Say goodbye to Creo scanners and Leaf backs...

[Paddy Quinn]

Say goodbye to Creo scanners and Leaf backs. In another desperate old aged grab for digital relevance and market (somewhat like your Granny thinking she needs an iPod to be hip) Creo have just let themselves be taken over by Kodak.

Watch this space for their good digital products and software to be mangled and run into the ground by Kodak mismanagement and finally dumped in a few years time at a bargain basement price once eveything is beyond recovery...

[Scott Fleming]

How about a link to your source?

It might be worse than you think. They may just deep six the brand altogether. That being the reason for buying it. Why would they get back in the business of making backs again. They just got out. Unless their deal with Phase stated that the Kodak back had to go away and this is an end around. Who makes Leaf's chips now? That would be a clue.

[Glenn Kroeger]

Scott:

Here is a horses mouth:


http://money.cnn.com/2005/01/31/technology/kodak_creo.reut/index.htm (http://money.cnn.com/2005/01/31/technology/kodak_creo.reut/index.htm)

[Paddy Quinn]

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&ncl=http://www.cbc.ca/cp/business/050131/b013156.html

or just go to google news and put in Creo

[Frank Petronio]

Big bad Kodak is a much more efficient company. They are finally making money from digital, and they always made money and did a good job with professional imaging. I know a lot of people who still swear by (and not at) their DCS 520-760 cameras, and Kodak still supports them with the best software in the business. Their pro support puts Nikon and Canon to shame...

If anything, they make poor business decisions by giving TOO much to their customers, not like most companies who try to do it the other way around.

[David Luttmann]

Frank,

Maybe the support puts Canon & Nikon to shame.....but the products don't. The replacement for the DCS760 was the 14N, soon to become the DCS Pro/N or Pro/C. This 14MP piece of rubbish has enough quality issues with it that Kodak should be providing superior support. Maybe now that they have a different chip maker on board, they can ditch the Pro/C / N and replace it with a camera that produces results worthy of a "professional" designation.

[Scott Fleming]

Anybody want to hold forth on the questions I raised in post 2?

Thanks for the links.

[Scott Fleming]

After reading the article I would not be surprised if digital backs had very little to do with this purchase. It seems Creo's other assets were more interesting to Kodak. These backs if they continue to exist will now surely have Kodak sensors in them. Maybe they already did. I don't know.

[Ellis Vener]

this 14MP piece of rubbish has enough quality issues with it...

Have you actually shot with either the Pro SLR/n or Pro SLR/c? I know several pros who are really happy with theirs--as are their agents and clients.

[tim atherton]

I shot several hundred archaeological/museum artefacts last year with the Kodaks DCS Pro 14n - or should I say three of them because that's how many times Kodak had to replace them with a new body.

Luckily they weren't mine, but the governments.

In addition there were problems with both the colour and with noise among other things.

By contrast, I borrowed a colleagues Olympus E1 for the times the Kodaks were in the shop.

Not the same size image file etc but like light and day in terms of colour, comparative lack of noise (especially at slower speeds, compared to the Kodaks) and reliability

The experience with the Kodak bodies reflects similar stories I've heard from other colleagues in our agency

[David Luttmann]

Ellis,

I've had the opportunity to use both the 14N and DCS Pro/C. For the Kodak, you could probably change film holders faster than it can write to its card. I think an old 386 could clear a 512mb buffer faster. Moire is an ongoing problem whether you use Kodak's software or ACR. Many claim they can easily remove it....however, they are just removing the color channel moire. The left over moire in the luminosity channel cannot be removed. Now for the painterly issue....which does remain an issue even when processed in ACR. This causes rather odd looking foliage in a small percentage of the shots I've done.....maybe 20%. But you can't tell until you view on screen. Need we even mention the noise problems. The noise in the shadows at ISO 160 is worse than I get from film in 35MM from 800ISO. It's purely horrible. I've had people point it out at ISO 160 in 8x12 prints. Shadow noise at ISO 160 is worse than I get at ISO 1600 from my 10D.

All in all, I choose the 1DS over the Kodak......and my RB67 over both. I've found that the people who are happy with it have lower standards for output than those who are use to clean 16x20 prints from better quality digital backs, or MF 6X7 or LF 4X5.

[René_5190]

The Leaf backs are currently using DALSA CCD's