I guess color is a bit of matter of taste, as much as it is one's workflow, monitor etc

The red's in the flag to me, actually look quite accurate. To my eyes, on my screen, it is the exact shade of red I expect when I see a flag. I've often struggled with red's either totally blowing out, or being rather weak and anemic and just not getting a true deep red with some previous cameras, but then others don't have any complaints with the same model.

As for the orange traffic cone in the one image, I think its merely an old cone. Not every cone is a bright "safety orange" color after all. Few years of exposure to the elements, lots of car bumpers hitting it etc and I think it is going to be a bit drab overall.


Really goes to show how subject it all is though. One person see's an amazing image that inspires them to purchase the camera. Another see's a traffic cone that doesn't have punchy enough color, and another still says the images are nothing but crass and graceless.

Guess really no different than taste in music's either. One person's obnoxious noise is sweet sounding music to a different persons ears

If those were the real colours, then of course I have no problem with it. Accuracy is a virtue.

However, look at the guy's skin tones. Look at the forest greens. Nothing at all in this image seems to me to be the right colour (except the pavement). It is just exceptionally dull, even in places one wouldn't expect it. This is what I would expect to see if I grabbed the saturation slider in LR and dragged it halfway to 0.

There are so many overcooked images through various threads here, I really wonder what's the big deal here. On the other hand, yes, give Sigma hell, so they make it even better. Almost nobody actually said anything about how detailed images are, despite so many sharpness freaks around.

millsart wrote:
Darn if I didn't think (and publicly) say that I'm quite set as far as my equipment goes. Between my various Nikon DSLR's, my iPhone and my Sony RX100, I felt I was pretty set as far as equipment goes for all my professional and personal needs (and what little personal shooting I even have these days I just started back to school to get a doctorate)

You thought GAS was curable? Why? Aren't you out of your teen years?


Happy shooting,
Yakim.

mirkoc wrote:
There are so many overcooked images through various threads here, I really wonder what's the big deal here. On the other hand, yes, give Sigma hell, so they make it even better. Almost nobody actually said anything about how detailed images are, despite so many sharpness freaks around.

I guess you are comparing unprocessed and processed images...

I hope the Foveon sensor is successful; perhaps other camera companies will pick it up.

But the mortar between the rocks in the wall to the left of the green sign look processed to me. Too much swirl and eveness - mortar is granular. Having photoshopped many printed images, the effect in the mortar looks like some blur filter was used (with a Wacom tablet, for example). Not to say it is the sensor's fault, just that there look to have been some post processing of the image. The same is true, I think, of the stream in the first image - it looks flattened.

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carlitos wrote:
But the mortar between the rocks in the wall to the left of the green sign look processed to me. Too much swirl and eveness - mortar is granular.

Wow, you really did have high expectations for the camera if you were expecting to see the sand grains in the mortar at that scale!

However, there is something else that I noticed mid left of the green sign: the green is "leaking" off the edge of the sign (next to "Vehicle", "Person", and some next to "Interagency") onto the brown rocks behind. This is probably related to the camera having trouble telling that range of colors apart (hence the typically dark/muted greens) --- the RAW processor is using the large, solid green area of the sign as a "hint" that nearby ambiguously colored areas should also be similarly green.

If they put the sensor in NEX E mount I will get one!

ytwong wrote:
If they put the sensor in NEX E mount I will get one!

And then you'd find out nearly all your lenses were useless due to severe color shifts.

In its current incarnation, I'd guess the sensor is very picky about light incidence angles. In a focal length range (mid-wide to standard) where small, symmetrical rangefinder lens designs are typically "king," Sigma had to design a very asymmetric lens (the rear element is about twice the diameter of the front) to make it extra telecentric (i.e. from the back of the lens, the light looks like it's coming from a larger hole farther away instead of a smaller hole closer to the sensor). I recall seeing reports of people converting Sigma DSLRs to use Canon lenses, and having color shifts even with some SLR lenses (necessarily already moderately telecentric to clear the camera mirror); I suspect many "NEX-friendly" lenses would be a disaster.

Eventually, they'll probably figure something out (e.g. using strong microlenses like Leica is advertising) to allow compatibility with a wider variety of lenses. But for now the sensor is limited to a small range of compatible lenses.

The clarity and detail in pictures from this camera is surprising, but I think part of that look is digital processing. I am looking at the picture with the NP ranger. At 100%, he is sharp and the flag is sharp. The trees on the slope are OOF. Yet at the downsampled size that fits my screen, the details on the background trees pop more than details from my own Leica or Canon shots that are actually sharper. Same for the mountain in the first image of this thread. I think there is some sort of higher radius local contrast enhancement applied on the full size image that makes it look crisp even after primitive downscaling done by my browser. And on the first image in this thread with the stream and mountain in the background, the grass in the middle shows structure that should not be visible in my opinion. It reminds me the effect of applying monochromatic noise over an image, when the brain makes up the obscured original detail (or lack thereof).

Like others said, it may be that I am not used to looking at images like that and if it does not look from my camera, it looks weird. But it may be that the engineers make us see what they want us to see.

Nice shot. I learned a couple of things:

1) Internet Explorer doesn't like to let me see the top of the mountain photo

2) That same mountain photo looks like it's had a round of unsharp masking done and then a very fine level of tonal contrast, which gives it the "surreal" look. I can't really find many sharpening halos (unless you count the mountains, which looks like CA+Halos) - definitely interesting.

I like it, a bit too sharpened for my tastes for the screen, but I bet it prints great.

Great sensor encased in a lousy camera.

Ugh, every time I buy Sigma I get burned and say "never again", and now I am feeling the pull yet one more time... there is one in stock around here too.

Maybe you can buy it and we can pass it around, everyone taking a $20 hit until it finds its final home

Exdsc wrote:
Great sensor encased in a lousy camera.






Id say unique sensor encased in a nicely sized camera, with a phenomenal lens, limited by slow AF, a poor LCD and poor battery life.

I think issues like battery life and LCD not withstanding, the way one approaches photography really is what will affect if its a lousy camera or not.

Its certainly not a jack of all trades, and increasingly these days I think we expect that most any camera should have fast AF, good high ISO, fast framerates and buffer performance, a nice 3"+ 912K+ LCD, maybe even a EVF, tilt screen etc.

At the same time though, if your style of photography is to work from a tripod and carefully compose each shot, coming home with maybe 20-30 frames from a hike rather than 200-300, as its all too easy to blast away doing, with big batteries and huge capacity CF cards, then your probably not going to run into many issues with the camera.

AF etc slow as it is seems to be pretty accurate and as long as the waterfall your shooting isn't shooting, then you shouldn't have issue.

Try to take the same camera to your kids youth soccer game and I'm sure you'd want to chuck the thing across the field before halftime, due to the fact it can't focus fast enough, the focal length is limited, your stuck as low ISO and chances are the battery is dead

I agree with you on all points. I guess with this camera, as long as you are not phased by an iffy body, is simply whether or not one is happy with the colours. I find them too far removed from reality for my taste, and in a direction which I would be unhappy to be locked into.

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Nothing for me to buy but I am impressed. Detailing is amazing.

I suppose even in terms of colors, what does and doesn't work could vary greatly depending on ones geographic region/typical environment for shooting. Issue with cyan skies certainly could be frustrating for someone who lives/shoots in areas with 300 sunny days a year, though on the other hand, if you live somewhere and hardly even see shadow because its always so overcast/rainy then you probably wouldn't see what the big deal is.

Luckily for Sigma, they choose to price the DP's at what I think is a reasonable price. In some ways, the draw isn't simply the IQ, but also that you can get said IQ for a price that isn't too out of reach. After all, many of use easily will spend that much on a lens, if not several times more.

Price it at $699 or $599 and sure, that would be better, but I don't know if it really would make that many more people buy one. If its limitations as a camera are factors for you, its not going to matter how cheap you make it. I don't care if its $99, if you need a camera with fast response and great high ISO, your still going to feel like you wasted your money.

Price it over $1000 and I think even for those who are impressed with its IQ and can otherwise live with what it offer would have to start questioning if they would really get enough use out of such a thing to make it worthwhile.

Its not a camera your going to carry or use all that often. Its something special you grab when you have a free Sunday afternoon, the weather is nice and you think you'll go out to view some fall color and to this really beautiful overlook you've been to before. It will produce, to say the least, a unique image that should be pretty fun to get back home and view/print.

In a way its akin to a fisheye, or a tilt shift lens. Not something you really use that often, or that you just walk around with, but when you know you want to capture something special, such as perhaps an entire cathedral ceiling, or a baseball stadium in a single frame, the lens, while only producing a handful of images, is something your happy you bought.