Giving up on Sigma! :-(

Laurence Matson said:

Mike Chaney said:

Worse, I see they still have not fixed the Adobe RGB bug even in
1.01 as you can set Adobe RGB in the menu and while the menu item
still sticks on Adobe RGB, the camera starts shooting in sRGB the
moment you turn it off and back on. You can verify this by setting
to Adobe RGB, taking a shot, then play the shot back and use the
"i" button for info and you see Adobe RGB. OK so far. Now turn
the camera off and back on and shoot another shot and now the "i"
button shows sRGB on the new shot and so does the image itself when
you download it.

Click to expand...

With all due respect, I still contend that this is not a "bug". I
still think it is a feature. Whether it should be changed or not,
is another matter.

Taking images as jpegs means in the vast majority of instances
(close to 100%) that the results are headed for the web or an
"instant" printing process. In both cases, AdobeRGB will return
very unsatisfactory results.

For those few times when someone really wants to shoot a jpeg in
AdobeRGB, it should be a conscious decision - at least as conscious
as doing something that otherwise does not make sense. Consider
that all other basic processing has been taken out of your hands
and yet you want to shoot in the one mode that will require careful
conversion before publishing on the web or as a quick print. When
shooting RAW, this is a non-issue, since the colorspace is
determined after conversion.

I for one do not look forward to another series of arguments about
crappy color only to discover that someone does not understand
about web colorspace (sRGB) or the colorspace of virtually all
commercial printers (sRGB). AdobeRGB is almost exclusively the
realm of fine art and high-level commercial work e basta.

--
Laurence

My idea of good company is the fellowship of clever, well-informed
people, who have a great deal of conversation and liberality of
ideas.

Jane Austen

http://www.pbase.com/lmatson/root
http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/root
http://www.pbase.com/cameras/sigma/sd10
http://www.pbase.com/cameras/sigma/sd9
http://www.beachbriss.com

Click to expand...

yvind Strm said:

If it is a feature, I would suggest a change to the fixed-list of
the firmware update. It is a bit contradictionary. It says:
"Corrects the phenomenon that did not save the AdobeRGB setting
when changed from sRGB. This was the bug in the menu display. "
The first part suggest that the setting now is saved. It does not
explicitly state that the save only apply as long as the camera is
on. And this is the exact behaviour with the old firmware.
The next frase suggest what you suggest, that the error was that a
menu display bug. (or actually a bug in the info-screen)

I do see good reasons for not saving this setting, but I do not buy
it. As I havn't got the camera yet, I can't tell if it the only
setting that do not stick. Is it, then I would argue that there are
several other settings that also would produce unexpected results
if the user forgot to change it. And why should it reset after
power-off, why not after every shot? You could shoot several
hundred or even thousands shots on adobeRGB before the camera
resetted it.
But, what do I know.
Only that it could been stated in the manual if it was intended to
behave llike this.

Laurence Matson said:

Mike Chaney said:

Worse, I see they still have not fixed the Adobe RGB bug even in
1.01 as you can set Adobe RGB in the menu and while the menu item
still sticks on Adobe RGB, the camera starts shooting in sRGB the
moment you turn it off and back on. You can verify this by setting
to Adobe RGB, taking a shot, then play the shot back and use the
"i" button for info and you see Adobe RGB. OK so far. Now turn
the camera off and back on and shoot another shot and now the "i"
button shows sRGB on the new shot and so does the image itself when
you download it.

Click to expand...

With all due respect, I still contend that this is not a "bug". I
still think it is a feature. Whether it should be changed or not,
is another matter.

Taking images as jpegs means in the vast majority of instances
(close to 100%) that the results are headed for the web or an
"instant" printing process. In both cases, AdobeRGB will return
very unsatisfactory results.

For those few times when someone really wants to shoot a jpeg in
AdobeRGB, it should be a conscious decision - at least as conscious
as doing something that otherwise does not make sense. Consider
that all other basic processing has been taken out of your hands
and yet you want to shoot in the one mode that will require careful
conversion before publishing on the web or as a quick print. When
shooting RAW, this is a non-issue, since the colorspace is
determined after conversion.

I for one do not look forward to another series of arguments about
crappy color only to discover that someone does not understand
about web colorspace (sRGB) or the colorspace of virtually all
commercial printers (sRGB). AdobeRGB is almost exclusively the
realm of fine art and high-level commercial work e basta.

--
Laurence

My idea of good company is the fellowship of clever, well-informed
people, who have a great deal of conversation and liberality of
ideas.

Jane Austen

http://www.pbase.com/lmatson/root
http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/root
http://www.pbase.com/cameras/sigma/sd10
http://www.pbase.com/cameras/sigma/sd9
http://www.beachbriss.com

Click to expand...

--
Kind regards
Øyvind Strøm
http://www.norwegianviking.smugmug.com
http://www.pbase.com/norwegianviking

Click to expand...

Laurence Matson said:

It is sort of like the Rechtvortrittswahn in
Germany that everyone lives with and thinks the greatest thing
since sliced bread even though it does not make the least sense if
they were to think about it. (And watch the Germans report in with
observations of my lack of insight into the subtlties of driving.)

Click to expand...

Vizhonary said:

Excuse me Flying Toaster, but legitimate mistake or not, he has
good reason to be upset. I haven't seen him post ANYTHING about
Sigma offering to cover his shipping, and it's $40 to $60 to send
one of those camera in, with insurance. I know you may be so filthy
rich that $50, $100, or even the several hundred repeated problems
can add up to, but when money is constantly going OUT and your
equipment isn't working to bring the money in, it's a REAL problem.

Click to expand...

photogeek said:

D200 sometimes focuses
"nowhere", whereas Sigma will not take a shot unless it is focused
on something.

Click to expand...

Steven E Clark said:

That's not very positive of you, now is it? He's got a legitimate
gripe, and that's what forums are for. Let's hope it was a genuine
mistake by Sigma Service.

Steve

--
http://www.zacharoo.com

Click to expand...

Scott P said:

Do you actually think Nikon or Canon will give a rat's @ss about
you as a customer? Sigma is the most humble camera manufacturer.
I think you are being hasty.

Just to give you an example. I gave a suggestion to Kendall, who
then relayed the information to Sigma, that actually was actually
implemented in the SD14's firmware upgrade. Try contacting Canon
for offering improvements in their latest camera's firmware... I'm
laughing just thinking about it.

--
http://srpluta.zenfolio.com/

Click to expand...

Scott P said:

Do you actually think Nikon or Canon will give a rat's @ss about
you as a customer? Sigma is the most humble camera manufacturer.
I think you are being hasty.

Just to give you an example. I gave a suggestion to Kendall, who
then relayed the information to Sigma, that actually was actually
implemented in the SD14's firmware upgrade. Try contacting Canon
for offering improvements in their latest camera's firmware... I'm
laughing just thinking about it.

--
http://srpluta.zenfolio.com/

Click to expand...

Cecil Greek said:

If what you say is true, then why would not every professional
photographer have every one of their lenses sent in and calibrated
in this way for optimal focusing?

Are most Sigma camera/lens matches actually fine and this guy has
one of the "lemon" cameras or several "lemon" lenses?

Click to expand...

SandyF said:

Mike, wouldn't it be logical that there are tolerance ranges? In
general I'd image almost anything could be 'tweaked' for best
performance.

Just think of all the 'tuning it' posts we're read about the larger
tele- lenses too.... And that certain manufacturers could be making
life/performance/sales more difficult for 3rd party lens
manufacturers? This is one reason I feel Sigma needs its own SA
mount on its camera (the eternal why doesn't Sigma make cameras for
xyz mount).
Best regards, Sandy
[email protected]
http://www.pbase.com/sandyfleischman
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sandyfleischmann

Click to expand...

Cecil Greek said:

Laurence,

If what you say is true, then why would not every professional
photographer have every one of their lenses sent in and calibrated
in this way for optimal focusing?

Are most Sigma camera/lens matches actually fine and this guy has
one of the "lemon" cameras or several "lemon" lenses?
--
Cecil Greek
A Sigma SD14 user.
http://www.pbase.com/cgreek

Click to expand...

Mike Gerstner said:

Laurence.......so basically what you're saying is that if a
photographer has 2 bodies and one does not focus properly, and he
sends it along with the lenses in to have the system adjusted, they
will adjust the lenses to that body. Now the lenses don't focus
properly on the other body. Is there no way to adjust the body to a
known standard, rather than adjust the lenses to a body that might
be out of whack.

Click to expand...

J. Michael said:

Like Mike stated, send in a body and lenses to be adjusted, they
tune the lenses to the body, the body dies or you buy the
another/newer body and the lenses don't focus properly, you have to
send everything back to get it all adjusted again. Sounds like it
could be a downward spiral into total frustration.

Click to expand...

Mike Chaney said:

When you set color space to Adobe RGB and the menu indicates Adobe
RGB even after a shutdown yet images are getting tagged as sRGB
with the menu still indicating Adobe RGB, it's a bug and a rather
obvious one at that. I sent a very detailed description to Sigma
about this bug just days after the camera was released outlining
both the problem with the menu item not sticking and the fact
that images also got tagged with sRGB. I even went through all
possible workflows for setting Adobe RGB color space and outlined
the expected results versus what was actually happening. I called
Sigma and made sure the right people were on CC for this email.
Had they bothered to read my email it would have been obvious to
them that the bug was much more than just a menu/display issue.
That's part of what is so frustrating about my experience with the
SD14 in that they could easily have fixed this properly had they
paid attention to their customers who are trying to help them.

I could have overlooked the fact that they didn't pay attention to
my bug report and that's the reason 1.01 didn't get fixed. It's
not a big deal to me as I shoot mostly raw but I'd like it to
work. Add to that though, the latest little mishap by Sigma on my
10 days without the SD14 and lack of any real service, and I start
to get frustrated. Yes, Sigma called and said that they made a
mistake and that I was supposed to get a new camera, but that
happened right after I posted here that I was supposed to get a new
camera yet got the same one back with the same problem. Did they
really intend to send me another camera, or did they intend to just
dump the firmware on it, cross their fingers, and hope for the
best? Hard to say. I won't judge them on that as I can do nothing
more than speculate but I have to question why they would even
update the old camera to FW 1.01 if they intended all along to send
me a new camera. Seems a little more like after-the-fact damage
control. Anyway, I send it back again for the second time today
and will hope for a new camera. And yes, they are paying for the
shipping this time but I can't recover the initial $40 to send it
to them the first time. Water under the bridge on that one. With
any luck, I'll get a good one like most of you have and I can go
back to shooting with this camera.

Given the number of bugs in FW 1.00, I still believe this camera
wasn't ready for prime time. Maybe it is now (save for the
continuing Adobe RGB bug) and if they make good on my camera I'll
gain some confidence back. Regardless of what happens from this
point forward though, I've been an early adopter of many different
dSLR cameras and this has been the roughest road yet. I think that
if I can get this lemon out of my hands and get a good SD14 though,
it'll be worth it in the long run so I don't want anyone to base
their buy/no-buy decisions on just one guy. Most people don't have
the problems I've been having with the SD14 and I do tend to be a
bit unlucky when it comes to getting defective units on the first
go-round. :-/

--
Mike
Author: Qimage, Profile Prism
http://www.ddisoftware.com

Click to expand...