Personally I like to use centera area metering on the SD14; the matrix metering just seems to give me underexposures, since I do so much work with skies (outdoors, landscapes) I had my exposure techniques pretty much down pat with the SD14 with firmware 1.05 and 1.06.. but now I need to see if firmware 1.07 changed the metering tendencies in the cam.. haven't had much chance yet. In Norfolk this week I will be able to take lots of photos I hope (husband's in a conference, I'm tagging along for photos in a different locale than home..) Now the weather needs to clear
IF I were doing mostly indoors, weddings in dark churches and fast moving action, be it wedding or sports, sure there are other cameras, undoubtedly easier.. But the weight of what I personally do is landscape, architectural, and I can live with my struggles on the indoors and action.. Try bagpipers in a dim cathedral (last weekend, yikes...) But I can't shoot the SD10 there, the SD14 is marginal and the DP1 was better than both.
"Top shelf camera" is a moving target, remember. That's a really important point.
From what I understand the real problem, (and that was part of what caused the long delay) was that Foveon gave the FW and SPP developement to Sigma for the SD14 and they were way over their heads.
If its better now with F1.07 then I would have really been mad with the original software.
--
not really per my understanding, but what do I know ;-)
well, the SD14 is a new and different camera from the SD10, a lot of electronics are different, in addition to the sensor of course
It's an interesting problem of balance now... the tweaks for DP1 might have done things to the SD14 RAWs... I'm not sure.. I sense differences, but I'm not a techie or software person. Some of Chris R's analysis (spectrographic photos? is that what it's called?) showed me I wasn't imaging things though.. http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1027&message=27567700 note the photos don't show on the top post, but they're in his gallery and posts discuss; other posts relate to that discussion too.
SPP3 was really slow for me; but some SD14 still prefer it, per posts. Firmware 1.02 and 1.04 changed 'color' and metering I think; 1.05 added the ISO50, which is great for its particular applications. Read the notes about ISO50 on the Sigma site. In some ways in super bright light though, I think I get 'richer' files from ISO100. ISO100 is my default, center area metering, sunlight white balance.
Hi Rich, i've been searching for an S5 all morning,the cheapest i've found is $1450 from us1camera.com but that seems like a bait & switch type operation so i'm skeptical... wasn't the original street price $1900 over a year ago? is there anywhere you know of that might be cheaper? the folks over at the Fuji Talk just pointed me to B&H, which is local to me, and not an option because of taxes for a expensive purchase...
wow, that's a big difference and our $ is weak! wonder if there's any UK dealers that ship stateside while carrying a international warranty?
couldn't have said it better... i was unrealistic with what i wanted, i wanted a camera to do it all, well atleast i hoped for it... but now i've learned that it doesnt' exist... and that the SD14 is a very specialized piece of equipment...
--
I've thought about that, and my current plan is to start building a system based on the S5 pro, get 2-3 lenses to cover the ranges Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 ex, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VR, and maybe a Nikon 50 f/1.4... then when i start charging, where i'll need to produce, i'll purchase a 2nd S5 body and a 2nd flash... or if there's a better offering by that time, i'll purchase that and use the S5 as a backup...
Thanks for looking out Rich, I think I might just take the plunge at $1450, tax free, and free shipping... since i've never really seen any UK dealers shipping stateside... probably because there's enough dealers in the US...
Geoff,
