all the warnings from other reviewers, I found the camera to be exceptional in its image quality, professional handling and overall feel.
Per example: I was used to having to buy a separate screen if I wanted gridlines. The DCS-Pro SLR/N allows you to turn them on and off via a menu item.
I was used to having to disable the shutter release on the side of the camera in order to prevent inadvertent actuations. The DCS-Pro SLR/N knows when you hold the camera upright and only enables the side shutter release when you hold the camera that way. It even turns the images 90 degrees, so that they always come out right.
I read that some users were not to happy with the battery charges not lasting to their expectations. I never found that but went ahead and got a second battery anyways, just in case.

I am very impressed with this camera and the only reason I did not give it 5 stars, is that the built in flash-release is somewhat flimsy and sometimes pops up unexpected. As I am not using the built in flash, I taped it down.