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Kodak DCS560 / Canon D6000

6.1 megapixels

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Opinion: I bought one of these in late 2009, mainly out of curiousity. I've owned and reviewed most of Kodak's earlier DCS models - you can see my opinions on this very site, under the entries for the DCS 420, DCS 460, and DCS 520 - and I wanted to see how the DCS 520's high-resolution twin held up to the passage of time.

In its day it was the top professional Canon-bodied digital SLR, with a $20,000+ price tag, at a time when the pro digital market was dominated by medium format scanning backs, which were even more expensive than the DCS 560. It was also the last of the Kodak-Canon hybrids. The two companies parted ways shortly afterwards, and Kodak's later DCS cameras (the DCS 620, 620x, 660, 720x, 760, and 760m) were all based on the Nikon F5. The DCS 560 remained the highest-resolution professional Canon-bodied digital SLR until the full-frame Canon 1Ds, by which time Kodak's entire early DCS range had been killed off by competition from the Nikon D1 / D1x.

The DCS 560 was apparently sold by Canon as the Canon D6000, but only in Japan. I have never seen a photograph of this camera.

As with the DCS 520, I was pleasantly surprised by the DCS 560. Most of my comments in that review apply here. On a physical level it is exactly the same, based on a strong and responsive EOS-1n film body, with the same fiddly "hold button and simultaneously turn dial" system. It fires at one frame a second for four frames before pausing for a few seconds to write to the card, but assuming you can live with 1fps the interface is fast and responsive. It's much quicker than the later Canon 10D, for example, and image review is essentially instant. The big drawback is that you can't zoom in, and the screen tends to make everything look underexposed and very contrasty.

Unlike the six-megapixel DCS 460, infrared contamination is far less of a problem. It exists - fabrics and hair sometimes turn purple, in a manner familiar to anybody who bought a Leica M8 - but this can usually be corrected with Photoshop. The camera comes with a removable infrared / antialiasing filter which softens the image noticeably, and so I never bother with it.

With the antialiasing filter removed the DCS 560 produces sharp, detailed output files that interpolate well. There's surprisingly little noise. It has a base ISO of 80 with an APS-H sensor, and the advances Kodak made between the DCS 460 and the DCS 560 were very effective, because apart from some grain when pushed the files are smooth at base ISO and not offensive at ISO 200 (the top setting). The earlier DCS cameras had ugly blotchy luminance noise at higher ISO settings and amp noise with longer exposures, so I was pleasantly surprised by the DCS 560. In practice it was aimed at studio photographers who would have used it at ISO 80 indoors with flash and in that context it is still viable albeit eccentric today. It connects to your computer with Firewire, assuming you can get Kodak's software working.

The camera takes Compact Flash cards with an adapter. It will use 4gb and higher-capacity cards but it only sees the lower 2gb. It has two card slots, which are hot-swappable.

It has a microphone for taking notes. The results are stored as 8-bit .WAV files and are noisy but audible. In common with Kodak's other pro digital SLRs it records the total number of frames it has shot. This is a very useful feature and it's a shame that most other manufacturers don't do this.

Problems: It has an APS-H sensor, so finding ultrawide lenses is tricky. The ultrawide 17-40mm becomes a merely wide 22-52mm albeit that it is then sharp across the frame at all settings rather than being blurry in the 17mm corners.

The batteries are still available, but cost about $30 each. They last for several hundred shots between charges but lose their charge if you leave them in the camera. The screen doesn't magnify. ISO 200 is the top ISO. No USB. The shutter is very noisy and the camera itself is heavy and bulky, although it balances in the hand well and has a nice solid feel. A DCS 560 plus a 70-200mm f/2.8 IS when held by the lens becomes a perfectly viable defensive weapon.

The drive mode button is under a flap - Canon had a habit of hiding controls under flaps in the early days of the EOS system - and the flap is part of the handgrip, so you have to let go of the camera to change to continuous shooting. Which you aren't going to do because it's only 1fps.

The EOS-1n body apparently has weather seals on a par with the modern Canon 7D, but the Kodak digital component is not sealed unless you tape it up with gaffer tape. The battery / Compact Flash door hinges outwards and downwards, and so you can't open it when the camera is resting flat on a table. Later DCS bodies hinged the door forwards.

On a practical level, the resolution is easily enough for internet use, and will fill out an 8x10 or 9x12 or A3 sheet no problem. Nonetheless a used Canon 400D or 20d is more practical and lighter, and so the DCS 560 remains a quirky choice. As of 2010 it is way behind the curve, but the resolution and cropping factor and low noise have a certain definitive quality that is still just above the baseline of practicality; I would not feel wretched if I found myself photographing something important and this was all I had.

Ultimately, although the camera is mechanically very tough, if just one tiny component inside the Kodak part goes PAF and dies, the camera is dead and will remain so forever. They were tricky to service when they were new, and no one fixes them today. If the EOS-1n body develops a problem you might find a brave soul who could dismantle the camera and replace a part, but I wouldn't count on it.