Compared to the Canon EOS-D60 contd.

Studio flash scene comparison (part two)

Note that the EOS-D60 shot was taken at F14 to match the brightness of the SD9 image, the lens was tested at a range of apertures and found to be no softer at F14 than at F13.

Camera settings:

• Sigma SD9: manual exposure, High resolution, Manual WB, Sigma 50 mm F2.8 EX macro lens
• Canon EOS-D60: manual exposure, default params, Manual WB, RAW, Sigma 50 mm F2.8 EX macro lens

Raw converter settings:

• Sigma Photo Pro: default processing, output 8-bit TIFF (sRGB)
• Canon File Viewer Utility: default settings, output 8-bit TIFF (sRGB)

Comparison with an enlarged SD9 image

Again, I used the same procedure as earlier, outputting the SD9 image from Photo Pro using the 'double size' option (4536 x 3024 output image, click here to download - 3,972 KB). This enlarged image was then loaded in Photoshop and reduced in size to match the EOS-D60 image size (3072 x 2048). Crops below were then taken from the original EOS-D60 TIFF (as above) and this newly created SD9 enlargement. Crops were then magnified 200% (nearest neighbour interpolation).

Sigma SD9, 3072 x 2048	Canon EOS-D60, 3072 x 2048
ISO 100, F13, 1/180 sec	ISO 100, F14, 1/160 sec
N/A	2,248 KB

Once again the SD9 shows that its images enlarge very well and are a match for the EOS-D60, at this stage I think it would be fair to say that the SD9 has the capability to resolve at least as much resolution as the six megapixel EOS-D60, this is not something I thought I would be writing in this review. Taking a balanced view it's clear that the fine details of the EOS-D60 image (small text) do appear to be cleaner than the SD9 image which in places does exhibit some coloration. The EOS-D60's color response is definitely better, although its reds are a little stronger than I would like.