Sigma Quattro
Posted: Thu 04 Sep 2014, 08:58
When announced, there were some eyebrows raised (mine included) at the unusual design of this camera. I have seen claims that the elongated shape makes it eaiser to keep the camera steady when handholding, made necessary to guard against camera shake which the high resolution accentuates. It seems that the real reason is to increase the surface area of the camera better to dissipate the high amount of heat created by the electronics. It does not make for a camera which is easy to carry either in bag or pocket and there are several reports of a sharp edge which makes it uncomfortable to use.
The camera is also slow in operation, but Sigma's biggest problem is that the only Raw conversion software available is its own, a situation which is unlikely ever to change. With the exception of Canon, camera manufacturers do not have a good track record when it comes to producing software, but Sigma is by far the worst in this regard. When it can be installed (there appears to be an ongoing problem with the Mac version of the software), it takes the user experience back to how things were in the earliest days of digital photography. Which is a shame. The image quality, at low ISOs at least, is exceptional and this is helped by the excellent lenses Sigma has developed. If Sigma really is serious about making money from the camera, the supplied software is something it urgently needs to address as it does not make for a convenient post capture workflow. There are a number of options, none of which fully mitigates the problem.
Luminous Landscape has simultaneously published two reviews of the DP2 model and I cannot recall more damning assesments of any camera.
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/revie ... view.shtml
The camera is also slow in operation, but Sigma's biggest problem is that the only Raw conversion software available is its own, a situation which is unlikely ever to change. With the exception of Canon, camera manufacturers do not have a good track record when it comes to producing software, but Sigma is by far the worst in this regard. When it can be installed (there appears to be an ongoing problem with the Mac version of the software), it takes the user experience back to how things were in the earliest days of digital photography. Which is a shame. The image quality, at low ISOs at least, is exceptional and this is helped by the excellent lenses Sigma has developed. If Sigma really is serious about making money from the camera, the supplied software is something it urgently needs to address as it does not make for a convenient post capture workflow. There are a number of options, none of which fully mitigates the problem.
- Shoot JPEG only. Unfortunately this does not make the best of the camera's amazing image quality. Most of the photographers at whom it is aimed shoot Raw.
- Shoot Raw+JPEG. This allows initial shot selection by reviewing the JPEGs, albeit at the cost of increasing storage demands on the memory card and computer. Only those shots which are to be worked on further need go through Sigma's software. Rather than try to make adjustments there, just do a straightforward conversion and output a 16 bit TIFF file to import into the application of choice, which includes other Raw conversion software.
- Shoot Raw only and batch process the files to produce JPEGs, then proceed as in the previous step.
Luminous Landscape has simultaneously published two reviews of the DP2 model and I cannot recall more damning assesments of any camera.
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/revie ... view.shtml