Sigma SD1M or SD15

I'm on the way to purchase a Sigma SLR again, I used to have SD14 and DP1...sold 2 yrs ago.
Should I go for SD15 or SD1M? Lately, SD1M in Amazon price is very attractive! I just afraid the SD15 has the WB problem same as the SD14. If someone has used both, can you share your opinion. Thank you in advance!

Phu

The one that you can afford

ΣigmaTog

SD15's color is excellent, nothing like the SD14. And if you don't print large then the SD15 is a much better camera than the SD1M.

mike earussi said:

SD15's color is excellent, nothing like the SD14. And if you don't print large then the SD15 is a much better camera than the SD1M.

Click to expand...

Mike,

The SD15 is very very good in it's own way, excellent colour, fast, and very good buffer, but it's a bit strong to say that it is much better than the SD1M which in other ways is a spectacularly fine camera. The colour is as good, great resolution and while processing is a little slower it cannot be bettered for landscape, architectural photography etc. and the 17-50 is in my opinion quite a good lens too.

Use SPP for processing RAW files and you're on a winner.

S

A recent discussion http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/53175351 including some of my comments. I've used all three... the SD1 was just a loaner with which I took a couple hundred images. I've had extensive experience with the SD14/SD15 and various DP cameras. In sum, color is excellent from the SD15. Resolution is higher from the SD1M, so much depends upon your preferences and shooting styles and subjects. DPxM cameras are other options.

Best regards, Sandy
http://www.pbase.com/sandyfleischman (archival)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sandyfleischmann (sets organized for the various cameras, except that SD1 is just in the Death Valley 2013 set)

Hello Pvuong:

Pvuong said:

I'm on the way to purchase a Sigma SLR again, I used to have SD14 and DP1...sold 2 yrs ago.
Should I go for SD15 or SD1M? Lately, SD1M in Amazon price is very attractive! I just afraid the SD15 has the WB problem same as the SD14. If someone has used both, can you share your opinion. Thank you in advance!

Phu

Click to expand...

I have owned all the SDX cameras from the SD9 to SD1M. The SD15 is an excellent camera, but can suffer from clipped highlights if you do not watch your exposure. The SD1M is more forgiving in this area and can require more processing to get to a final image. On balance I prefer the SD1M because of the large amount of detail it captures and the ability to crop without loss of significant detail in the final image. I would definitely go for the SD1M and something like the 18-35 mm F:1.8 Art lens.

Greetings

I go for the SD15. It's faster has larger buffer better color and less money. If you buy a SD1 you must buy the best lenses or you'll end up disliking the SD1 and shooting it in the med. res. mode any way. Save your money buy the SD15 and a great lens (I like primes) then take your camera on a vacation with your left over money.

And yes I own 2 of all these cameras including the SD9 SD10 SD14 and the lenses to match.

Good luck

Roger J.

I would go for a SD15.

Well, I see you are getting advice all over the map here. The SD15 is a fine camera, the SD1 Merrill is a better camera. The difference is primarily resolution, but the resolution is essentially double and that's nothing to sneeze about. With any camera you want the best lens you can afford and that's true of the SD15 or the SD1 Merrill.

As you can see by the many fine images Larry has posted from his SD1M, it's mostly about lenses. If you are shooting wildlife, the 50-500 OS works very well indeed with the SD1M as do several of the high quality newer lenses. You can fine tune the autofocus with both the docking station and the camera body with the SD1M. You can't do that with the SD15 so this is yet another advantage which will give you a better probability of more keepers with the SD1M.

As far as processing is concerned, a great deal depends on your computer equipment. If you have a newer high powered system, SPP goes very quickly on the SD1M. If you have a less than optimal system, the SD15 files are easier and quicker to process.

My suggestion would be to go for the SD1M. It's newer, will hold its value longer and is a more powerful system overall.

Best regards,

Lin

Pvuong said:

I'm on the way to purchase a Sigma SLR again, I used to have SD14 and DP1...sold 2 yrs ago.
Should I go for SD15 or SD1M? Lately, SD1M in Amazon price is very attractive! I just afraid the SD15 has the WB problem same as the SD14. If someone has used both, can you share your opinion. Thank you in advance!

Phu

Click to expand...

If my research is correct, the SD15 shares the same sensor as the pre-Merrill DP series. I own/ed the DP1s, and I've since upgraded to the DP2 Merrill, which shares the same sensor as the SD1 Merrill.



I can say without hesitation that the image quality of the SD1 Merrill is leaps and bounds above the SD15, given the afore laid out circumstances. There is just no comparison in my mind. I loved my DP1s...it was a new level of quality for me. But the DP2 Merrill's images still make me go "wooooowwww" even after a couple of weeks of heavy usage.

I'll post some of my best shots from the DP1s (SD15) as well as from the DP2 Merrill (SD1 M). Take a minute to look at them full-sized and zoom in and out. Also note that I had to smooth out a lot of flaws in my models' faces because of the DP2M's tendency to expose everything.



DP1s

















DP2 Merrill

Based on the Sigma cameras that I own:

SD-10: Bulletproof - never had it go wrong. Not a good "low light" camera and its shutter shedding small flakes required frequent sensor cleaning (A known issue...). Very good dynamic range on outdoor, daylight scenes.

SD-14: Great color, much better sensitivity than the SD-10. Comparatively buggy software as it would frequently lock up if the buffer was filled and then you *tried* to do anything. Camera would often crash (requiring removal of battery) if it was turned on with the other switch got set halfway between settings - something that I frequently/accidentally did when pulling it out of the bag. Good dynamic range and far better low-light sensitivity than the SD-10.

SD-15: Harder to use than the SD-14 owing to the AFE that cannot be turned off (that I know of...) which can make it easy to blow out highlights irrecoverably so I always set it to at least -1EV - more on scenes with bright backgrounds. Good color and a nice, large buffer. I never had its software crash. I preferred the color of the SD-10 and SD-14, though. Notably better low-light sensitivity than the SD-14, although something in the later versions of SPP sometimes made processing dark images a bit tricky without causing chroma "blobbing".

SD-1: Unless you get *really* good lenses, you'll sell this camera short. I have the older 18-50 F2.8 which works well in the center, but soft on the edges unless I stay with its "sweet spot" aperture range. I occasionally use the 35mm F1.4 Art which is impressively sharp in the center and only very slightly soft at the edges, but the available lens profiling in SPP makes this problem practically vanish. Much more tolerant of exposure goofs than the SD-15 but "SD-10-like" in its buffer size and the time it takes to write its massive raw files to the memory card. Unless you have a pretty fast computer, processing full-size RAW from this camera is painful. On my copy, the color is a bit better than on the SD-15, but it sometimes takes a bit of a fight to get SD-10 or SD-14-like color and contrast.

I would go with what has been said before:

SD-1 - If you can get the *good* lenses that will provide the jaw-dropping detail. Unfortunately, these lenses are somewhere around $1k per copy, new, more or less.

SD-15 - This camera will out-perform most of the "good" lenses available for it, but you really have to watch the highlights.

For either camera I bracket exposures whenever possible as memory is cheap these days!

CT

How large are you going to print?? If your just using it for the internet the extra pixels of the SD1 are wasted. You'll need to go larger than 20x24 inches to see the difference between the two. Although if you have a cheap lens the SD1 will show up every flaw.

DP2x better than the SD15 do to the lens

DP2M better than the SD1 do to the lens

Lenses were tuned to the sensor.

The only place you'll see the difference is when you print large.

Good luck

Roger J.

Having owned and used both SD15 and SD1 I think the SD15 delivered better colors and a nicer image.

At present I own a DP3M, which has the colors of the SD15 and the resolution of the SD1. The other DPxMs don't seem to match the great colors of the SD15 in my opinion.

The SD15 is more forgiving of lenses than the SD1, but most images have a point of interest in one place (usually the center for my shooting) and quite a few lenses can deliver sharpness here. So the SD1 is still quite usable with the lenses that are less than perfect, such as the 18-250mm F3.5-6.3 DC OS Macro HSM. Photo below is from the SD1 plus this lens.

Both SD1 and SD15 have phase focus and this fact caused me much consternation. With the DP3M I get contrast autofocus, meaning I no longer have to focus-bracket in order to get a perfect shot the first time.

Strangely enough, though, I've now re-discovered my DP2 (non-M) which embodies the SD14 sensor without AFE (second photo below). Yet another reason to think the SD15 is worthwhile.





Smallest part of Victoria Falls, seen from the Zimbabwe side.




Waiting for spring, which seems to be late this year.



--
Tom Schum

Dear all,

Thank you to all the values feedback, if I want to print? May be up to 8x10, but I don't print very often. So, the SD15 makes more sense to me, I go for SD15 + 18-250mm to enjoy first. I also get a DP2M as Sandy recommends to someone!...use for the coming trip. Skip the SD1M for the moment, and waiting to see the new Quattro release.

Only Sigma can capture the image like this.

Thank you very much Phu


Original DP1