Sigma DP2 Merrill Experiences

[NigelC]

I had my first chance to shoot on Saturday.  I am still getting the hang of this camera, and one thing that I miss is the ability to steady your camera on your face using the viewfinder. I have been an SLR-only photographer since age 13, and never realized how much help that third contact point on the face gives to stabilization. DP2M is pretty unforgiving of even minimal movement. Now I am looking into some handy way to hook up the Hoodman to the camera, involving some combination of plastic from milk bottles, velcro strips, and/or elastic to create a harness for the Hoodman. If I like what I make, I may post instructions and snapshot. Re: tripod use: As for the A-S plate, I have a small "universal" plate which works - for portrait orientation, it will be necessary to flip the ball stem into the "90 degree" slot of the head.

SPP - ow! I am more convinced than ever that Lightroom is a brilliant program. SPP falls into the category of "oh well, I guess that it will do..."

I have found the strap included in the box is quite useful - I have adjusted the length so that I can push the camera away from me with the strap around my neck which at least makes it steadier in one plane. Of course the rear LCD is a PITA for those of us who need reading glasses - something the smartphone/ipad generation just don't get.

[NigelC]

Of course if you also use a monopod it sort of steadies it in 2 planes, but of course it may be just as easy then to use a tripod!

[Quentin]

Hi Villebon,

Software...never works as well as we as photographers do  

I like PTGui, but if another program works better for you, then it makes a lot of sense to use it.  

I've been struggling this evening installing an Iomega cloud NAS disk.  Piece of cake, right?  Er...no.  I had to confront port forwarding in my home router.  Why?  Who knows.

And to think Windows 95 was supposed to herald an era of plug and play  

Quentin

[Rand47]

Three hand-held frame stitch in CS 6.

Ah the beauty of nature!



Close in, ah drat - trash, graffiti on rock, debris...



Printed 50" wide it looks "at least" as good as pans from my a900 & Zeiss glass.  Maybe even .... (I can't bring myself to say it!)

Rand

[Rand47]

Old tractor, single frame. 







Many thanks to Quentin, Hulyss & others for the inspiration, information and huge dent in my pocketbook.  :-)

[larkis]

Has anyone figured out how to get rid of the splotches of colour that often appear in shadows ? Even at 200iso night shots seem to have random splotches of colour in the shadows. It's not very predictable so i'm not sure if it has to do with the light spectrum hitting the sensor or not.

Also, is it just me or does this sensor have streaks instead of noise when you finally do see it ? Seems like the initial preview of the image when loading inside the sigma software shows grain (for higher iso images) but then the grain gets blurred in a very unnatural way. Taking noise reduction down all the day does not seem to fix much, dark images still have the look of a dust and scratches filter in the shadows.

Image below is 200iso.



Another example, this is a file as it's loading:



And this is once the file loads:



It seems like the raw data looks uglier in the shadows than does the preview. What generates the preview and it's more natural noise vs the odd stuff that the raw file displays ?

[Hulyss]

For Michael Reichmann and other MAC users:

I work with X3F since ages and always used ProPhoto RGB as a working base on my calibrated PC+NEC chain.

Since the SD1m, many photographers start to look at the foveon technology and some are disappointed with the work-flow of Sigma Photo Pro and, often, a problem with colorspaces.

I never experienced such problems with SPP and that because I work on PC platform (I'm very allergic to MAC). At fist there is some basic settings to do in SPP in order to work in the desired colorspace. Just go in file >> preferences >> and, if like me you work in ProPhoto RGB, choose this colorspace like in the picture below:



As you can see, there is absolutely no colorshift between SPP ProPhoto working space and my lightroom ProPhoto working space (Same for PS6).



The problem seems to be only on MAC (colorshift) , so just pray that SIGMA will improve the MAC SPP. Mabe SIGMA do not like MAC

I just say that because apart the slowness, SPP work exactly as I want in a PRO working and calibrated chain

[Hulyss]

And some B&W out of the M ISO 320 / f3.5

[Pete_G]

Thanks to all here for the incisive reports of the DP2M. I have one now, after waiting months for stock to appear. So far it's blown my Hasselblad 203FE/CFV out of the water.
More testing to do. As others have said it has it's quirks, the worst of which must be battery life, but I think it's a great camera, and just what I've been looking for.

[larkis]

The preview is the embedded JPEG in the X3F - you can easily extract / save it via the File menu -> 'convert to JPEG'. The JPEG settings are your camera's picture settings like contrast, sharpness etc.

My question is more about why the jpg that is generated in the camera has noise at high iso vs mush when converted from the raw ? I would assume the raw contains some more "typical" looking noise in it rather than what I'm observing and the sigma software interpretation is different than what the software running in the camera does.

[Hulyss]

Speaking about noise, here is what I got with the M @ 1600 ISO











It suck a bit in color but in B&W ... this is simply stunning !!

[kuau]

Hulyss
What version of SPP are you running?
When I was testing the DP2M, I was running SPP 5.32 on my Windows 7 machine, and when I output to ProPhoto the images did not match from SPP to PS6, I had to downgrade to SPP 5.31 for it to work for me and get a match.

Steven

For Michael Reichmann and other MAC users:

I work with X3F since ages and always used ProPhoto RGB as a working base on my calibrated PC+NEC chain.

Since the SD1m, many photographers start to look at the foveon technology and some are disappointed with the work-flow of Sigma Photo Pro and, often, a problem with colorspaces.

I never experienced such problems with SPP and that because I work on PC platform (I'm very allergic to MAC). At fist there is some basic settings to do in SPP in order to work in the desired colorspace. Just go in file >> preferences >> and, if like me you work in ProPhoto RGB, choose this colorspace like in the picture below:



As you can see, there is absolutely no colorshift between SPP ProPhoto working space and my lightroom ProPhoto working space (Same for PS6).



The problem seems to be only on MAC (colorshift) , so just pray that SIGMA will improve the MAC SPP. Mabe SIGMA do not like MAC

I just say that because apart the slowness, SPP work exactly as I want in a PRO working and calibrated chain

[kuau]

Nick,
Curious, I read your review on the Fuji XE-1, 35/1.4. How does the IQ at base ISO shot on a tripod, self timer compare to the DP2M?
Thanks
Steven

Nancy: you're right about sensitivity to movement. With the best sensors, figure about 4-5x focal length for the minimum hand-holdable speed to kee full rez. Worse of course if there's a mirror or focal plane shutter involved.

I joked the other day that the DP Merrills are basically minature tech-cameras: tripod based (for both composition and stability, base-ISO, shot with self timer.  For optimum results, that's not too far from the truth. Used that way, the camera is potentially a fine-art tool.  Used casually, it's just a really bad point and shoot.

Anfat: you should adjust highlight, shadows, white balance and sharpness in SPP.  Sharpening is an interesting question. Michael has found (ro heard) that "0" in sharpening is actually not "nill".  You have to do in a negative amount to get a truly unsharpened file.  Personally, I find 0 to -4 are about right. That still might add some capture sharpening, but I don't object to that. I just sharpen less in LR4 -- which you would do anyway since these files are so sharp to begin with.

[Hulyss]

Hello kuau,

I always run the latest versions of software and never experienced any problems

And I do not think I'm that lucky.

If you want to lol hard, have a look at this :

http://www.pbase.com/powerdoc/image/143367554/large

This was done with an X"PRO" 1 + a Distagon T* 21mm f/2.8 = 3100 Euros of material.

Have fun 

[kuau]

Hulyss,
On your Windows 7 64bit system, are you running a custom monitor profile?
I did the test again and came up with the same results, image does not match from SPP 5.3.2 to LR4 or CS6 when I output to 16 bit tiff ProPhoto , though when I run 5.3.1 perfect match.

Steven

Hello kuau,

I always run the latest versions of software and never experienced any problems

And I do not think I'm that lucky.

If you want to lol hard, have a look at this :

http://www.pbase.com/powerdoc/image/143367554/large

This was done with an X"PRO" 1 + a Distagon T* 21mm f/2.8 = 3100 Euros of material.

Have fun 

[Hulyss]

Hulyss,
On your Windows 7 64bit system, are you running a custom monitor profile?
I did the test again and came up with the same results, image does not match from SPP 5.3.2 to LR4 or CS6 when I output to 16 bit tiff ProPhoto , though when I run 5.3.1 perfect match.

Steven

Hello kuau,

Yes for all of that. I use wide gamut profile, Win7 64. But I'm probably a lucky dude after all 

[photodan]

Hello kuau,

I always run the latest versions of software and never experienced any problems
And I do not think I'm that lucky.
...

I have (or had, as I don't have the DP2M anymore) the color management problem with SPP 5.3.2 and am running Win7 on a PC. Others have reported the same thing, with both Win and Mac platforms. 

So,  let's see.... since Hulyss is apparently running the latest version of the software, and may not be particularly lucky, then why is he not seeing the problem?  Ah, I think I have the solution to this mini mystery. Mon Dieu!, ... it must be that the French version of SPP 5.3.2 is different than the English language version, if there are two different versions.  Or if there is one version, then a parameter in the software that affects the display language messes up the color management, or ....

Therefore one might be tempted to conclude that besides being a more beautiful sounding language than English, French also yields benefits in software (at least when written by a Japanese photography company :-)

Ok,  I'm having just a little fun with the whole thing here.  However, even though it's a moot point for me personally I do hope that the bug will be fixed in the next version.  Having been a professional programmer in the business world previously to rising to my current level of incompetence in management, I know how frustrating it is as both a user and as one responsible for software - including the sometimes mysterious software bugs that make our lives at times more .. interesting.. than they need to be :-)

Dan

[Rand47]

Just FYI.  I'm in US.  On PC platform. Win 7.  Outputting from SPP 5.3.2 as 16 bit tiff ProPhoto RGB.  No color shift when brought into LR 4.2 or CS6 on my profiled NEC PA271W. 

Rand

[Rhossydd]

Of course the rear LCD is a PITA for those of us who need reading glasses - something the smartphone/ipad generation just don't get.

They will when they all start needing reading glasses in a few years.

[Hulyss]

  photodan   I don't think so I'm also on NEC screen.

Some news for you guys :

# SIGMA PHOTO PRO version 5.4 >> http://www.sigma-sd.com/download/photopro.html

# SIGMA SD1 Normal: Version 1.09 >> http://www.sigma-sd.com/download/sd1-firmware.html

# SIGMA SD1 Merrill : Version 1.04 >> http://www.sigma-sd.com/download/sd1m-firmware.html

# SIGMA DP1 Merrill : Version 1.01 >> http://www.sigma-dp.com/download/dp1m-firmware.html

# SIGMA DP2 Merrill : Version 1.02 >> http://www.sigma-dp.com/download/dp2m-firmware.html

Many of your problems should be fixed with those updates + some fun additions

For the ones who remember the first foveon DSLR , the SD9 and not the first foveon camera, the polaroïd x530 (which I still have), you will like the new color mode who will rock in landscape photo

Some examples :

In standard mode:



And in the SD9 mode:



Also there is a new gallery on SIGMA website, made by the photographer Kimio Yajima with DP2 Merrill

http://www.sigma-photo.co.jp/dp-photo-gallery/kyajima/index.html