Sigma DP1 anyone?

[randomlinh]

press release@dpreview

so, anyone else excited about this? Not necessarily this camera, but the fact an APS-C sensor is into a compact-ish form. I'm not familiar w/ Sigma's sensor, just that when it was first released, it seemed like it'd kick ass... but nothing ever really materialized vs the hype.

The first issue I have though, is pricing. Where is this going to stand... and it's s fixed 28mm equivalent lens. If I was going fixed, I'd rather have ~35-40. And something faster than f/4, heh.

hrm.. just noticed max ISO of 800... dang not looking all that appealing anymore.

 

[OdiN]

Not a Canon DSLR, not interested

Compacts don't excite me at all really.

It's also a Foveon chip and I dunno about those. The sensor itself is actually only 4.6MPx3 layers. I'm not sure if it's even really APS-C sized..didn't see anything but I just skimmed.

 

[jpeyton]

It shares a sensor with the SD14, which was reviewed by CNET:

In Sigma's newest model, called the SD14, each of the three layers includes 4.7 megapixels. Sigma misleadingly markets the camera as a 14.1-megapixel camera, but while you can expect significantly more resolution than you'd get from a 4.7-megapixel camera, it's nowhere near what you'd get from a 14.1-megapixel CMOS- or CCD-based model.

Under the right circumstances, the Sigma SD14 can create very nice images, but once you move up to higher ISOs, the image quality degrades significantly. At ISO 100 or ISO 200, colors look quite accurate and the camera's white balance is generally neutral. If anything, colors looked slightly oversaturated in our test images, especially reds and oranges. As you increase the ISO, however, not only do you see a increase in noise, but the entire color profile of the camera shifts. Our lab test images took on a serious magenta cast at ISO 1,600, and green patches on our color-checker chart turned nearly neutral gray.

ISO noise, and the noise reduction techniques that go along with it, don't behave the same way in the SD14 as they do with most other cameras. While noise is often more noticeable in the darker parts of the grayscale in most cameras, the Sigma spreads its noise out more evenly amongst the colors. Also, the noise tends to manifest itself as off-color blotches with less defined edges than the speckles that appear in most other SLRs. We began to see noise in our test images at ISO 200, but at that point it is only really noticeable on monitors and is minimal at that. This increased significantly at ISO 400, while decreasing the overall dynamic range, shadow detail, and finer detail. At ISO 800 noise becomes even more pronounced, taking on a tighter, more grain-like patter while further chipping away at shadow detail and finer detail. At this point, we also noticed a pronounced decrease in the saturation of greens, and erratic color shifts in other parts of the color spectrum. At ISO 1,600, noise takes on a heavy coating of grain with separate, larger, very noticeable off-color blotches appearing, and as mentioned above, greens lost almost all saturation. Given this camera's bizarre performance, I suggest you don't use it above ISO 400. This severely limits its usefulness.

Hopefully they worked out the kinks with their sensor and image processing.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: OdiN
Not a Canon DSLR, not interested

Compacts don't excite me at all really.

It's also a Foveon chip and I dunno about those. The sensor itself is actually only 4.6MPx3 layers. I'm not sure if it's even really APS-C sized..didn't see anything but I just skimmed.

it's 1.7x crop, so a bit smaller than canon, but a bit bigger than 4/3. the foveon sensor should, theoretically, give better color than the interpreted bayer filter cameras that everyone else has. the problem with foveon is fine detail.

other than that issue, the slow lens isn't going to help sales. i think the combination of odd sensor and slow lens might just kill this camera, and then other manufacturers are going to say there isn't a market for a compact with an SLR sensor. that is very bad. if sigma has figured out the image processing issues (which is what they've spent the last year doing) it wont' be that bad if you can bump the ISO up. of course, if the sensitivity isn't something that can be fixed in processing, then there will be a very narrow market for this camera.

i'd like to see olympus use the 4/3 sensor to create a pocket sized camera. not only could they create a slightly smaller lens than an APS or DX sensor camera, they'd also take away more market share from canikon than they'd lose themselves

edit: engrish

 

[randomlinh]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
i'd like to see olympus use the 4/3 sensor to create a pocket sized camera. not only could they create a slightly smaller lens than an APS or DX sensor camera, they'd also going to take away market share from canikon more than they lose themselves

that'd be interesting too. Anything as long as it's a larger sensor than the current pro-sumer "compacts". I already have a 20D to fulfill my dSLR requirement, heh.

But I want something more portable. a cheap digital rangefinder would be interesting too... the M8 is insanely expensive, and I believe some other epson is the only other choice. and that's not cheap either.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Whoever is in Sigma's marketing and product design for this camera is totally off his/her rocker.

No zoom lens? Hell, it's not even a "standard" lens.
Dark at f/4?
Have to use dedicated accessories for this one single camera?
Doesn't come with a frickin' lens hood?
No optical viewfinder?
Horrible shooting speed, horrible movie mode. (I suppose shooting speed is hard to do because it has to pump 14MP's worth of data through its circuitry.)
If they don't iron out the color and noise kinks, they stand the chance of having about the same ISO performance and possibly even worse color reproduction at higher ISOs than even ultra compacts.
Probably going to be released at a high price compared to the competition and in terms of the features it offers.

I don't see any kind of value proposition here.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: fuzzybabybunny

No zoom lens? Hell, it's not even a "standard" lens.

very few fixed lens cameras came with a "standard" lens. the yashica t5/t4 super had a fixed 35 mm f/3.5 lens. so this isn't much different. the olympus stylus epic had a 35 mm f/2.8 lens. both are widely regarded as some of the best pocket cameras ever.

of course, the stylus epic was only $80.

(though 35 probably would have been a better length, and maybe easier to design)

i'm also not going to fault them for not including an optical viewfinder. the LCD is more accurate than pretty much any finder. further, the viewfinder would have added cost, size, and complexity to the camera. nor do i fault them for the movie mode. sigma has no experience making one, and i'd rather they put the effort to something a bit more photographically important.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: fuzzybabybunny

No zoom lens? Hell, it's not even a "standard" lens.

very few fixed lens cameras came with a "standard" lens. the yashica t5/t4 super had a fixed 35 mm f/3.5 lens. so this isn't much different. the olympus stylus epic had a 35 mm f/2.8 lens. both are widely regarded as some of the best pocket cameras ever.

of course, the stylus epic was only $80.

(though 35 probably would have been a better length, and maybe easier to design)

i'm also not going to fault them for not including an optical viewfinder. the LCD is more accurate than pretty much any finder. further, the viewfinder would have added cost, size, and complexity to the camera. nor do i fault them for the movie mode. sigma has no experience making one, and i'd rather they put the effort to something a bit more photographically important.

I'm just looking at it from a product marketing standpoint.

Based on what it offers:

The whole entire regular consumer market. Gone.
The "prosumer" market: Largely gone.
The professional market: Largely gone.

It's simply not versatile enough. Fixed focal cameras may have been ok back in the day, but they are certainly not ok in the present marketplace.

The only people I see this appealing to are people with money to throw around and want a new toy to play with or super artistic people who can actually live with only having one focal length and probably subpar high ISO performance.

This is a pretty small market, and I would be surprised if Sigma was able to get any kind of economy of scale from this thing.

What I think they should have done:

Add a zoom lens of some sort at least. Even if it's a standard 3x zoom it'll still be better than no zoom.

Put on a brighter lens at the wide end, but I understand that this may not be possible if they want small size while using a near-APS-C sensor.

Let the thing use standard accessories. Like put on a regular hotshoe that's compatible with standard flashes. Proprietarization on something that is already so lacking in versatility is stupid.

Just include a frickin' $5 lens hood. It's a small price to pay for the added goodwill you'll get from your customers.

I guess they can keep the LCD.

The time and money they spent putting in a half-assed movie mode that adds hardly any competitive edge to an already non-competitive product could have been spent figuring out other kinks in the design. They need to focus on core competencies.

 

[ElFenix]

$999.

:shocked:


blurb review

 

[OdiN]

I don't know anyone who would pay $1000 for that.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
$999.

:shocked:


blurb review

yeah......

 

[punchkin]

The DP1 is exciting merely because it has a large sensor. The implementation isn't the best. If they were going to implement a prime-only compact (of which the DP1 isn't the first by any stretch) they should have offered different lens options. f/4 is pretty slow and 28mm is not my most used focal length, so aside from the price this camera doesn't interest me. The lack of an optical viewfinder isn't a killer on a compact camera.

 

[jpeyton]

I'm usually a big fan of DP, but this one looks like a pass for me. Much more exciting compact digicams being introduced at PMA.

 

[randomlinh]

blah, $1000... not that I should be surprised. I would rather put that towards a K20D, pending how well it handles noise.

 

[jpeyton]

Well, as expected with a sensor this large, the high ISO performance is great for a pocket sized camera.

ISO 400

ISO 800

It only goes up to ISO 800, according to DPReview. Not sure if that is a pre-production limitation or part of Sigma's design.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: fuzzybabybunny

The time and money they spent putting in a half-assed movie mode that adds hardly any competitive edge to an already non-competitive product could have been spent figuring out other kinks in the design. They need to focus on core competencies.

wouldn't be surprised if they're just pulling the stream provided for live view as their movie mode. in that case it costs basically nothing to add it.





samples look pretty good. looks like lots of dynamic range in them.

 

[ElFenix]

$800 pre-order