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Why is Sigma and Foveon still relevant for the serious amateur?

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I was referring to the portrait shot shown on

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www.dpreview.com



DSC05095.jpg


Detail is certainly quite good, maybe not as sharp as Foveon, but close. And as said, I wouldn't look at the pic 1:1 most of the time anyways.

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If Sigma turned the DP* cameras into a compact system camera ... you had even less to carry and even more options ;) The DP cameras are nice, but to me the downside is the fixed lens approach and the slow shutter speed: sunny day, portrait, f2.8 ... asks for a ND filter ... while that's certainly feasible, it's not great.
 
Scottelly said:
) They followed that with the introduction of the 5 D Mark II, which was 21 MP and full-frame, and that was WAY higher resolution than the SD15 . . . though it was a lot more expensive too. The SD15 was on the market by then though, I believe.
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you meant Mark III, right?
 
Fraulain Uebermueller said:
I am sorry if this is sounds provocative. It is not meant to be. It is just my opinion on how I see things, so please do not feel offended - no cameras were harmed in writing this.

Considering tha Sigma has sold very few cameras, fewer than just about any other niche player (maybe Ricoh, excluding Pentax has sold fewer?), and that the camera has one strength and many weaknessess, it is hard to imagine why one would think that Sigma/Foveon had ever been relevant for the arbitrarily defined group of "serious amateurs". There are individuals who fit into the definitiion and prefer Sigma/Foveon, many in this very forum I am sure, but the number for serious amateurs using Sigma/Foveon is very low indeed (which is easy to see on how invisible the brand is in all kinds of photography contests and because of the fact that Sigma cameras do not suit many kind of photography nearly as well as the largest brand cameras, like birding or action. In all my years of photography I've only seen one Sigma camera in use and not in the hands of someone I'd call serious photographer).

Foveon sensor doesn't really offer anything relevant for the serious amateur. Yes, it offers good resolution without colour aliasing/moiré, but that is it. What does that extra give for the serious amateur?

On the other hand the sensor and the camera it's attached to offers lots of qualities serious amateurs (and beyond) avoid: colour inaccuracy and colour unpredictability, relatively modest dynamic range, very limited shadow lifting possibility, high noise when the exposures are more limited, cumbersome and slow operation of the raw-converter, slow operation of the camera, lacking viewfinders in the arguable most usable Sigmas (the compacts), poor autofocus and so on. Using a Sigma camera can be a painful experience.

Serious amateurs (and professionals even more so) tend to use a tool which does the job, not something with is awkward to get results with and where the results might not be expected.

Post script: the key to this thread is how serious amateur ("SA") is defined for this context.

If SA is someone who looks at pixels at extreme enlargements on computer screen and places that above many other considerations, then Sigma might just be the camera for SA, as long as the exposure was large enough.

If SA is someone who likes to participate in forum with likeminded people and invent/use obscure un-/badly defined keywords for the images of likeminded people then sure, maybe Sigma is for one.

If SA is someone who enjoys photography and strives to take good images, then it is hard to see why Sigma would be (or would have been) a relevant camera brand.
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The DP series beat anything if you're looking for a view camera like "slow" experience mated to an ultra light weight package. When you hike at high altitude or hike for long distances or mountain bike to remote locations the advantages to the DP series trounce a DSLR with a couple of 2.8 or faster lenses.

I get complete satisfaction from my DP1M because I don't bother to try to use it outside of its performance envelope. Outside of that envelope I use a D800
 
maple said:
DPQ is plain wrong in form.

Maple
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I would strongly disagree with that statement. Much easier to hold and operate out of the box in comparison to dp2m.
 
3dreal said:
Scottelly said:
) They followed that with the introduction of the 5 D Mark II, which was 21 MP and full-frame, and that was WAY higher resolution than the SD15 . . . though it was a lot more expensive too. The SD15 was on the market by then though, I believe.
Click to expand...
you meant Mark III, right?
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Wow! The 5 D Mk II came out a full year before the 7 D. I definitely didn't think that was the way it happened. Thanks for the link Ted.

Here is the list of just the Canon interchangeable lens cameras in chronological order:

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www.dpreview.com
 
D Cox said:
D Cox said:
In my opinion the reflex mirror is an obsolete focussing method, so I would not buy any kind of DSLR. But people do.
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For some forms of photography it is. For others the EVF's are not a good choice. Action, sports and most street work, low light all come to mind. However, I do see the DX or ASP-C sensor DSLR's disappearing those formats will be mainly mirror less. However, for FF sensors I expect the DSLR will be around for the foreseeable future. Especially since there are a very large number of working pros, semi-pros and serious amateurs with huge investments in Canon and Nikon FF SLR lenses.
 
Fraulain Uebermueller said:
I am sorry if this is sounds provocative. It is not meant to be. It is just my opinion ....
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You say it's just an opinion but then proceed to claim some things as facts that are not.
Fraulain Uebermueller said:
On the other hand the sensor and the camera it's attached to offers lots of qualities serious amateurs (and beyond) avoid: colour inaccuracy and colour unpredictability,
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No.

The TRUTH is that any camera on the market has color variability. In my experience, the Foveon variability is less than with most other cameras.

You can see other cameras having issues all the time, just pay attention to images in news stories. It's even more clear when you shoot in a studio with other shooters and compare other results. Do you deny that Canon and Nikon juice green colors and tend to lean skin shades to be more pink?

Sigma does a great job of handling this, you can either have a truly neutral photo or choose a color mode that leans the way you like for a particular image - independent of white balance.
Fraulain Uebermueller said:
relatively modest dynamic range
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Not that old canard, false. The Merrill is near the top of any camera on the market if you know how to process it. The Quattro is probably a bit higher.
Fraulain Uebermueller said:
, very limited shadow lifting possibility
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Not true with the Quattro as we have seen from a lot of examples.
Fraulain Uebermueller said:
, high noise when the exposures are more limited
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?????? If you mean high ISO, sure - mostly.
Fraulain Uebermueller said:
, cumbersome and slow operation of the raw-converter,
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Now THAT part is very much an issue.
Fraulain Uebermueller said:
slow operation of the camera
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That's a tossup - some things like saving images are slower, but it has much better direct control settings than most cameras. In particular the operation of the camera for settings is way faster on a Merrill or Quattro than any Sony camera I've seen.
Fraulain Uebermueller said:
If SA is someone who enjoys photography and strives to take good images, then it is hard to see why Sigma would be (or would have been) a relevant camera brand.
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It's hard to see why it would not be, because it doesn't matter what it was like to take the image. All sorts of SA people go to great lengths (money or time or physical effort) to put themselves in a position to take a great shot. Later on, all that will exist is the image you take. It doesn't matter if perhaps it took a second longer to review a histogram, or if the camera has Night Portrait Macro Pub Mode. All that matters in the end is the image, the realization of that is why an SA is an SA.

To that end the Foveon cameras are an excellent tool for making sure that one thing that persists through time - the image - is as good as it can possibly be.

Otherwise, you may as well just use an iPhone to take an image.
 
cquarksnow said:
Hi, Scott -

Could you point me to full-size A7R pictures (1:1) that you find so detailed ? I could not find any on the last 2 pages of threads, and it's mostly like thumbnails on my screen... Maybe I am getting spoiled by the Sigma forum.

Regards,

Chris
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Chris I looked, but I didn't find a direct comparison of the A7r against the Quattro. Here is some stuff you would want to see, considering the Sony is a very similar performer, as far as image quality:

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www.dpreview.com

You can always download the free RawTherapee program and do your own conversions from the raw files provided at Imaging-Resource. Here is the link to the files for the Sony A7r there:

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www.imaging-resource.com

If I were you, I would use the ISO 100 raw files. You might also try comparing the Sony A7r against the Quattro and the Pentax 645 Z at ISO 800, just to see the differences.

Here's some good software to use if you want to view them at very extreme magnification, without the typical jagginess or slowness of massive upscaling using bicubic or other algorithms (to get a better idea of how much detail is really there):

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www.benvista.com

The free trial button at the bottom left, under the text on that page, is what I use, and it works great! One day I just might get the full version. GIMP can do upscaling well too, if you use nohalo instead of cubic, but it's really slow and not quite as good as PhotoZoom Pro 5.
 
Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:
You can see other cameras having issues all the time, just pay attention to images in news stories. It's even more clear when you shoot in a studio with other shooters and compare other results. Do you deny that Canon and Nikon juice green colors and tend to lean skin shades to be more pink?

Sigma does a great job of handling this, you can either have a truly neutral photo or choose a color mode that leans the way you like for a particular image - independent of white balance.
Click to expand...
There is always a problem with color. It's not unique to digital - it dates back to the first color film. The issue comes right down to the fact independent of lighting - unless it is very extreme - the human brain will perceive the correct skin tone and color in a live scene. However, when looking at a photograph it won't. One of the most difficult aspects of color printing from film was color balance. You have a daylight balanced film - it is fine until a few clouds block the sun and the color temperature changes.

However, color balance is more a function of getting the best you can and they processing to balance it to your taste. In the wet darkroom that was accomplished with printing using color filters in the enlarger to balance the light. In digital it is quite a bit easier. Now if you use the default curves in any camera you will get what the manufacturer considers default instead what a person might prefer.

And at the end of the day color is one of the more subjective aspects of photography. It was always a treat to teach the beginning color course - oh some would almost come to fistfights to over the "proper color" and this was between people that didn't even see the actual scene in person!
 
Fraulain Uebermueller said:
I am sorry if this is sounds provocative. It is not meant to be. It is just my opinion on how I see things, so please do not feel offended - no cameras were harmed in writing this.

Considering tha Sigma has sold very few cameras, fewer than just about any other niche player (maybe Ricoh, excluding Pentax has sold fewer?), and that the camera has one strength and many weaknessess, it is hard to imagine why one would think that Sigma/Foveon had ever been relevant for the arbitrarily defined group of "serious amateurs". There are individuals who fit into the definitiion and prefer Sigma/Foveon, many in this very forum I am sure, but the number for serious amateurs using Sigma/Foveon is very low indeed (which is easy to see on how invisible the brand is in all kinds of photography contests and because of the fact that Sigma cameras do not suit many kind of photography nearly as well as the largest brand cameras, like birding or action. In all my years of photography I've only seen one Sigma camera in use and not in the hands of someone I'd call serious photographer).

Foveon sensor doesn't really offer anything relevant for the serious amateur. Yes, it offers good resolution without colour aliasing/moiré, but that is it. What does that extra give for the serious amateur?

On the other hand the sensor and the camera it's attached to offers lots of qualities serious amateurs (and beyond) avoid: colour inaccuracy and colour unpredictability, relatively modest dynamic range, very limited shadow lifting possibility, high noise when the exposures are more limited, cumbersome and slow operation of the raw-converter, slow operation of the camera, lacking viewfinders in the arguable most usable Sigmas (the compacts), poor autofocus and so on. Using a Sigma camera can be a painful experience.

Serious amateurs (and professionals even more so) tend to use a tool which does the job, not something with is awkward to get results with and where the results might not be expected.

Post script: the key to this thread is how serious amateur ("SA") is defined for this context.

If SA is someone who looks at pixels at extreme enlargements on computer screen and places that above many other considerations, then Sigma might just be the camera for SA, as long as the exposure was large enough.

If SA is someone who likes to participate in forum with likeminded people and invent/use obscure un-/badly defined keywords for the images of likeminded people then sure, maybe Sigma is for one.

If SA is someone who enjoys photography and strives to take good images, then it is hard to see why Sigma would be (or would have been) a relevant camera brand.
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You're right and wrong. MOST serious amateurs and professionals don't like to wait for the camera or the software, even though the photos might be better . . . but some will. In fact, it is the most serious amateurs and professionals who are the ones who will go to great lengths in order to get the results they want. That includes shooting with an 8x10 large format camera, which costs $20 or more per photo, just to shoot their photos, taking minutes to set up for each shot. Then there is the expense and time it takes to process the film. Then there is the time and effort it takes to scan the film. Then there is the time and effort it takes to work on the digital image. Compared to all that the time and effort to use a Sigma camera (ANY Sigma camera, even the slowest one) would seem lightning fast.

So the Sigma cameras ARE relevant . . . but not to most people . . . and never have been relevant to most people . . . but they are becoming more and more relevant. Like I stated before, less than half the serious amateur photographers out there even know that Sigma makes cameras . . . but in the past less than 10% of the serious amateurs out there knew that Sigma makes cameras.
 
Truman Prevatt said:
D Cox said:
Truman Prevatt said:
In my opinion the reflex mirror is an obsolete focussing method, so I would not buy any kind of DSLR. But people do.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
For some forms of photography it is. For others the EVF's are not a good choice. Action, sports and most street work, low light all come to mind. However, I do see the DX or ASP-C sensor DSLR's disappearing those formats will be mainly mirror less. However, for FF sensors I expect the DSLR will be around for the foreseeable future. Especially since there are a very large number of working pros, semi-pros and serious amateurs with huge investments in Canon and Nikon FF SLR lenses.
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I'm sure people will go on buying SLRs for years to come. But my opinion is that they are obsolete.

For street work, I think a tilted LCD is the best viewfinder, with the camera at waist level. Same for low light.

The fundamental problem of an SLR is that you are not focussing from the image on the sensor, but from some screen or other device which is supposed to be at the same distance from the lens. If you want two things to match exactly, you have to make them be the same thing.

A basic principle of industrial design is to keep the need for precision to a minimum. Any feature of a product that needs to be carefully adjusted is a potential problem, and should be avoided if possible.

I used SLRs and rangefinders for film, like everyone else, but that was then.
 
Last edited:
"For street work, I think a tilted LCD is the best viewfinder, with the camera at waist level. Same for low light."

Good analysis. If such an LCD had been on the Pentax K-01, it would have been a much more compelling camera.

Long ago, SLRs were valuable in contrast to rangefinder cameras: no parallax issues, better with close-ups lens, better with telephoto, etc.
 
Truman Prevatt said:
Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:
You can see other cameras having issues all the time, just pay attention to images in news stories. It's even more clear when you shoot in a studio with other shooters and compare other results. Do you deny that Canon and Nikon juice green colors and tend to lean skin shades to be more pink?

Sigma does a great job of handling this, you can either have a truly neutral photo or choose a color mode that leans the way you like for a particular image - independent of white balance.
Click to expand...
And at the end of the day color is one of the more subjective aspects of photography. It was always a treat to teach the beginning color course - oh some would almost come to fistfights to over the "proper color" and this was between people that didn't even see the actual scene in person!
Click to expand...
Over time I've totally come to the same conclusion about color. Which is why it bothers me so much when someone claims the Foveon cameras have inaccurate color, and failing to recognize the universality of this condition. Every camera is going to give you images where you have to work on color.
 
Scottelly said:
So the Sigma cameras ARE relevant . . . but not to most people . . . and never have been relevant to most people . . . but they are becoming more and more relevant. Like I stated before, less than half the serious amateur photographers out there even know that Sigma makes cameras . . . but in the past less than 10% of the serious amateurs out there knew that Sigma makes cameras.
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BUT on the other hand, "most people" are switching to smartphones for photography. As the pool of people who actually use cameras shrinks the Sigma cameras maintain a slowly growing interest level in part just because of the other people leaving the pool.

The great thing about where Sigma is positioned is, is they can live on a smaller number of camera sales compared to other camera companies which have hungry corporate maws to feed. You think those Canon Explorers of Light are going to fly themselves to New Zealand? I think not.
 
This is all relative. though. The reviews show the position pretty convincingly. I think.

There may be no truly accurate cameras but Foveon colours deviate more on average and are prone to occasional total misfires more than other cameras.

There has also been historical issues with colour casts, Italian flag problems and unreliable white balance. And these problems vary between models and even cameras in a way that you don't see with other cameras.

In my experience of Sigma cameras, my SD9 is all over the place, the SD14 has a built in yellow/green colour cast and while my DP1 seemed much more conventional, it really struggled to render reds properly, usually swinging to orange or to flourescent magenta. My DP2M seems better but it has its colour quirks, not least of which is that shadow regjons appear to render in black and white.

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Considering that 99% of Sigma's revenues come from sales of Canon and Nikon mount lenses, I wouldn't be so confident. What camera makers should be doing is building smartphone shareability features into cameras, like Thom Hogan suggests. But they still think people ought to wait until they get home to their computer and card reader. That model won't fly any more...
 
Well . . . for now Nikon's profit from camera sales seems to still be growing. I'm sure Sigma's is too. I don't know about Canon or Sony. I'm starting to think Pentax might be going up-market, into a place where Hasselblad and Leica seem to be. Maybe they'll continue to make their little point-and-shoots and their APS-C DSLR cameras, but for whatever reason they seem to have redoubled their efforts in the medium format market. I think they should sell full-frame cameras too. They still have full-frame lenses. If they were to offer a $2,000 full-frame DSLR with a 24 MP sensor and a $3,000 full-frame DSLR with a 36 MP sensor I think they would sell more of their APS-C sensor cameras too. People might even see them as an alternative to Canon and Nikon, if they fill in their 35mm lens line a little too.

Sigma has a LONG way to go, before they become a serious competitor to the rest of the big companies in the camera market. They don't even sell three different DSLR cameras at one time. Most other companies sell more than three. Some sell WAY more than three. Look how many 4/3 cameras Panasonic sells. Look how many full-frame mirrorless cameras Sony sells. It's outrageous! I won't even talk about how many DSLR cameras Canon and Nikon make. You surely already know.

I sure hope Sigma starts offering a high-end DSLR and a low-end one too. Hopefully their SD1 Quattro (or whatever comes out next) is the low-end camera and they make a faster one or a full-frame Merrill camera just a year later. I think they should come out with a new DSLR every year, even if it only has a few tweaks, like faster processing and double the buffer memory . . . or a slightly better sensor, like the Quattro. It would have been very cool if they had come out with an SD1x, with live-view, a buffer twice as big as the SD1 Merrill, and a slightly faster processor . . . about six or eight months ago. Then in six months they could come out with an SD1 Quattro (which they could introduce at CES in Las Vegas early in the year), and people could buy that new SD1 Quattro to upgrade to the latest, fastest Sigma camera, with the new Quattro sensor (and maybe an even bigger buffer).

So the splash has been pretty big from the revolutionary new Quattro sensor (the biggest thing to happen to Foveon since the first Foveon sensor was made and put into a Sigma DSLR). I think is will go down in history as a pretty significant event in the history of cameras.
 
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