The Canon EOS DCS 3 was
Kodak's second Canon based
Digital SLR
A digital single-lens reflex camera (digital SLR or DSLR) is a digital camera that combines the optics and the mechanisms of a single-lens reflex camera with a digital imaging sensor.
The reflex design scheme is the primary difference between ...
camera (a rebranded
Kodak EOS-DCS 3) released in July 1995, four months after
Kodak EOS-DCS 5. It uses a modified
Canon EOS-1N film camera with a modified
Kodak NC2000e digital camera back
A digital camera back is a device that attaches to the back of a camera in place of the traditional negative film holder and contains an electronic image sensor. This lets cameras that were designed to use film take digital photographs. Thes ...
attached. As a result, it maintained the
Canon EF
The EF lens mount is the standard lens mount on the Canon EOS family of SLR film and digital cameras. EF stands for "Electro-Focus": automatic focusing on EF lenses is handled by a dedicated electric motor built into the lens. Mechanically, it i ...
lens mount, and full compatibility with all of Canon's EF lenses made until that time. The camera was followed by the six megapixel
Canon EOS DCS 1
The Canon EOS DCS 1 was Kodak's third Canon-based Digital SLR camera (a rebranded Kodak EOS DCS-1). It was released in December 1995, following the cheaper EOS DCS 3, which was released earlier that year. Like that camera, it combined an EOS-1 ...
, which was released later in December 1995.
The back had a then-massive 16MB of RAM to act as an image buffer, as well as a PCMCIA card slot for image storage, plus a
SCSI socket for connection to a computer. The imaging element was an
APS-C sensor with a 1.5x crop factor, and a resolution of 1268 x 1012 pixels (1.3 mp). The camera back did not have an LCD monitor.
A typical 260MB
PCMCIA card
In computing, PC Card is a configuration for computer parallel communication peripheral interface, designed for laptop computers. Originally introduced as PCMCIA, the PC Card standard as well as its successors like CardBus were defined and develop ...
or
IBM Microdrive of the period could store 189 images.
The EOS DCS 3 lacked any internal
JPEG processing, and images had to be processed on a computer before they were usable in any form. The large amount of memory contributed to the then-immense price of the EOS DCS 3, at nearly two million
yen
The is the official currency of Japan. It is the third-most traded currency in the foreign exchange market, after the United States dollar (US$) and the euro. It is also widely used as a third reserve currency after the US dollar and the e ...
.
The camera was succeeded by the
Canon EOS D2000 (a rebranded
Kodak DCS 520) in 1998.
See also
*
Kodak DCS
The Kodak Digital Camera System is a series of digital single-lens reflex cameras and digital camera backs that were released by Kodak in the 1990s and 2000s, and discontinued in 2005. They are all based on existing 35mm film SLRs from Nikon, Cano ...
References
External links
Canon Camera Museum: Canon EOS DCS 3
{{DEFAULTSORT:DCS 3
Canon EOS DSLR cameras
Kodak DCS cameras
Products introduced in 1995