Sigma DP2 Merrill: Have any of you tried it?

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FlyPenFly
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p.11 #1 · Sigma DP2 Merrill: Have any of you tried it?

mpmendenhall wrote:
Yay, now I've got mine!

ISO400, f2.8 and 3.5:

These are the two best most natural and exceptional looking images I've seen from this camera.

Oct 11, 2012 at 04:11 PM

millsart
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p.11 #2 · Sigma DP2 Merrill: Have any of you tried it?

FlyPenFly wrote:
mpmendenhall wrote:
Yay, now I've got mine!

ISO400, f2.8 and 3.5:

These are the two best most natural and exceptional looking images I've seen from this camera.

Camera actually can do a pretty "natural" look quite well. Its just that the exposure bias from the X3 sensor is a bit different than your typical Bayer sensor and I think as a result many users are applying a good bit of the X3 Fill Light slider to try to get a bit of a more normal exposure, with the result being that sort of psuedo HDR look, which really isn't too different than a bit of a heavy hand with the shadow/highlight controls in PS.

Others of course simply like that look and do it on purpose. It can work pretty well on certain images though, especially if you like the LucisArt/Topaz Adjust look

Oct 11, 2012 at 05:31 PM

mpmendenhall
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p.11 #3 · Sigma DP2 Merrill: Have any of you tried it?

Thanks for the compliment, FlyPenFly.

I agree with millsart --- the "X3 Fill Light" slider is a quick and easy way to recover shadows/highlights, but the results tend to be heavy-handed and unnatural. I'm working on figuring how to handle exposure/processing for the images. What works best for me so far is to use DPP to set sharpness=-2, turn down exposure to keep highlights un-clipped (letting everything else be underexposed for now), and export as TIFF/16. Then I can import the TIFF in Aperture, crank the exposure back up to proper levels, while using Aperture's adjustments to compress highlights/shadows into viewable range (the files appear to have a lot of headroom for highlight recovery, but DPP doesn't provide good tools for taking advantage of this), and apply less heavy-handed final sharpening.

Unfortunately, DPP seems to apply different color/tonal curves to the reduced-exposure image than simple linear scaling (causing mid-tones to desaturate and lose contrast), so I can't do this as much as I want (1 stop seems to be OK, but 2 stops is too much). I'm still trying to figure out the best way to squeeze the full available exposure information into a TIFF/16 so I can handle the rest of the post-processing outside of DPP.

A few more pictures:

This image is copyrighted by the owner

Oct 11, 2012 at 05:55 PM

FlyPenFly
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p.11 #4 · Sigma DP2 Merrill: Have any of you tried it?

Yeah these images look far more natural and at least at these sizes free of the weird digitized effects we've seen so far. That post process sounds like a bear though.

Oct 11, 2012 at 06:02 PM

mpmendenhall
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p.11 #5 · Sigma DP2 Merrill: Have any of you tried it?

FlyPenFly wrote:
Yeah these images look far more natural and at least at these sizes free of the weird digitized effects we've seen so far. That post process sounds like a bear though.

For the images I've posted so far, the post processing isn't complicated; all I do is set sharpness=-2 and export as TIFF-16 from DPP; once that's done, the rest is identical to what I do for everything else anyway. The difficult part is for images that would be challenging to process from any camera (scene dynamic range exceeds the 6-8 stop "easily displayable" range, and needs to be compressed down from 10-12 stops). Example image below (and 100% crop): this giant iceball on the LN2 tank exhaust, blinding white in direct sunlight, has always been difficult for me to capture on my 5Dc. I'm impressed by how well the DP2 files are able to hold detail in the ice (and also by how good the lens is to keep prefect contrast on extremely bright edges).

This image is copyrighted by the owner

Oct 11, 2012 at 06:40 PM

Herb1911
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p.11 #6 · Sigma DP2 Merrill: Have any of you tried it?

Sigma DP2 Merill.

Au naturel.

This is a 100% crop. Exported from Sigma raw converter with sharpening setting -2.0.
All other settings as default. Auto white balance and natural color setting.

In Lightroom adjusted white balance only. No sharpening. Saved as JPG sRGB for screen,
again with no sharpening.

The second shot is with Lightroom sharpening 15 - 0,6 - 25 - 45.

The third short has the same amount of sharpening with additional low sharpening for screen display.

Herb

100% crop

sharpened

also sharpened for screen

total image, only white balanced in Lightroom

Edited on Oct 11, 2012 at 07:40 PM · View previous versions

Oct 11, 2012 at 07:26 PM

asbalyan
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p.11 #7 · Sigma DP2 Merrill: Have any of you tried it?

mpmendenhall wrote:

This image is copyrighted by the owner

Is this only me who is finding this pic pretty amazing...

Oct 11, 2012 at 07:39 PM

mpmendenhall
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p.11 #8 · Sigma DP2 Merrill: Have any of you tried it?

asbalyan wrote:
Is this only me who is finding this pic pretty amazing...

Quite possibly

Oct 11, 2012 at 07:57 PM

Imagemaster
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p.11 #9 · Sigma DP2 Merrill: Have any of you tried it?

asbalyan wrote:
mpmendenhall wrote:

This image is copyrighted by the owner

Is this only me who is finding this pic pretty amazing...

Yes.

Oct 11, 2012 at 08:12 PM

millsart
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p.11 #10 · Sigma DP2 Merrill: Have any of you tried it?

Neat Image seems to work pretty well as you can specify just to remove the color noise and leave any luminance noise which could kill detail. More so, you can fine tune the color range it works on for chroma noise.

I've been reading though that it might be an easier fix in SPP though with with increased chroma noise slider

Oct 11, 2012 at 08:14 PM

Herb1911
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p.11 #11 · Sigma DP2 Merrill: Have any of you tried it?

mpmendenhall wrote:
asbalyan wrote:
Is this only me who is finding this pic pretty amazing...

Quite possibly

. Anyway, here it is at full resolution --- the detail doesn't stop at web-sized resolution. It's also a good example of the omnipresent magenta/green color blotching; my guess is some of the fancier noise reduction programs could fix this, but I don't have any to try right now.

Tried Neat Image, Noise Ninja and Noiseware Pro. Only the last one did a good job reducing this kind of color noise and leaving the detail intact. Thanks for showing this nice example.
Herb

Oct 11, 2012 at 08:31 PM

sculptormic
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p.11 #12 · Sigma DP2 Merrill: Have any of you tried it?

Amsterdam in october!

This image is copyrighted by the owner

Oct 11, 2012 at 09:01 PM

Herb1911
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p.11 #13 · Sigma DP2 Merrill: Have any of you tried it?

Looks terrific Michiel!

Oct 11, 2012 at 09:18 PM

sculptormic
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p.11 #14 · Sigma DP2 Merrill: Have any of you tried it?

Thanks Herb!

This camera is made for this kind of work!

Oct 11, 2012 at 09:53 PM

Tariq Gibran
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p.11 #15 · Sigma DP2 Merrill: Have any of you tried it?

Kibsgaard wrote:
Tariq Gibran wrote:
Kibsgaard wrote:

"Luckily, Sigma uses the same battery a number of Ricoh compact cameras use so you can pick up spares for $10 or so."

Interesting, and they are the exact same, you do not have a link ?

Thank you

I read that there might be some fit issues with some of the alternative batteries. My cameras shows up tomorrow - and I have pre-purchased some off brand batteries - so will let you know how they work.

Fine, thank you

My DP1M showed up just now. As I feared, the battery is ever so slightly different that the third party batteries I purchased will not fit properly (they will not insert all the way in!). The single difference is the size and shape of some notches which are cut into the plastic casing at the bottom edges. It may be possible to file these down on the third party battery to allow it to fit as the form factor is indeed exactly the same otherwise. The third party batteries I ordered are branded "Wasabi Power" with premium cells made in Japan, ordered from Amazon. I will update if I can figure out how to make them fit.

Oct 11, 2012 at 09:59 PM

andyjaggy82
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p.11 #16 · Sigma DP2 Merrill: Have any of you tried it?

The fine detail in that image first posted in this thread just blew my mind. Pixel level sharpness that my 7D couldn't even hope to touch, it's so sharp it almost looks fake. Wow.

Oct 11, 2012 at 10:12 PM

andyjaggy82
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p.11 #17 · Sigma DP2 Merrill: Have any of you tried it?

I am buying one as soon as I have the money. The DP1M is the PERFECT backpacking landscape camera.

Oct 11, 2012 at 10:24 PM

timpdx
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p.11 #18 · Sigma DP2 Merrill: Have any of you tried it?

mine is on order from Sigma, hope to have it tuesday

Oct 11, 2012 at 10:28 PM

polylepis
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p.11 #19 · Sigma DP2 Merrill: Have any of you tried it?

I ordered a DP1 Merrill and have been enjoying it so far with all the above mentioned caveats.
I'm curious about the file output size and hope someone might have some patience to explain. In the 'save images as" dialog box, you can choose a "double size" of the source which is 44.3 MP in Sigma raw. This produces a massive file of 59MP (337.7 MP) in Aperture. Whew! Besides taking forever to apply adjustments, is there any advantage to such a huge file?
Pretty to look at though.
BTW, I ordered two extra Ricoh batteries DB-65, just the right size for the charger and the camera.

Oct 12, 2012 at 04:24 AM

mpmendenhall
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p.11 #20 · Sigma DP2 Merrill: Have any of you tried it?

polylepis wrote:
I ordered a DP1 Merrill and have been enjoying it so far with all the above mentioned caveats.
I'm curious about the file output size and hope someone might have some patience to explain. In the 'save images as" dialog box, you can choose a "double size" of the source which is 44.3 MP in Sigma raw. This produces a massive file of 59MP (337.7 MP) in Aperture. Whew! Besides taking forever to apply adjustments, is there any advantage to such a huge file?
Pretty to look at though.

Upscaling the image might be useful if you're about to make a very large print, where the square pixels of the native size would be visible in the final result. For most purposes (viewing on screen, less huge prints), there's no reason to upscale; and you can always upscale later (just when you need it) from the native-sized version, instead of keeping around an over-sized file on disk.

Oct 12, 2012 at 04:54 AM

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