Would you buy the SD9?

This is good of place as any to ask some questions.

I currently use an Oly E10. It is limited to ISO 320. Noise is an admitted problem for the system, especially in shadow or sky.

I know the SD9 has better noise characteristics. It is limited to ISO 400.

Now my question. Why spend $1700-$1800 USD for a system that is limited in the ISO. Now for a studio setup, this is not an issue. For my style of shooting though, I need higher. At least ISO 800 with good noise handling.

This is a serious question for me. The SD9 is more affordable which means I would consider it IF ISO is not an issue.

Heck, if I could find a new D30 from a reputable dealer for not a lot of cash would go for it. More pixels are okay, I am looking for more flexibility and less noise.

Thank you kindly,

.Ray (UK) said:

I was somewhat excited few months ago when the X3 chip and SD9 was
annouced, especially after seeing the initial sample pictures, how
noise free they were. Anyway, now I know bit more about the camera
and having seen some pre-production shots, I'm not so excited. Why?

The main drawback as pointed out by many posters in the last few
months is the Sigma lens system, or more precisely, being locked to
the Sigma mount lenses.

What do you think, just for argument sake, you liked the pictures,
you like the price, but considering the costs of lenses, would you
be willing to be locked into to the Sigma mount? Is it worth
saving a few hundred now but limit you choice of cameras and lenses
in the future? Of course, you can sell the camera and Sigma mount
lenses in the future, but that'll cost you even more on
depreciation than you would save now.

.Ray

Click to expand...

--
TonyK

Caterpillar said:

And yet. No takers! Or are there? -- silently doing R&D with the chip?

--

Click to expand...

About 2 months ago there was a posting that Foveon was going to announce
other products in development using their chip. Haven't seen anything from
Photokina, but they may not want to steal Sigma's thunder -- doesn't benefit
either of them. I think we will hear more in the next couple of months.

caterpillar said:

What will prevent the Kodak's or Canon's from easily adopting
foveon is their existing R&D thrust in their technologies, not to
mention that it will throw a big wrench in their big picture
plans/roadmap.

Click to expand...

Phil mentioned that Kodak was interested in the X3 technology and
I think there was another posting that said Kodak had signed an
agreement to work with Foveon on a color-management software for use
with the new chips.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0202/02021101foveonx3.asp

I see Kodak as a player sooner rather than later.

Darrell

I would definatly...

If you look at the picture of the artwork, taken at ISO 400, Phil mentioned he had pushed the RAW file one stop so the image you are seeing shows the characteristics of a picture taken at ISO 800, more or less.

You simply underexpose ISO 400 by a stop, then push up in the RAW convertor.

I believe he mentioned you could successfully push by 1 1/2 - 2 stops, which would give you a final ISO equivalence of 1200 - 1600. Admittedly the pictures would be fairly noisy, probably noisier than the D60 at ISO 1000.

--
my favorite work: http://www.pbase.com/sdaconsulting/favorite_work

Darrell Spreen said:

Phil mentioned that Kodak was interested in the X3 technology and
I think there was another posting that said Kodak had signed an
agreement to work with Foveon on a color-management software for use
with the new chips.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0202/02021101foveonx3.asp

I see Kodak as a player sooner rather than later.

Darrell

Click to expand...

Aha! So, there is some R&D going on. These guys are testing the thing after all. I wonder which segment Kodak will hit with the chip. They way they are marketing, it will be the consumer/entry level. Or maybe they should re-vitalize their mid-level which stopped with the dc-4800 with a foveon prosumer.

These will be very interesting times indeed.

Thanks for the info, Darell.

--

• Caterpillar

For me the higher ISO speeds are most useful for low light shots that include motion. I often need to boost the ISO to get a fast enough shutter speed to avoid blur.

A Alsoft said:

Excuse my ignorance but what sort of situations do you require
ISO800 or higher? For me personally I can't stand the grain/noise
and I stick to ISO100 almost all the time except in extreme
situations, but for low light I just let more light in. So I'm a
little puzzled as to the importance to some people on high ISO, is
it just personal preference?

Click to expand...

--
John

Nope. I don't like the lens multiplier factor (nt)

caterpillar said:

And yet. No takers! Or are there? -- silently doing R&D with the chip?

Click to expand...

And that is the real underlying question that no one knows the answers to. We all know Adobe and MS do not support small vendors that they dont see as becoming the next standard. So why would both of these SW giants support the Foveon RAW format?

There must be some other things happening for Billy wanting to support that in his OS.

What would be interesting to watch is NSC does crank out the low end X3 chips at a super low prices, and the low end 1mp/2mp P&Ss starts to use them and comes images more real life looking that outperforms existing 4mp and 5mp prosumers.

--
jc
Sony F707
http://www.reefkeepers.org/gallery/f707
http://www.reeftec.com/gallery

I have been in situations were I have used ISo1000 slide film, and ISO3200 B&W film. If you do not have enough light what are you supposed to do? Not take any pictures?

I have a D7 and stick to ISO100 due to the high noise (unacceptable to me) in all faster speed settings.

BTW, from what I have seen i would love to buy this camera. But it depends on Phils review. Also, I expect to see a Sigma foveon camera (next year?) with full 35mm size. I will buy a second body at that time.

People need to change the thinking. These are computers. I have always lost about $1500 per year on depreciation on my computers. You should expect to lose the same in digital cameras -- if you want to keep even close to the cutting edge. The dollar amount may be different, but it will exist. Do people really think that this is not happening to the Canon or Nikon cameras???

A Alsoft said:

Lars said:

• The SD9 only provides 6-8MB raw files. While I shoot Raw most of

the time, it's nice to have the JPEG option for snapshots or in
situations where storage becomes an issue.

• Sigma has removed the ISO800 setting (probably due to noise

issues). That is too much a restriction in comparison with the
competition.

Click to expand...

--
Sony DSC-F707 Amateur Photographer

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Ken Phillips said:

Steve,
Due to technical limitations you will never get a little camera to
act like a D60 ... you might get the six megapixels, but you won't
get six million reasonably LARGE pixels. Some ... including myself
... believe that the pixel size on the D60 is about the smallest
that will reasonably do the job, with minimal noise, maximum
resolution.

Click to expand...

Ken, dangerous grounds....

"Always and Never" are words that will often come back to bite you in the butt. ("Cars will never replace computers", "Calculators will never replace slide rules.")

Let me give you a little scenario. Sensor noise varies inversely with sensor temperature. The hotter the sensor, the more noise. Astronomers use cooling devices on their sensors to minimize noise.

Heat is generated when electricity is passed through resistive/partially conductive materials. The farther electricity has to pass through a resistive medium the more heat is produced.

As chips get smaller they require less power (in general). Electricity has to travel shorter distances.

Smaller sensors could very well mean less heat/less noise.

Ken Phillips said:

Even with a Foveon chip, you will need large apertures (by the way,
f/ratios are NOT apertures!) to get a shallow depth of field, which
means big glass.

Click to expand...

There could well be a digital work around for this one. Don't rule out some clever programming. Or some way of designing in an element in the lens that would limit the DOF.

At worst, a special "shallow focus" lens for portrait work.

And, actually, I can select a shallow DOF with my mid-range digital by going into "Macro" mode. I don't know what the camera is doing, but the stuff further away from my point of focus gets softer.

Realistically, most people will get used to not having a shallow DOF and will not miss it.

--
bob
http://www.pbase.com/bobtrips
pictures from Thailand, Myanmar(Burma), and Nepal

Dave,

I realized the Tamron mistake shortly after I wrote it... was a true DUH HUH attack. No Simga mounts that I am yet aware of though if the SD9 does well enough who knows.

On WA best you can hope for in affordable fashion would be the Sigma 15mm but that leaves you around 25mm or so. If WA is truly something you need a lot for now I'd stay with film and scan. The full frame sensors just now hit the streets and Kodak made a surprising move with their new 14 MP camera ( seems basically like a higher end S2 ). But prices will of course keep dropping. Good luck And hopefully I won't do any more duh huh attacks!!

Dave Oddie said:

JDavis37 said:

On flip side buy the Tamron 24-135 and you end up with a 40-230
lens ( FOV equiv ) which merely suffers at the low end . Add the
Sigma 15-30 and you end up wiht a 25-50mm fov equiv.

Click to expand...

Do Tamron make Sigma SD mount lenses? I didn't think they did. So
the best you can do is get the Sigam 24-70 which is 40-120mm or
suffer enven more at the "wide" end and have a 28mm start point for
the zomm which is 48mm equivalent - not wide angle at all.

Dave Oddie said:

But if true WA is what you need you are screwed with the crop
factor and going to 1.7X doesn't help at all. Hold out for either
the next generation of Foveon or go for the newest generation CMOS
such as the Kodak.

Click to expand...

Can't afford the Kodak + lenses let alone the Canon + lenses.
Sigma SD9 + lenses I could stretch to with a bit of real world
discounting off the top of the recommended retail price. Pity
about the crop factor, I love my 21mm wide angle.

Dave

Click to expand...

You are forgetting one thing. Canon does not have to buy the chips. They can license the technology and manufacture new generation CMOS chips that include both the foveon characteristics and the Canon experience with large sensors.

Canon holds several patents in this field (CMOS chips).

Also, remember the canon patent filed recently, where the camera takes 2 pictures -- moving the filter. This will increase the amount of information captured. Each pixel will capture 2 colors. Making it easier to interpolate.

I am really excited about the Sigma camera, but what the future holds is hard to predict. We do not have enough information.

Not what I heard. From what I heard they were having a yield issue and are working on resolving it. This would be normal for any new manufacturing process and makes sense. Ofcourse they could be cranking them out anyway, but usually you do not want to do that when you have low yields. In this case though they may have made commitments to Sigma that they have to meet and have to eat the additional costs.

Ted Jengle said:

Regards
Ted

.Ray (UK) said:

I wonder if Foveon will eventually license the 3 semi-tranparant
layers technique to other chip makers so everyone benefits. eg, so
Canon can then use that technique to complement their existing cmos
designs.

.Ray

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

kalahari said:

Also, remember the canon patent filed recently, where the camera
takes 2 pictures -- moving the filter. This will increase the
amount of information captured. Each pixel will capture 2 colors.
Making it easier to interpolate.

Click to expand...

Correct, but one question I have with this method is, how is that exposure time divided between the shifts? Say you have a 1/10 seconds exposure shot, now both color filters will need to capture all the info they can within that 1/10 of a second, with the 2 shifts, you actually only have 1/20 second exposure with each filter ... It seems the sensor needs to absorb 2x the light if they want equal 1/10 second exposure.

--
jc
Sony F707
http://www.reefkeepers.org/gallery/f707
http://www.reeftec.com/gallery

kalahari said:

People need to change the thinking. These are computers. I have
always lost about $1500 per year on depreciation on my computers.
You should expect to lose the same in digital cameras -- if you
want to keep even close to the cutting edge. The dollar amount may
be different, but it will exist. Do people really think that this
is not happening to the Canon or Nikon cameras???

Click to expand...

It sure is. There are a lot of D30 cameras that were bought for $2500-$3000 that are worth less then $1200 now. Lenses hold better value then bodies do but you can buy Sigma EX lenses (which are very good) and have Sigma change the mounts on them if you ever change systems. Sigma is the only system that you can buy lenses for that can be modified to fit another body. Can't do that with Nikon or Canon.

fauxtog

One other disadvantage to not having jpg out of the camera is that you can't take the card over to Walmart or hook it up to a printer and just print the pics straight out of the camera. I know most people here don't do that but it IS awfully convenient at times, especially if people who are using the camera are not very comfortable with photo editing programs. While this camera is not aimed for that crowd, there are occasions when someone wants to use my d30 and then get prints right away.

Rich

BJN said:

Dumping a Canon system for Sigma, you'll need your six-figures to
absorb the depreciation from this kind of wise shopping. Your
Hyundai...er, Sigma investment won't get you much when you dump it
on ebay later on. Enjoy your Canon resale value now...

Click to expand...

Man, it is not about money. It is about desire, which is the reason we work so hard, just to satisfy our desire.

Have fun,
Wangler

OUCH really that is really good news for sigma lens owners. Now I'm thinking Sigma lenses!!
Regards
Ted

Matthew Cromer said:

He can have Sigma remount his lenses for $60 + 10 for each lens.

--
my favorite work: http://www.pbase.com/sdaconsulting/favorite_work

Click to expand...

Oh no!! Have I missed something? I'll never be able to fit a car in my computer room!!

BobTrips said:

Ken, dangerous grounds....

"Always and Never" are words that will often come back to bite you
in the butt. ("Cars will never replace computers"),

Click to expand...

--
John