I once had a 460c

Discuss older Nikon-based Kodak digital SLRs, including DCS 100, DCS 200, NC2000, DCS 400/600/700-series, etc. Ask questions, post general comments, anecdotes, reviews and user tips.
Stan Disbrow
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I once had a 460c

Post by Stan Disbrow »

Hi,

I bought a Kodak 460c as my third DSLR. It was intended to replace both my E2 and D1 at the time. I had this idea that it could be used to shoot fine art (i.e. paintings) as the first step in a serigraph process.

That was something we were doing for a client in our screenprinting business. I figured that I could use a 6 MP DSLR in place of a film camera and a scanner. We were taking the digital file and using that to produce process screens, which were then used to screenprint copies of the original painting. This is a process that lends itself to low volume work, which is usually all budding artists desire.

Well, to make the long story short, the idea worked as long as I tiled the input as four shots from the 460. It also worked as long as the target didn't have too fine detail, since the 460 had no anti-aliasing filter option.

As far as any of the other shooting tasks went, the 460 was *not* a replacement for either the E2 or the D1. So much for the idea of having a universal DSLR. That one would have to wait for a while. :)

Oh, and the 460c wound up sold off on eBay when I replaced it with both a 660c and a D1X (could not make up my mind, so I bought 'em both).

Stan
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Kodak 460C

Post by NikonWeb »

Hi Stan,

A 1995 six megapixel camera. That's pretty impressive. I plan to get one of these myself in the not too distant future.

I'm a bit surprised that the 460 couldn't replace your E2 (a 6 megapixel SLR-like body vs. a bulky medium-format-like 1.5 megapixel camera). What's the catch?

Jarle
Stan Disbrow
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460c vs E2

Post by Stan Disbrow »

hi,

Well, technically, the 460c could have replaced the E2. I mean, one can easily downres from 6 MP to 1.5 MP, and the thing is certainly easier to handle.

Why it didn't replace the E2 is the price tag. At the time, I had spent $4k for the 460c. This was in, oh, June of 2000, and they still commanded quite a price alongside the then-current D1 at it's then-current price of $5k. Oh, and the then-current Kodak 660c was still somehting like $18k, so there was no help for 460c prices from the Kodak side, either.

We had that one client that was having serigraphs made, and his art suddenly became popular enough to warrant his switching to lithograph. So, the 460 was out of a job so to speak. I used it on three jobs before that happened, so it was worthwhile overall.

Oh, I could have used it for those website shots, but I felt it was better to keep using the $750 E2 for that and re-sell the $4k 460 before something else (like the D1X) came out to push the 460 market downwards!

Stan
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dburger
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DCS 460C HAAALLLPP!!!!

Post by dburger »

Can anyone give a modest dissertation on making this old beauty work with a new computer??? The camera is working fine but I am not able to get the images off the callunacard (PCMCIA type III ata 520 mb) and into my IMAC using a SCSI-USB cable;according to Kodak Pro support it won't work and they give me up for dead at that. I can't believe that there isn't some workaround out there....I've got images on the card-- how do I get them off?? OR can I use some other card??? or what??....thanks for your help; and thanks for all the general-other-specific info too... cheeers, david.
Stan Disbrow
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Post by Stan Disbrow »

Hi,

I used several IBM machines to connect my 460 to, but I never had a Mac. So, perhaps there's something Mac specific I'm missing.

That said, you have to set the SCSI address using the small LCD and buttons on the back and then add a SCSI termination resistor pack (aka a terminator) before the machine will see the camera.

I used a TWAIN plug-in with Photoshop 6 at the time. That allowed a simple camera control and also served to capture the shot onto the PC. Without the TWAIN p/i, I don't think you can control the camera from the PC, and I don't know if that p/i works with PS/CS....

I have been able to open Kodak 'Tiff' raw files using PS/CS with ACR. At this point, if I ever get another 460, I'll just pop the PC Card into my reader and copy off the raw files, just like I do with all my other cameras.

I think that would be the best method for you to go these days, and forget about the SCSI interface.

Stan
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dburger
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MORE 460c

Post by dburger »

Stan--thanks for the reply; I have a couple of older PCs (sony Vaio) but am not trying to complicate things with SCSI, Twains etc; I tried all day last week searching online for an external reader that could read a type III pcmcia card but found nothing; because of the thickness of the type III ata cards many of the newer readers won't accept them (also probably because of the electronics inside them!). What reader are you using? Are they available?? Thanks, david.
dburger
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More 460c card reader

Post by dburger »

I finally found a couple of internal PC readers that seem to fit the bill and went off for one on ebay which claims to work under Win xp. I'll report in in a few days when I install and try it. d
Stan Disbrow
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Post by Stan Disbrow »

Hi,

Well, my Type-III cards slip right into the PC Card slot on the side of my Thinkpad. I've always used notebook PC card slots for my card reader.....

As long as the reader you bought supports dual Type-II cards, then it'll also accept a single Type-II card. :)

I don't blame you for not wanting to bother with SCSI cards and TWAIN drivers. :P

Stan
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dplace
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Re: DCS 460C HAAALLLPP!!!!

Post by dplace »

dburger wrote:Can anyone give a modest dissertation on making this old beauty work with a new computer???
if you are trying to connect the 460 to the computer you can use a SCSI to USB converter cable ... they are NOT cheap ...

or ... you can use a PC Card Adapter which would allow you to use a Compact Flash card in the 460 & then read the card with any card reader ... we always used 1gig micro drives with their PC Card Adapter in the DCS460, 660 & 760 cameras ... this also allowed use of two micro drives at the same time ...
dp
dburger
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More 460c

Post by dburger »

Thanks for the tips; I tried a SCSI-USB cable adapter but nothing happened when I connected and powered up; forgive my ignorance in all of these matters; I thought the connection would be recognized by my computer just as it recognizes other devices similarly connected; meanwhile, was the MICRO drive written by the camera with no further ado, and then recognized in the card reader just as the newer camera-written cards are??? If so does this mean that I could simply plug in a thin PCMCIA adapter (type 1 or2) which takes, for example, a 4 gig Hitchi micro drive, and then fire away on the 460??? sounds too good to be true!! thanks again to all who reply. david
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Re: More 460c

Post by dplace »

dburger wrote: If so does this mean that I could simply plug in a thin PCMCIA adapter (type 1 or2) which takes, for example, a 4 gig Hitchi micro drive, and then fire away on the 460??? sounds too good to be true!! thanks again to all who reply. david
that should work . . . . . . . . . . .
dp
Stan Disbrow
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Post by Stan Disbrow »

Hi,

Just keep in mind that the 460 has a 512 MB (where an MB = 1024 bytes) limitation. There's no point in putting in a 4 GB card....

Stan
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dburger
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MORE 460c

Post by dburger »

thanks for the headsup, Stan; but what happened to all those extra MB's that dplace had left over when he put in the 1 gig micro drive he mentioned?? Is this some kind of MD definition issue?? Thanks again, david.
dplace
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Re: MORE 460c

Post by dplace »

dburger wrote:but what happened to all those extra MB's that dplace had left over when he put in the 1 gig micro drive he mentioned?? Is this some kind of MD definition issue?? Thanks again, david.
all DSLR's have a maximum card size their firmware is set up to use ... we used a 460ir for a short while but the battery life with that particular body was not great & never had enough juice to fill a 1 gig card ... with our DCS760 we would often keep both card slots full when the camera switched over to the second card we could switch the full card for an empty one & keep going like that all day long ... back then 1gig was still the largest card (no 2gig let alone 8gig) ... we are still using the five original IBM microdrives ... when new they were going for about $450 each ... imagine how many gigs that would buy today ?!?!?
dp
Stan Disbrow
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Joined: Fri May 20, 2005 7:33 pm
Location: Raleigh, NC USA

Post by Stan Disbrow »

Hi,

Well, if the code that operates the storage is well behaved, then you'll only get 520 MB storage onto the larger card before it tells you the card is full.

If the code is *not* well behaved, then it thinks it can fill out the card while overwriting the earlier shots with later ones. This is known as 'wrapping around'.

For example, if we have a 512 MB limit in our bad-boy OS and we insert a 1024 MB card, then the second pass of 512 MB winds up overwriting the first 512 MB. Many earlier OS's had this particular problem, BTW, even on the larger computers. This is why there were so many versions of OS's released back when.

Now, what I do not know is if the OS code in the 460 is well-behaved or not. I was using 340 MB IBM microdrives at the time I had my 460, and so never came close to the 512 MB limitation......

Stan
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Professional Electronics Development Engineer
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