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Kodak professional DCS 720x launched

Posted: 5 Jun 2001

Kodak announced the successor to the DCS 620x. The new DCS 720x offers significant technological and workflow advances over its predecessor - including Kodak's fifth-generation professional digital camera electronics architecture, a new LCD display with enhanced brightness, functions and ease of use along with software-driven image management, manipulation and transmission capabilities that are also found in the DCS Pro Back and DCS 760 digital cameras. It has a faster burst rate of 4.3 fps compared with 3.5 fps on the 620x, a greater burst depth of 25 frames and faster image transfer. Kodak claim the shutter response speed now rivals that of conventional pro film cameras.

The DCS 720x is based on the Nikon F5 and is designed for professionals who face challenging action, variable-condition and low-light situations. These include photojournalists (especially those shooting sports, breaking news and other action); photographers in the medical, scientific, government, military and law enforcement fields; and other photographers for whom the need is critical and window of opportunity to get the shot is small.

The DCS 720x retains all the performance and features of the Nikon F5 body, along with Kodak's Picture Protection and a menu of features that includes post-shot exposure compensation, white balance corrections and file recovery. Photographers can customize the camera with such options as removable anti-aliasing and IR blocking filters, IPTC captioning, white balance uploading, direct cellular phone transmission, and a wide choice of storage options. It delivers enhanced image quality and higher colour saturation.

The DCS 720x is designed for photographers who shoot in low-light - especially action-situations so it's optimised, calibrated and tested for operation from ISO400 to ISO 4000 and the trade-off of quality for speed is acceptable. The camera can be operated at up to ISO6400, but image quality and colour may not be suitable for some applications, and it has two stops exposure compensation to enable a top-end exposure at up to ISO25,600 ISO for extreme situations.

The camera has a 1.6x focal length magnification, which means a 100mm lens captures an image area roughly equivalent to that of a 160mm lens on a Nikon F5 film camera. Its viewfinder is optically modified to display the actual image capture area.

The camera will be available late July and the price is to be confirmed.
Kodak currently have no plans to create a Canon EOS-mount version.

DCS 720x features at a glance

Burst rate - 4.3 frames/second
ISO range from ISO400 to 4000 (calibrated); up to ISO6400 (enabled), with a two-stop software push to ISO25,600
Burst depth - 25+ images
Rapid shutter response time
Quick connectivity (400Mbs with Firewire)
Kodak's sensor technology
Large, bright colour LCD panel for image analysis
Graphical user interface with -Instant review, 1:1 focus check, Spot densitometer and histogram
NiMH battery up to 1000 shots or unlimited number with AC adapter
16-bit image capture and in-camera processing with 12-bits per channel file architecture
Composite-video out using NTSC or PAL
Internal microphone for voice recording