dcmiller wrote:
Are you guys printing these to evaluate? Foveon will look better at 100% on screen - it has higher quality per pixel. But per pixel quality isn't the determinant of print quality.
Are you saying *you've* printed foveon and think it's not better in print?
I evaluated the SD10 in print. The way the competition is going, I won't be evaluating the sd14. Or kodachrome. Or other different looking media with numerous and significant disadvantages. for what I shoot.
There are some very interesting niche areas where foveon may be significantly superior - especially images intended for large flat panel presentation.
dcmiller wrote:
I evaluated the SD10 in print. The way the competition is going, I won't be evaluating the sd14. Or kodachrome. Or other different looking media with numerous and significant disadvantages. for what I shoot.
There are some very interesting niche areas where foveon may be significantly superior - especially images intended for large flat panel presentation.
Did *you* process and print the SD10 shots? There is a fair amount of learning curve to print well...just like working with any other system.
Grant808 wrote:
Did *you* process and print the SD10 shots? There is a fair amount of learning curve to print well...just like working with any other system.
No, I called 1-800 foveonexpert and they immediately dispatched one of their emergency photoediting service vehicles. Or maybe I dreamed that. It was strange no one was wearing pants.
Edited by dcmiller on Feb 18, 2007 at 09:07 PM GMT
Though I'm sure Pondria is right and we should wait for Larry, I do have a poser:
How can you tell there is a difference due to the foveon sensor? Maybe it's just a little saturation boost in the firmware or a case of seeing what you want to see.
Any display device is showing distinct dots of RGB (for monitors) or CMYK+others (for printers) and then allowing your eye to blend them --- distinctly bayer-like. The only continuous tone output devices I can think of are dye-sub printers and I doubt you would see any difference between the foveon and output from something like a digital rebel or D70/80 (whatever they are up to). With only CMY to work with the dye subs aren't a good match for a colour test.
Personally I think the samples are nice, aside from the dust, for ISO 100. The samples from the previous camera, at least to my eye, were mostly overly saturated, many garish, and had a point and shoot look: from a heavy hand on the sat-slider in post processing I'm sure. This set looks much more realistic and thus much more like most other decent dSLRs.
Doug,
I think there are two way to view photos in Digital - 1:1 Pixel display on the LCD monitor and the Print from the 6 feet viewing distance.
LCD monitor presents 0.2-0.3 mm dots from as close as 4 inch viewing distance. The prints represent 0.08 mm or smaller dots from 6 feet distance.
The dot size to viewing distance ratio is about 2 orders of magnitude difference between them.
There are two distinctive battle grounds. SD10/14 or Leica Digital RF clearly wins the 1:1 battle on the LCD. That creates the cults.
I'm not sure the run of the mill LCD monitors are up to any colour comparisons and haven't bought one yet, and when my previous monitor bit the dust I bought one of the last of the LaCie 22 CRT's. I don't think 6 feet is a valid viewing distance for a print: I'm always wiping nose prints off mine. Finally I downloaded all the M8 samples and though sharper due to the limited filtering compared to a Canon I don't see the big advantage, especially at only 8 bits. But I digress and those points have been argued to death, revived, argued some more, revived......
But my point is that there is no way to see the actual un-demosiac'd pixels from the foveon and though demosiac is not required there would be tonal curves applied to make up for differing sensitivity to various colours at various layers in the chip. I think this set of samples is better than the previous camera but it might also be merely better processing either in camera or post, or both. I can say that the dust shield appears to be a loser.
SD 14 goes on sale on March 6th according to DC Watch. Hopefully Sigma will provide (as it did in the past) the SPP 3.0 software and RAW samples for download to all interested to play with.
Harvey Moore wrote:
The SD14 will add another choice for the compleat photographers arsenal.
I think it will be a good addition to the choices we have and add a viable competitor to the mix.
Sigma would love to think so. The odds are stacked pretty high against it. I would be quite surprised if it captures more than 1% of the market on a sustained basis. I don't even think that Olympus sees Sigma as a threat.
