[nandadevieast]

What do you think?

[Guest]

[quote name='nandadevieast' timestamp='1346472351' post='19912']

What do you think?

[/quote]



Go for it. Do not hesitate.

[mst]

Well, it depends on what you're looking for. The Sigma DP cameras have fixed lenses, the wider one being a 28mm equivalent. Will this be sufficient for you?



The Foveon sensor delivers very natural looking colour and generally very good quality at low ISOs, but it certainly doesn't rival the D800 in terms of resolution, dynamic range or high ISO/noise (if you care about this).



As with any camera: to get the best out of the files, you'll need to shoot raw, but in case of the Sigma RAW support in 3rd party software is rather limited. You might have to get along with Sigma's own software.



-- Markus

[nandadevieast]

mst, looks supremely interesting to me because of small size and great lens, and the focal length is ideal too.

will do some work with one, and report, as soon as i can get one.

[Brightcolours]

[quote name='nandadevieast' timestamp='1346562643' post='19917']

mst, looks supremely interesting to me because of small size and great lens, and the focal length is ideal too.

will do some work with one, and report, as soon as i can get one.

[/quote]

Confused by your wishes by now... Before, you totally ruled out a Canon in an earlier thread because you said you wanted to go full frame, and you wanted the 36mp from the D800 and the 22mp from the 5D mk III was not good enough according to you, if I remember correctly. You came from a Panasonic compact digital.



Now you are considering a single lens compact which is cumbersome and slow, with a lower resolution, a BIG software problem, and seriously hampered high ISO performance. With a lens which is not very wide, but also not very "normal".

Sigma loves to be weird about the resolution.... This is a 15mp camera, not a 45mp one. It has a slight advantage in resolution compared to a sensor with bayer CFA, but not huge. And the lack of AA-filter makes the images appear sharper, but that is mostly fake detail due to the square borders of pixels.



I do get the "small size" part. Not totally sure if the lens is "great". The focal length to me doesn't seem really ideal for too many situations.



And then of course I do not like the AA-less sensor which will alias and bring moire problems.



It would be a fun little camera next to a more versatile camera system, if it did not have so many drawbacks. I would like one if it was not so expensive, had better computing power and firmware, and had better RAW conversion software available. And an appropriate AA-filter.



Without IS and a sensor that only shines at its lower ISO settings, for landscapes a tripod will be a must when light is lower.

[nandadevieast]

[quote name='Brightcolours' timestamp='1346566600' post='19918']

Confused by your wishes by now... Before, you totally ruled out a Canon in an earlier thread because you said you wanted to go full frame, and you wanted the 36mp from the D800 and the 22mp from the 5D mk III was not good enough according to you, if I remember correctly. You came from a Panasonic compact digital.



Now you are considering a single lens compact which is cumbersome and slow, with a lower resolution, a BIG software problem, and seriously hampered high ISO performance. With a lens which is not very wide, but also not very "normal".

Sigma loves to be weird about the resolution.... This is a 15mp camera, not a 45mp one. It has a slight advantage in resolution compared to a sensor with bayer CFA, but not huge. And the lack of AA-filter makes the images appear sharper, but that is mostly fake detail due to the square borders of pixels.



I do get the "small size" part. Not totally sure if the lens is "great". The focal length to me doesn't seem really ideal for too many situations.



And then of course I do not like the AA-less sensor which will alias and bring moire problems.



It would be a fun little camera next to a more versatile camera system, if it did not have so many drawbacks. I would like one if it was not so expensive, had better computing power and firmware, and had better RAW conversion software available. And an appropriate AA-filter.



Without IS and a sensor that only shines at its lower ISO settings, for landscapes a tripod will be a must when light is lower.

[/quote]



<img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> BC, nothing to get confused <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> I love trying out new gear...

Will buy FF camera as stated earlier, post photokina, early next year...this is just an add on, not supposed to replace anything...

It will come in the same cost as a 28 1.8G...and on tripod, because of the resolution, it will make a nice landscape camera...that was the thought. I know the limitations though, mostly about handling. About color aberrations and other clinical stuff, i don't bother too much...i actually end up liking those things in my images. Oh, and i love flair <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />

[mst]

[quote name='nandadevieast' timestamp='1346571697' post='19919']

It will come in the same cost as a 28 1.8G...and on tripod, because of the resolution, it will make a nice landscape camera...

[/quote]



Just to avoid any misunderstandings: don't let the Sigma marketing fool you into believing this is a 45MP camera. As BC points out, it is not. The camera has a 15 MP sensor with three layers. Because of its different design, it can probably rival Bayer sensors in the 20 MP range, but it's no competition to the D800 (especially the D800E... BC does not like cameras without AA filters, but some others actually do... count me in here <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> ).



-- Markus

[nandadevieast]

[quote name='mst' timestamp='1346572433' post='19920']

Just to avoid any misunderstandings: don't let the Sigma marketing fool you into believing this is a 45MP camera. As BC points out, it is not. The camera has a 15 MP sensor with three layers. Because of its different design, it can probably rival Bayer sensors in the 20 MP range, but it's no competition to the D800 (especially the D800E... BC does not like cameras without AA filters, but some others actually do... count me in here <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> ).



-- Markus

[/quote]



Markus,



There's a level of sharpness in DP2M images that i can not recall seeing anywhere, from any camera. I opened a 8 MP file of an old Canon IXUS about a month back, and it was incredibly sharp at 100%, you could see the individual grass blades at 100%. It was better than any high MP camera file i had seen in those terms. What i deduced from that is, as we have more megapixels in newer cameras, the detail at 100% will look like that, and you are expected to look at those files at a given print size to see the sharpness.



We have long come to associate DSLR files with a slight blurriness, which you only appreciate when you look at something so incredibly sharp at 100%. I understand that one is supposed to sharpen and not look at those files at 100%, and when you down sample those files, they do look sharper, but that's the demand that technology puts on us...we expect Bayer files to be like that.

However, there's no reason that they must and they should look like that.



I am sure all of us have seen Foveon files, and i am no Foveon champion, the way many people who like Foveon go overboard selling that tech....but for whatever its worth, here's a link to show the sharpness that comes with a Foveon capture:



http://www.clubsnap.com/forums/reviews/1134888-sigma-dp2m-users-review-2.html



Where is this sharpness, the level of detail capturing and the separation of micro detail (like leaves) coming from? Is it a function of not having a blur filter? I am not sure, even some bayer cameras also don't have that filter...It seems to be generic to that technology, as far as i can think, something which that tech can do better than the other kinds...



Looks appealing to me as a photographer, even with all the handling handicaps. Maybe i will learn the hard way <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />

[nandadevieast]

the tree shot:



http://www.clubsnap.com/forums/reviews/1134888-sigma-dp2m-users-review.html

[Brightcolours]

It is fine if you understand the drawbacks, and as I said, I would like this camera as a 2nd one too if it had less limitations.



The tree images looks nice, but it is a nice example of "fake detail"... you get absolute borders between pixels, every contrasty edge ends abruptly on a pixel edge and makes the scene "sharper" than in reality. One can get the same edgy sharpness by oversharpening other files (depending on the sharpening method... Canon's DPP has one of those sharpening methods which a little bit does the same and I do not like it).



The cat photo is a bit odd, how is that a 100% crop.. Strange <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />



So yes, if you want a 2nd, compact, camera, with punchy contrasty settings and no AA-filter because you like the added feel of sharpness, get one.



The 15 mp foveon sensor resolves a bit more (if we disregard what the AA-filter does), so one can compare it with the 16mp and 18mp Canon sensors.

If you care about extracting as much detail as possible out of RAW files, take care about which converter you use with Bayer CFA sensors. For the Mac, RPP for instance gets quite a bit more detail out of files than many other converters. I have heard that Raw therapy does a good job too. The right sharpning method in post processing then makes the difference all but gone.