Sigma DP2 Merrill Experiences

[wildstork]

Yes, I know it sounds troll-ish, but I am genuinely puzzled by colors, at least as displayed in this thread. At some point in this 30+ pages long thread I actually asked for someone to post skin shots that do not look sick-ishly, puke-ishly, yellow-greenish. The same goes for skies and general tonality. I know, I know, sounds like trolling again, but that is how I see it. For instance, check the page 37, post #725.

Hi Slobodan,
I think your question is valid.  I may be mistaken, but I think you're less than impressed by what the "Neutral" Color Mode produces on the Merrill.  If you're inclined towards a  Velvia-like palette you'd probably much prefer the "Landscape" setting. 
The Neutral setting is preferable to most as it represents the most accurate rendering of color... at least to my way of seeing.  And if truth be told... I much prefer the color I get from My Leica DMR and APO glass to the Sigma... but the Merrill's rendering of fine (as well as distant) detail trounces my Leica.  The color can be adjusted to taste.  I personally would rather have an incredibly detailed image with color that's slightly "off" than perfect color and an image with significantly less detail.  The former can be corrected.  The latter cannot.   
Being a DP2M owner and shooting with it almost daily I can say that the Neutral setting will not give you the Reality on Steroids look that so many cameras produce these days.  And regarding the yellowish beach image in post #725... I can honestly say that this evening the beaches along the Sonoma Coast had exactly those colors.  You can always remove disagreeable color bias in Photoshop... but I'd rather make that choice myself than have the camera do it.
Respectfully,
Lawrence     

[EricWHiss]

The DMR had fantastic color in daylight. That whole generation of Kodak CCD's did - IMHO. But it could do weird things in mixed color or fluorescent.

[wildstork]

I have no experience in those areas Eric... so I guess I'm lucky.  The Merrill is just different in the way it renders color.  There are times when it produces a file that is absolutely sublime.  That's rare enough with any camera but not uncommon with the Merrill.  It's that singular aspect that makes the DP2M my "go to" camera more often than not.  I never thought I'd say that, but having such a small camera that produces such amazing images is liberating... compared to carrying a big SLR with a bag full of lenses. 

[TMARK]

The DMR had fantastic color in daylight. That whole generation of Kodak CCD's did - IMHO. But it could do weird things in mixed color or fluorescent.

The M8 as well.  Loved diffused daylight.

[Jim Funston]

+1 windstork!

Being retired and not in the best of shape this camera and a very light tripod with a bag of filters make life afield much easier for my scenics. I don't draw the attention I did with bigger gear. Quite honestly its IQ is as good or better than any camera I have owned (I have owned a bunch from 4x5's through digitals). Due to its size it is not physically demanding to carry and use which is allowing me to venture further and deeper into areas that I would of avoided with larger heavier gear. For me it is a win-win-win tool even though I consider it a one or two trick pony. What it does it does excellently and its strengths is why I bought it.

Worrying about OOC colors and hues with the number of today's PP softwares having individual color and hue adjustments is in my opinion a non issue ( honestly I really like the OOC colors in "neutral" or "standard" modes and I don't do much in that area in PP.... But that is a individual like or dislike). I don't do portrait's and in fact avoid having people in my scenics so skin tone (good or bad) is something I will never see coming out of my Merrill. On the other hand one cannot create detail in image if it was not captured and the Merrill's do capture amazing detail. I have owned camera/Len combination where getting the detail was its biggest challenge and those soon left my kit bags, I see myself buying MORE Merrill's in the near future as they perfectly meet my needs and wants in a portable scenic image capture devise. I enjoy it for what it is and its ability to fly under the radar and not be noticed while out in areas where this is essential like night cityscapes.

[juan_amores]

Two motorbikes:


_SDI0514 por John Loves, en Flickr


_SDI0511 por John Loves, en Flickr

[Jim Funston]

Nice juan........  ride still in my 60's and appreciate a good bike....

[NigelC]

Any sign of SPP 5.5 yet?

[juan_amores]

Any sign of SPP 5.5 yet?

+1

[Jim Funston]

Think the 22nd is the expected launch from what I have seen on the web. I know a customer service rep was really impressed with the B&W changes to the software

[Farsh]

100% crop

(badly framed original for comparison)

[wildstork]

SPP 5.5 is out, but beware if you're on a Mac.  I installed it and it freezes.  I trashed it and re-installed it and is still freezes.  I then re-installed 5.4 and everything works fine. 
There's a bug in 5.5 that needs to be addressed so be advised.  I'm using Snow Leopard (10.6. so those of you running a more current OS may/may not experience the freezes.

[mezzoduomo]

  I'm using Snow Leopard (10.6. so those of you running a more current OS may/may not experience the freezes.

Seems to work fine for me on 10.8.2. 

[Pete_G]

It seems stable on both my Windows 7 systems, but I don't think the B+W renders are correct. When a tiff is saved then opened up in PS, LR or even the tiff in SPP the B+W rendition looks horrible and plasticky, whereas the X3F  looked rather decent in SPP. This only seems to happen with the B+W renders, the colour tiffs seem OK, as they were in 5.4.1. Be AWARE, there is a pop-up warning saying converting a file to B+W will make it incompatible with earlier versions of SPP.

It's interesting to see just where the high ISO noise is in the X3F's, mainly in the red channel, if this is reduced while in B+W mode, the noise reduces considerably.

It looks like SPP 5.5 is adding Luminance Noise reduction to the rendered tif, at the middle setting, even though it is set at the lowest setting in the Adjustment Panel. That's what makes it look plasticky.

EDIT: it appears that this added Luminance NR is not happening now. I think that when SPP was first installed, although the NR sliders in the Monochrome Panel were set all the way to the left, SPP was still adding NR. When I moved the sliders to the centre then back to the left this reset SPP and it no longer adds the NR when making tifs. Great. BTW this "buglet" happened on both my systems.

[pflower]

SPP 5.5 is out, but beware if you're on a Mac.  I installed it and it freezes.  I trashed it and re-installed it and is still freezes.  I then re-installed 5.4 and everything works fine. 
There's a bug in 5.5 that needs to be addressed so be advised.  I'm using Snow Leopard (10.6. so those of you running a more current OS may/may not experience the freezes.

I think you will find that you have to uninstall 5.4 before installing 5.5.  Actually I just copied the folder with 5.5 and replaced the existing folder with 5.4 in it and it seems to work fine on a Mac running 10.6.8

[wildstork]

I removed the SPP 5.4 app from my Applications folder and dragged it to the trash.  I didn't empty the trash.  Could this be the problem?  How does one uninstall an app?  I normally just delete it and/or drag it to the trash. 

[wildstork]

SPP 5.5 was reinstalled after deleting 5.4 and emptying the trash.  I then rebooted and SPP 5.5 appears to be working fine.  No spinning color wheel this time.
Lawrence

[NancyP]

I too run a Mac with OS 10.6.8 . Somewhere in the instructions to 5.5.0 for Mac is the information that SPP 5.4.1 must be uninstalled before installing 5.5.0.

[aduke]

The Windows installation instructions also call for the removal of 5.4.

Alan

[palpman]

Finally! I have received my DP2M  

First things first, trying it by shooting a cat