DMillier wrote:
Let's take a balanced view here. All sigmas I've used have been more or less the worst cameras around in their classes as all round cameras. It isn't anything to do with inept users either, the cameras are deficient in many ways and that hardly changes from model to model. Reviewers who test the cameras with the same mindset they apply to other cameras are usually scathing. And rightly so, the blame for this is not the reviewers but sigma engineers.
The people who most enthusiastic about sigmas make excuses for the shortcomings. And I that is the point, if you like the foveon output, you have to excuse the rest of the camera because they stack up poorly against almost anything else. Huge improvements in camera performance would be welcome I'm sure even by some of the most diehard hair shirt ers here but we know that isn't going to happen so we have to grit our teeth and make the best of it. It is a one trick pony but if you value what it does above al else you just have to put up with it.
Too true. I've been waiting since the SD10 for an "improved" Sigma body with faster processing time, better low light performance, better AF, etc. and except for a few incremental improvements, the best exemplified by the SD15, have finally given up. I just have to assume it's in the nature of the Foveon design and nothing can alter that.
Sigma's design philosophy seems to be "three steps forward and two backward," again best exemplified by the Quattro with improved color and processing speed and worse microcontrast. But I put up with it (begrudgingly) because, short of returning to film, there's nothing else on the market I like the output from better.