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Favorite online Quattro camera user guides?

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FuhTeng

FuhTeng

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Hi everyone. I'm planning on renting a dp1 or dp2 for an upcoming car show to play with the extraordinary Foveon sensor (I use Sony right now and I'm used to prime lenses). I know it's quite a different camera so I thought I'd ask if you guys have favorite online guides for how to use Quattros to their potential.

I'd like a video but text from veteran Quattro users would be nice too.
 
FuhTeng said:
Hi everyone. I'm planning on renting a dp1 or dp2 for an upcoming car show to play with the extraordinary Foveon sensor (I use Sony right now and I'm used to prime lenses). I know it's quite a different camera so I thought I'd ask if you guys have favorite online guides for how to use Quattros to their potential.

I'd like a video but text from veteran Quattro users would be nice too.
Click to expand...
FuhTeng, I have a DP2 from pre Merril days that I used extensively about 3 years ago, and I purchased a DP1 Quattro a couple of weeks ago. So, I am clearly still learning how to best use it, but I came to the DP1Q understanding that there would be some challenges. Having said that, here are my comments;

If you have never used a Sigma Foveon camera, and your "upcoming car show" is going to happen within the next month,and you are hoping to make money from your shots, I would not plan on using a Q camera. This is harsh I know, but for me there is a learning curve on the Q cameras that is longer than my previous DP2.

Here are the issues I have found;

1. To get the best out of a Foveon camera (Q or not), you need to shoot RAW. Unfortunately Sigma Photo Pro 6.2.1 (required for Quattros) is so slow to process and save images that you won't be able to process a large number (100 or more) of RAW shots in an evening. It could take several days. There may be short cuts that use batch process and then finishing the work in another program, but I haven't discovered a shortcut yet. I would love to have someone suggest a fast workflow.

2. I tried shooting RAW/JPEG, and hoping that the JPEG would be usable so I wouldn't have to process the RAW files, but while shooting both RAW and JPEG, the shot to shot time is 10 to 15 seconds, depending on how fast your SD card is. It is very painful to shoot both RAW and JPEG.

3. Given 1 and 2 above, I have tried shooting JPEG only. First let me say that the image quality of the DP1Q and DP2Q JPEGs is very good, and while shooting only JPEGs the usability of the camera between shots is only about 5 seconds. Clearly not a sports camera, but acceptable for most everything else. If you do this however, you have to be aware of the histogram while you are shooting, because JPEGS (from any camera really) are unforgiving of overexposure. I was shooting a -0.7EV to prevent blowing the highlights, and that helps a lot.

So, overall, I love my DP1Q, and I hate SPP. I believe the Quattro cameras have far better usability than my DP2 ever did, and the image quality from RAW is astounding, but you better not be in a hurry. Image quality from JPEGs is also astounding, if you can keep from blowing the highlights. The feel of the resulting images is really, really nice.

Now, if Sigma would invest in some accelerator technology, like a separate box I could plug into my computer to make it process images fast. I would be very happy to pay for it, even if it cost $500 - $1000 and was the size of a Mac mini. Ok, it can even be bigger than that. Alternatively they could just write a program for a graphics accelerator card and tell us what hardware configuration to buy.

just my thoughts,

Tom Zimmer
photobubba.com

Tom Zimmer - PhotoBubba - tomzimmer.wordpress.com

Living life to the fullest while abiding in Christ
photobubba.com photobubba.com
Sigma DP1 Quattro, Fuji X-T1, X-E1, X-M1
And my old friends - Sigma DP2, SD10, SD14
 
The camera manual
--
Lightwriting with Sigma dp2Q for stills and Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera for video
 
Tom Zimmer said:
FuhTeng said:
Hi everyone. I'm planning on renting a dp1 or dp2 for an upcoming car show to play with the extraordinary Foveon sensor (I use Sony right now and I'm used to prime lenses). I know it's quite a different camera so I thought I'd ask if you guys have favorite online guides for how to use Quattros to their potential.

I'd like a video but text from veteran Quattro users would be nice too.
Click to expand...
FuhTeng, I have a DP2 from pre Merril days that I used extensively about 3 years ago, and I purchased a DP1 Quattro a couple of weeks ago. So, I am clearly still learning how to best use it, but I came to the DP1Q understanding that there would be some challenges. Having said that, here are my comments;

If you have never used a Sigma Foveon camera, and your "upcoming car show" is going to happen within the next month,and you are hoping to make money from your shots, I would not plan on using a Q camera. This is harsh I know, but for me there is a learning curve on the Q cameras that is longer than my previous DP2.

Here are the issues I have found;

1. To get the best out of a Foveon camera (Q or not), you need to shoot RAW. Unfortunately Sigma Photo Pro 6.2.1 (required for Quattros) is so slow to process and save images that you won't be able to process a large number (100 or more) of RAW shots in an evening. It could take several days. There may be short cuts that use batch process and then finishing the work in another program, but I haven't discovered a shortcut yet. I would love to have someone suggest a fast workflow.
Click to expand...
I would use the jpegs (see below) to review and narrow down your 'keepers' and then edit these.
Tom Zimmer said:
2. I tried shooting RAW/JPEG, and hoping that the JPEG would be usable so I wouldn't have to process the RAW files, but while shooting both RAW and JPEG, the shot to shot time is 10 to 15 seconds, depending on how fast your SD card is. It is very painful to shoot both RAW and JPEG.
Click to expand...
You can shoot up to 7 - it has a buffer. Then obviously you can't shoot another till it clears one out of it. I imagine at a car show (static cars?), you will not be shooting fast? With the time needed for setting up the next shot (composition, focus, exposure etc.) you will find that this 'slowness' is not an obstruction. I have yet to find it annoying, although I shoot portraits, landscapes, urbex etc. i.e. not sport or fast moving things.
Tom Zimmer said:
3. Given 1 and 2 above, I have tried shooting JPEG only. First let me say that the image quality of the DP1Q and DP2Q JPEGs is very good, and while shooting only JPEGs the usability of the camera between shots is only about 5 seconds. Clearly not a sports camera, but acceptable for most everything else. If you do this however, you have to be aware of the histogram while you are shooting, because JPEGS (from any camera really) are unforgiving of overexposure. I was shooting a -0.7EV to prevent blowing the highlights, and that helps a lot.
Click to expand...
Tom Zimmer said:
So, overall, I love my DP1Q, and I hate SPP. I believe the Quattro cameras have far better usability than my DP2 ever did, and the image quality from RAW is astounding, but you better not be in a hurry. Image quality from JPEGs is also astounding, if you can keep from blowing the highlights. The feel of the resulting images is really, really nice.

Now, if Sigma would invest in some accelerator technology, like a separate box I could plug into my computer to make it process images fast. I would be very happy to pay for it, even if it cost $500 - $1000 and was the size of a Mac mini. Ok, it can even be bigger than that. Alternatively they could just write a program for a graphics accelerator card and tell us what hardware configuration to buy.

just my thoughts,

Tom Zimmer
http://photobubba.com/
Sigma DP1 Quattro, Fuji X-T1, X-E1, X-M1
And my old friends - Sigma DP2, SD10, SD14
Click to expand...
I would have an evening playing around before the show - go through the menu system to set the camera up as you want - the QS button is customisable so your most used settings are at the top/front. I didn't find it a learning curve - I've only used the Sigma DPs. Just the initial firmware had 'bugs' - so make sure it's updated too.

Take both cameras just in case though :)
 
Thank you Tom, I appreciate it. Nope, no money will be made from this shoot. This is just a fun chance (thanks a good, brightly-lit, opportunity and an indulgent wife!) to use the Quattro. I've been planning on shooting RAW + JPEG but maybe not!
 
always set for RAW/JPG and see the difference!

you don't want to miss the best shot
 
FuhTeng said:
Thank you Tom, I appreciate it. Nope, no money will be made from this shoot. This is just a fun chance (thanks a good, brightly-lit, opportunity and an indulgent wife!) to use the Quattro. I've been planning on shooting RAW + JPEG but maybe not!
Click to expand...
If you have the time, then by all means shoot RAW + JPEG. As was mentioned, there is a 7 shot buffer, and that means you can shoot about once every 5 seconds. The long delay I mentioned is only valid if you need to look at the shot on play to see if the highlights are blown. In that case, you have to wait for the camera to finish writing to the card before it will allow you to go into play mode to review the shot.
 
Tom Zimmer said:
FuhTeng said:
Hi everyone. I'm planning on renting a dp1 or dp2 for an upcoming car show to play with the extraordinary Foveon sensor (I use Sony right now and I'm used to prime lenses). I know it's quite a different camera so I thought I'd ask if you guys have favorite online guides for how to use Quattros to their potential.

I'd like a video but text from veteran Quattro users would be nice too.
Click to expand...
<...>

1. To get the best out of a Foveon camera (Q or not), you need to shoot RAW. Unfortunately Sigma Photo Pro 6.2.1 (required for Quattros) is so slow to process and save images that you won't be able to process a large number (100 or more) of RAW shots in an evening. It could take several days. There may be short cuts that use batch process and then finishing the work in another program, but I haven't discovered a shortcut yet. I would love to have someone suggest a fast workflow.
Click to expand...
There is a great shortcut - batch export and do editing in some other application. The latest SPP exports reasonably fast. I export as 16-bit TIFF files, and edit in Aperture.

If you find some file needs further highlight recovery you can return to SPP to do that. Or if you can tell a set of files need highlight recovery, use the batch editor in SPP which works in seconds across many images, before the batch export step - saving a downward exposure adjustment to to the X3F files from the batch editing dialog.
Tom Zimmer said:
2. I tried shooting RAW/JPEG, and hoping that the JPEG would be usable so I wouldn't have to process the RAW files, but while shooting both RAW and JPEG, the shot to shot time is 10 to 15 seconds, depending on how fast your SD card is. It is very painful to shoot both RAW and JPEG.
Click to expand...
The shot to shot time is not 10 seconds though, and with a fast SD card the buffer clears quickly enough I'm hardly ever waiting on it.

I shoot only Raw+JPG. I personally review the JPG files first and then only process the raw versions of the files I care about - sometimes I don't even do that if the JPG is good enough.
Tom Zimmer said:
3. Given 1 and 2 above, I have tried shooting JPEG only. First let me say that the image quality of the DP1Q and DP2Q JPEGs is very good, and while shooting only JPEGs the usability of the camera between shots is only about 5 seconds. Clearly not a sports camera, but acceptable for most everything else. If you do this however, you have to be aware of the histogram while you are shooting, because JPEGS (from any camera really) are unforgiving of overexposure. I was shooting a -0.7EV to prevent blowing the highlights, and that helps a lot.
Click to expand...
That is important with the Quattro cameras.
 
FuhTeng said:
Hi everyone. I'm planning on renting a dp1 or dp2 for an upcoming car show to play with the extraordinary Foveon sensor (I use Sony right now and I'm used to prime lenses). I know it's quite a different camera so I thought I'd ask if you guys have favorite online guides for how to use Quattros to their potential.

I'd like a video but text from veteran Quattro users would be nice too.
Click to expand...
1) Since it's a car show that means tons of very vibrant colors - in the case of strong lighting on bright colors, you may want to do about -0.7 to -0.1 ev exposure for a lot of shots. Keep an eye for blown areas (like red turning to pink). You can recover some of that from raw, but only just over 1.5 stops or so... Sometimes you may have to reduce exposure quite a lot.

2) Related, to keep exposure more in line with the subject I would change metering mode to center-weighted (the rectangle with nothing in it, vs many segments or the spot metering). This will mean it will mostly take spotlights on a car into account.

3) Since you'll probably want to focus in on little details I would change the focus point to be smaller than default - press down to go into the focus point select mode, then at the bottom it guides you to use the wheel to adjust focus point size.

4) I would use a grey card and set a custom white balance as you shoot, even just once before under whatever lighting the cars are in.. You can easily remove the custom WB using batch settings if you do not like it later, but you cannot create a custom WB from nothing (or a color checker photo).

5) I would turn on overexposure compensation in the camera menu. This brings back color into blown areas, sometimes quite well... it can go wrong in some subjects (like sky) but generally works well with flat colorful surfaces like cars. When you set this in the menu it turns on that flag for the raw files too so that option is automatically used by SPP in raw conversion.

6) Get a fast SD card.

7) if you can't use a tripod (and I would generally not use one at a car show) consider using burst mode with bursts of three for shooting - generally one of the three will be pretty sharp. That chews up storage fast though! Consider an extra SD card or two...

8) I shoot Raw + JPG (the camera comes set to JPG by default). That's because it is WAY faster to review the quality of the JPG files at 100% quickly, to decide what images you like - then just process raw files for the images you think are good. Don't be afraid to try saving blown images from raw.

9) Shoot 100 when you can, but don't be afraid to increase the ISO as much as you need for shutter speed. Above ISO 1600 images can get really noisy BUT if there are strong lights in the images (which there are at car shows) generally those parts will be OK, and you could increase contrast to drop the noise into shadow. Or you can use higher ISO images for nice B&W work. ISO 250 is not too bad compared to ISO 100, just a bit more grain-like noise.

10) You can change the QS menu to include bracketing settings, that might be helpful if you are not sure about the exposure compensation you want. If you are on burst mode Hold it down until it takes the three exposures for bracketing.

11) In SPP using the batch editing dialog can be faster even than editing a single image, if you know what you want done - for instance for changing the color mode/white balance, or adjusting exposure downward for a set of images that look over-exposed. After you adjust settings you tell the dialog to write to X3F, then after that batch exporting files can use X3F settings (by default the settings are as-shot or all zero). Don't forget to un-check sections you are not changing in batch. Batch Editing also makes a great place to turn on CA reduction for DP1Q images, if you find you need that.
 
Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:
Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:
<...>

1. To get the best out of a Foveon camera (Q or not), you need to shoot RAW. Unfortunately Sigma Photo Pro 6.2.1 (required for Quattros) is so slow to process and save images that you won't be able to process a large number (100 or more) of RAW shots in an evening. It could take several days. There may be short cuts that use batch process and then finishing the work in another program, but I haven't discovered a shortcut yet. I would love to have someone suggest a fast workflow.
Click to expand...
There is a great shortcut - batch export and do editing in some other application. The latest SPP exports reasonably fast. I export as 16-bit TIFF files, and edit in Aperture.

If you find some file needs further highlight recovery you can return to SPP to do that. Or if you can tell a set of files need highlight recovery, use the batch editor in SPP which works in seconds across many images, before the batch export step - saving a downward exposure adjustment to to the X3F files from the batch editing dialog.
Click to expand...
As I said at the beginning of this post, I am new to the DP1Q, so I haven't yet found a good way to batch export and and recover highlights. Your suggestion here might be the solution I need. I will give it a try.
Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:
Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:
2. I tried shooting RAW/JPEG, and hoping that the JPEG would be usable so I wouldn't have to process the RAW files, but while shooting both RAW and JPEG, the shot to shot time is 10 to 15 seconds, depending on how fast your SD card is. It is very painful to shoot both RAW and JPEG.
Click to expand...
The shot to shot time is not 10 seconds though, and with a fast SD card the buffer clears quickly enough I'm hardly ever waiting on it.

I shoot only Raw+JPG. I personally review the JPG files first and then only process the raw versions of the files I care about - sometimes I don't even do that if the JPG is good enough.
Click to expand...
I tried an UHS-II card with a write rating of 280 MB/s that I normally use in my Fuji X-T1. From click to finished saving was still around 10 seconds before i could click play to review the shot. i switched to a 45MB/s card, and it's about the same.
Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:
Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:
3. Given 1 and 2 above, I have tried shooting JPEG only. First let me say that the image quality of the DP1Q and DP2Q JPEGs is very good, and while shooting only JPEGs the usability of the camera between shots is only about 5 seconds. Clearly not a sports camera, but acceptable for most everything else. If you do this however, you have to be aware of the histogram while you are shooting, because JPEGS (from any camera really) are unforgiving of overexposure. I was shooting a -0.7EV to prevent blowing the highlights, and that helps a lot.
Click to expand...
That is important with the Quattro cameras.
Click to expand...
Thanks
 
Tom Zimmer said:
Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:
Tom Zimmer said:
<...>

1. To get the best out of a Foveon camera (Q or not), you need to shoot RAW. Unfortunately Sigma Photo Pro 6.2.1 (required for Quattros) is so slow to process and save images that you won't be able to process a large number (100 or more) of RAW shots in an evening. It could take several days. There may be short cuts that use batch process and then finishing the work in another program, but I haven't discovered a shortcut yet. I would love to have someone suggest a fast workflow.
Click to expand...
There is a great shortcut - batch export and do editing in some other application. The latest SPP exports reasonably fast. I export as 16-bit TIFF files, and edit in Aperture.

If you find some file needs further highlight recovery you can return to SPP to do that. Or if you can tell a set of files need highlight recovery, use the batch editor in SPP which works in seconds across many images, before the batch export step - saving a downward exposure adjustment to to the X3F files from the batch editing dialog.
Click to expand...
As I said at the beginning of this post, I am new to the DP1Q, so I haven't yet found a good way to batch export and and recover highlights. Your suggestion here might be the solution I need. I will give it a try.
Tom Zimmer said:
Tom Zimmer said:
2. I tried shooting RAW/JPEG, and hoping that the JPEG would be usable so I wouldn't have to process the RAW files, but while shooting both RAW and JPEG, the shot to shot time is 10 to 15 seconds, depending on how fast your SD card is. It is very painful to shoot both RAW and JPEG.
Click to expand...
The shot to shot time is not 10 seconds though, and with a fast SD card the buffer clears quickly enough I'm hardly ever waiting on it.

I shoot only Raw+JPG. I personally review the JPG files first and then only process the raw versions of the files I care about - sometimes I don't even do that if the JPG is good enough.
Click to expand...
I tried an UHS-II card with a write rating of 280 MB/s that I normally use in my Fuji X-T1. From click to finished saving was still around 10 seconds before i could click play to review the shot. i switched to a 45MB/s card, and it's about the same.
Tom Zimmer said:
Tom Zimmer said:
3. Given 1 and 2 above, I have tried shooting JPEG only. First let me say that the image quality of the DP1Q and DP2Q JPEGs is very good, and while shooting only JPEGs the usability of the camera between shots is only about 5 seconds. Clearly not a sports camera, but acceptable for most everything else. If you do this however, you have to be aware of the histogram while you are shooting, because JPEGS (from any camera really) are unforgiving of overexposure. I was shooting a -0.7EV to prevent blowing the highlights, and that helps a lot.
Click to expand...
That is important with the Quattro cameras.
Click to expand...
Thanks
Click to expand...
 
Great, thank you Kendall! This is exactly what I was hoping for, and I appreciate you taking the time to type all that out.

I'm planning on being all over the live histogram to verify exposure. Happily it's an outdoor car show (I'm praying for weather as perfect as last year... so it'll probably be a thunderstorm) so I'm expecting to ISO 100 all day long.
 
In this video, Dave Etchells (of imaging-resource.com ) demonstrates on how to properly hold the Quattro.

 
Last edited:
D-Man67 said:
In this video, Dave Etchells (of imaging-resource.com ) demonstrates on how to properly hold the Quattro.

Click to expand...
Finally...someone that explains this really well. This is exactly how I naturally found the hold - I tried to explain this in other threads when the DP2Q came out and couldn't understand why people were having issues. In fact I was holding the Merrills in a similar way and hated how my left thumb went over the LCD screen.

...but it makes me think perhaps the left hand side may get a grip too, providing a dual purpose of being useful for 'left handers' as well as stability...hmmm
 
Thanks, good advice!
 
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