How good is 1.5 megapixels? It is this good.

**gaweidert** · 02-16-2019, 06:37 AM - **1 Like**

I am a member of a few firearms forums. I lifted these images of one of them. The person who used this camera purchased it used for $60 and, to his everlasting regret, sold it a few years later. Original price was $10,000 US in 1994. He jury rigged a way to get the images off of it. I found one of images he showed pretty impressive.

There were taken with the Nikon/Kodak DCS 420 camera. The unit came out in 1994 or so. They were used heavily at the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway that year providing newspapers around the world with images only minutes old. Kodak even did a 60 foot long Times Square Colorama using this camera. Only old timers will know what this was.

I remember seeing trays of these cameras at Kodak. Nikon would send the camera bodies to Kodak and the digital backs would be added there. First the camera, and then an image from it.

Attached Images

**Digitalis** · 02-16-2019, 06:49 AM

The prices for these cameras were astronomical at the time, only big news corporations could afford them. The Canon 10D really changed that game though.

reh321 · 02-16-2019, 06:51 AM

Originally posted by gaweidert

I am a member of a few firearms forums. I lifted these images of one of them. The person who used this camera purchased it used for $60 and, to his everlasting regret, sold it a few years later. Original price was $10,000 US in 1994. He jury rigged a way to get the images off of it.

How did Kodak intend that users retrieve their photos??

7.62lew · 02-16-2019, 07:16 AM

We had one of these where I worked circa 1995. The storage media on the one we had was a plug in pcmcia removable hard drive. I think it was about 64mb if i remember correctly. No screen to preview pics either.

We used it to take pics to generate assembly instructions, so largest prints we did were less than 8.5 x 11. It worked for that.

**gaweidert** · 02-16-2019, 07:24 AM - **1 Like**

Originally posted by reh321

How did Kodak intend that users retrieve their photos??

There was a system to do this, but it is all a question of interfaces and storage technology. He had to rig an interface to the unit that would work with current technology. Back then 3 1/2 floppy had replaced 5 1/4 inch floppy and 100 meg hard drives were the norm.

The real problem with digital imaging is lack of any archival storage system. Archival spec processed B&W and Kodachrome (no longer available) films are the images that are going to last a century or longer. These will work no matter what the then current capture technology will be. How many people on this site even have the capability of reading a 3 1/2 floppy disc any more? I had to get a stand alone DVD drive to set up the computer I am using to type this. Handwritten material such as letters, cards etc will be even more rare as they are simply not done in the volume that they used to be.

normhead · 02-16-2019, 07:33 AM - **1 Like**

For 540 x 320 image 1.5 mp is just fine, and with a good lens should enlargeable at least 2x. Good (not excellent) 4x6 prints should be doable. I've done it before.

reh321 · 02-16-2019, 08:07 AM - **1 Like**

Originally posted by gaweidert

There was a system to do this, but it is all a question of interfaces and storage technology. He had to rig an interface to the unit that would work with current technology. Back then 3 1/2 floppy had replaced 5 1/4 inch floppy and 100 meg hard drives were the norm.

The real problem with digital imaging is lack of any archival storage system. Archival spec processed B&W and Kodachrome (no longer available) films are the images that are going to last a century or longer. These will work no matter what the then current capture technology will be. How many people on this site even have the capability of reading a 3 1/2 floppy disc any more? I had to get a stand alone DVD drive to set up the computer I am using to type this. Handwritten material such as letters, cards etc will be even more rare as they are simply not done in the volume that they used to be.

I am a computer professional - I lived through all the changes you mention. Out of professional interest, I simply asked what that system consisted of. A no-longer used cable? A no-longer used storage medium? If so, what was it called?

Not a Number · 02-16-2019, 08:58 AM

Kodak DCS - Wikipedia

Quote:

The original Kodak DCS was launched in 1991, and is based on a stock Nikon F3 SLR with digital components. It uses a 1.3-megapixel Kodak KAF-1300 sensor, and a separate shoulder-mounted processing and storage unit. The DCS 200 series of 1992 condenses the storage unit into a module which mounted onto the base and back of a stock Nikon F-801s SLR. The module containes a built-in 80 megabyte hard drive and is powered with AA batteries. It was followed by the upgraded DCS 400 series of 1994, which replaces the hard drive with a PCMCIA card slot.

Note: There used to be hard drives that fit into PCMCIA slots.

Interfaces in use (excluding proprietary) in early 90s: SASI, ST-506, ST-412/412RLL, SCSI, ESDI

https://nikonrumors.com/2013/04/09/interview-with-kodaks-lead-engineer-on-th...-cameras.aspx/

Youtu.be

Mentions SCSI and Serial ports. TCS used a Sandisk PC card adapter.

**Bob 256** · 02-16-2019, 09:13 AM

Sometimes with old technology, all you can say is WOW!!! Not in the sense that the technology was of dinosaur nature, but of the fact of what was accomplished, given the state of technology in those days; and comparing it to what almost everyone has access to now (though there have been sacrifices and compromises made as pointed out).

History of this stuff is fascinating!

Ontarian50 · 02-16-2019, 09:50 AM - **1 Like**

I still have one of these sitting in my display cabinet. I got it from a fellow who bought it believing he could use a PCMCIA to CF adapter in its slot. You can't. I ended up putting parts onto the F90 body at its core so he could use it again as a film camera - that worked. I ended up with the digital back, and eventually tracked down an F90 to put on it.

However, when I tracked down one of those PCMCIA drives, I found the whole thing still worked, after I jury-rigged a plug to recharge the battery. The PCMCIA drive slid right into my old G3 Powerbook and Photoshop read the raw files just fine.

The drawbacks - well first, that sensor is smaller than Micro 4/3. A 20mm lens is actually a normal on its 2.5x crop factor. Also, quite a number of images came out with a magenta cast that I put down to a weak IR filter over the sensor. Putting an IR cut filter over the lens seemed to cure it, but those filters are/were shockingly expensive (then again, so was the camera, originally).

Interpolation was also pretty poor on those early digital cameras. If you blow up the pixels in a clear blue sky, you find a mosaic of many colours that average out to blue. Try that on your modern Pentax, and you see all the pixels have been nicely interpolated to a matching blue.

Sadly, after I scrapped my old Powerbook, I realized I no longer had a place to read that double-height PCMCIA drive, so the camera has been gathering dust since.

biz-engineer · 02-16-2019, 10:23 AM

Originally posted by Bob 256

Sometimes with old technology, all you can say is WOW!!! Not in the sense that the technology was of dinosaur nature, but of the fact of what was accomplished, given the state of technology in those days; and comparing it to what almost everyone has access to now (though there have been sacrifices and compromises made as pointed out).

Most people in tech companies don't realize that they are paid a salary by the work of the people before them. In cameras today, there are still pieces of tech developed by people who are now retired, the young have built on top. All computer OS today are based on concepts developed between the 60s and 80s. And when I look into it, I feel that what they have done in the 70s to 80s is really amazing, because at the time there was almost no one before them to guide them and train them. Just look at JPEG... it's old.. so far no new image compression standard was able to overtake JPEG.

**AstroDave** · 02-16-2019, 04:24 PM

Originally posted by gaweidert

How many people on this site even have the capability of reading a 3 1/2 floppy disc any more?

No problem here, and if you need a 5 1/4 disk read, just let me know! I just would need to pop the drive into my older Windows XP machine!

Not a Number · 02-16-2019, 08:11 PM

According to the TCS video the problem with using the PCMCIA to CF card adapter is that CF cards are bigger (in storage) than the camera can handle/recognize but if you format them to be a smaller size ~80MB then the cards will work.

Ontarian50 · 02-19-2019, 08:29 AM

Originally posted by Not a Number

According to the TCS video the problem with using the PCMCIA to CF card adapter is that CF cards are bigger (in storage) than the camera can handle/recognize but if you format them to be a smaller size ~80MB then the cards will work.

I had thought we had tried all kinds of CF cards trying to get the PCMCIA adapter to work, but without luck.

However, what's in the camera now, and it did work fine, is a 340mb Viper drive. It didn't seem to have any problem addressing a drive that large.

Then again, these cameras were pretty much hand-built by Kodak over a fairly long period of time (1994-98), and the compact flash card was in its infancy at that time. It's possible later versions of the DCS420 were able to handle PCMCIA adapters. I've no idea what generation mine is, but it always had the newest firmware on it. In fact, Kodak pretty much specified that should your camera develop issues, the first fix was to re-load the firmware onto it!

wrench.doozer · 02-21-2019, 07:10 PM

My boss/coworker worked at Kodak thru the 90's in metallurgy. I recently dug up a DCS200 at work rescued from our old research lab before it got leveled. It has pcmcia I seem to remember. We got talking about the awesomeness that was the Kodak research building (83?). The first digital camera I ever used was a DC50.

02-16-2019, 06:37 AM - 1 Like	#1
gaweidert Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Rochester, NY Photos: Gallery Posts: 5,325	How good is 1.5 megapixels? It is this good. I am a member of a few firearms forums. I lifted these images of one of them. The person who used this camera purchased it used for $60 and, to his everlasting regret, sold it a few years later. Original price was $10,000 US in 1994. He jury rigged a way to get the images off of it. I found one of images he showed pretty impressive. There were taken with the Nikon/Kodak DCS 420 camera. The unit came out in 1994 or so. They were used heavily at the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway that year providing newspapers around the world with images only minutes old. Kodak even did a 60 foot long Times Square Colorama using this camera. Only old timers will know what this was. I remember seeing trays of these cameras at Kodak. Nikon would send the camera bodies to Kodak and the digital backs would be added there. First the camera, and then an image from it. Attached Images

02-16-2019, 10:23 AM	#11
biz-engineer Pentaxian Join Date: Feb 2015 Photos: Gallery Posts: 12,231	Originally posted by Bob 256 Sometimes with old technology, all you can say is WOW!!! Not in the sense that the technology was of dinosaur nature, but of the fact of what was accomplished, given the state of technology in those days; and comparing it to what almost everyone has access to now (though there have been sacrifices and compromises made as pointed out). Most people in tech companies don't realize that they are paid a salary by the work of the people before them. In cameras today, there are still pieces of tech developed by people who are now retired, the young have built on top. All computer OS today are based on concepts developed between the 60s and 80s. And when I look into it, I feel that what they have done in the 70s to 80s is really amazing, because at the time there was almost no one before them to guide them and train them. Just look at JPEG... it's old.. so far no new image compression standard was able to overtake JPEG. Last edited by biz-engineer; 02-16-2019 at 10:31 AM.

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
Is continuous shooting the new megapixels?	neostyles	Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands	19	02-01-2016 07:43 AM
Print size vs. megapixels of camera	fevbusch	Pentax K-30 & K-50	29	12-18-2013 09:21 AM
For Sale - Sold: Fuji Finepix F600 EXR Price Reduced - RAW and JPG -16 megapixels	Mikesul	Sold Items	7	04-10-2013 05:24 PM
How many Megapixels	Arbalist	Pentax DSLR Discussion	18	02-29-2012 02:10 AM
Difference between 6 and 10 megapixels	explr1	Pentax DSLR Discussion	13	08-22-2008 07:43 PM

02-16-2019, 06:49 AM	#2
Digitalis Site Supporter Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Melbourne, Victoria Photos: Gallery Posts: 11,694	The prices for these cameras were astronomical at the time, only big news corporations could afford them. The Canon 10D really changed that game though.

02-16-2019, 06:51 AM	#3
reh321 Pentaxian Join Date: Nov 2014 Location: South Bend, IN, USA Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 23,177	Originally posted by gaweidert I am a member of a few firearms forums. I lifted these images of one of them. The person who used this camera purchased it used for $60 and, to his everlasting regret, sold it a few years later. Original price was $10,000 US in 1994. He jury rigged a way to get the images off of it. How did Kodak intend that users retrieve their photos??

02-16-2019, 07:16 AM	#4
7.62lew Pentaxian Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: North Carolina Photos: Gallery Posts: 1,192	We had one of these where I worked circa 1995. The storage media on the one we had was a plug in pcmcia removable hard drive. I think it was about 64mb if i remember correctly. No screen to preview pics either. We used it to take pics to generate assembly instructions, so largest prints we did were less than 8.5 x 11. It worked for that.

02-16-2019, 07:24 AM - 1 Like	#5
gaweidert Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Rochester, NY Photos: Gallery Posts: 5,325 Original Poster	Originally posted by reh321 How did Kodak intend that users retrieve their photos?? There was a system to do this, but it is all a question of interfaces and storage technology. He had to rig an interface to the unit that would work with current technology. Back then 3 1/2 floppy had replaced 5 1/4 inch floppy and 100 meg hard drives were the norm. The real problem with digital imaging is lack of any archival storage system. Archival spec processed B&W and Kodachrome (no longer available) films are the images that are going to last a century or longer. These will work no matter what the then current capture technology will be. How many people on this site even have the capability of reading a 3 1/2 floppy disc any more? I had to get a stand alone DVD drive to set up the computer I am using to type this. Handwritten material such as letters, cards etc will be even more rare as they are simply not done in the volume that they used to be.

02-16-2019, 07:33 AM - 1 Like	#6
normhead Pentaxian Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Near Algonquin Park Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 40,451	For 540 x 320 image 1.5 mp is just fine, and with a good lens should enlargeable at least 2x. Good (not excellent) 4x6 prints should be doable. I've done it before.

02-16-2019, 08:07 AM - 1 Like	#7
reh321 Pentaxian Join Date: Nov 2014 Location: South Bend, IN, USA Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 23,177	Originally posted by gaweidert There was a system to do this, but it is all a question of interfaces and storage technology. He had to rig an interface to the unit that would work with current technology. Back then 3 1/2 floppy had replaced 5 1/4 inch floppy and 100 meg hard drives were the norm. The real problem with digital imaging is lack of any archival storage system. Archival spec processed B&W and Kodachrome (no longer available) films are the images that are going to last a century or longer. These will work no matter what the then current capture technology will be. How many people on this site even have the capability of reading a 3 1/2 floppy disc any more? I had to get a stand alone DVD drive to set up the computer I am using to type this. Handwritten material such as letters, cards etc will be even more rare as they are simply not done in the volume that they used to be. I am a computer professional - I lived through all the changes you mention. Out of professional interest, I simply asked what that system consisted of. A no-longer used cable? A no-longer used storage medium? If so, what was it called?

02-16-2019, 09:13 AM	#9
Bob 256 Site Supporter Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Idaho Photos: Gallery Posts: 2,375	Sometimes with old technology, all you can say is WOW!!! Not in the sense that the technology was of dinosaur nature, but of the fact of what was accomplished, given the state of technology in those days; and comparing it to what almost everyone has access to now (though there have been sacrifices and compromises made as pointed out). History of this stuff is fascinating!

02-16-2019, 09:50 AM - 1 Like	#10
Ontarian50 Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2015 Posts: 530	I still have one of these sitting in my display cabinet. I got it from a fellow who bought it believing he could use a PCMCIA to CF adapter in its slot. You can't. I ended up putting parts onto the F90 body at its core so he could use it again as a film camera - that worked. I ended up with the digital back, and eventually tracked down an F90 to put on it. However, when I tracked down one of those PCMCIA drives, I found the whole thing still worked, after I jury-rigged a plug to recharge the battery. The PCMCIA drive slid right into my old G3 Powerbook and Photoshop read the raw files just fine. The drawbacks - well first, that sensor is smaller than Micro 4/3. A 20mm lens is actually a normal on its 2.5x crop factor. Also, quite a number of images came out with a magenta cast that I put down to a weak IR filter over the sensor. Putting an IR cut filter over the lens seemed to cure it, but those filters are/were shockingly expensive (then again, so was the camera, originally). Interpolation was also pretty poor on those early digital cameras. If you blow up the pixels in a clear blue sky, you find a mosaic of many colours that average out to blue. Try that on your modern Pentax, and you see all the pixels have been nicely interpolated to a matching blue. Sadly, after I scrapped my old Powerbook, I realized I no longer had a place to read that double-height PCMCIA drive, so the camera has been gathering dust since.

02-16-2019, 04:24 PM	#12
AstroDave Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: May 2007 Location: Flagstaff, Arizona Posts: 1,637	Originally posted by gaweidert How many people on this site even have the capability of reading a 3 1/2 floppy disc any more? No problem here, and if you need a 5 1/4 disk read, just let me know! I just would need to pop the drive into my older Windows XP machine!

02-16-2019, 08:11 PM	#13
Not a Number Moderator Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Venice, CA Posts: 10,526	According to the TCS video the problem with using the PCMCIA to CF card adapter is that CF cards are bigger (in storage) than the camera can handle/recognize but if you format them to be a smaller size ~80MB then the cards will work.

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

02-19-2019, 08:29 AM	#14
Ontarian50 Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2015 Posts: 530	Originally posted by Not a Number According to the TCS video the problem with using the PCMCIA to CF card adapter is that CF cards are bigger (in storage) than the camera can handle/recognize but if you format them to be a smaller size ~80MB then the cards will work. I had thought we had tried all kinds of CF cards trying to get the PCMCIA adapter to work, but without luck. However, what's in the camera now, and it did work fine, is a 340mb Viper drive. It didn't seem to have any problem addressing a drive that large. Then again, these cameras were pretty much hand-built by Kodak over a fairly long period of time (1994-98), and the compact flash card was in its infancy at that time. It's possible later versions of the DCS420 were able to handle PCMCIA adapters. I've no idea what generation mine is, but it always had the newest firmware on it. In fact, Kodak pretty much specified that should your camera develop issues, the first fix was to re-load the firmware onto it!

02-21-2019, 07:10 PM	#15
wrench.doozer Junior Member Join Date: Sep 2017 Location: syracuse Posts: 42	My boss/coworker worked at Kodak thru the 90's in metallurgy. I recently dug up a DCS200 at work rescued from our old research lab before it got leveled. It has pcmcia I seem to remember. We got talking about the awesomeness that was the Kodak research building (83?). The first digital camera I ever used was a DC50.