Another quirktastic camera from Sigma....... Locked

fishy wishy wrote:

DMillier wrote:

absquatulate wrote:

I disagree, the foveon sensor is radically different from bayer sensor cameras, the processing demands are clearly way beyond what bayer cameras have to do, and foveon is marketed as being specifically different. The sensor is the unique selling point and marketing blurb always reflects this. It is not reasonable to expect a 3 layer sensor to perform similarly to a bayer sensor, because it clearly doesn't. Medium format gets a free pass on many things, because MF cmaeras have a much bigger sensor. No-one criticises them for not being able to be used effectively for sports or action shooting. It is understood what they are best at, and they are judged accordingly, Foveon should be no different in this respect. We will never see a Foveon camera that competes for action with the likes of the D500 or the 7DII, we will never see an MF camera with 8fps and fast tracking performance either. If anything Foveon is the poor mans MF and should be judged as such.

As I said, I think you are trying to have your cake and eat it.

The Q isn't a medium format camera. You might argue that in resolution terms it could be compared to a MF camera but it still has a small sensor, it doesn't have the other characteristics of a MF camera. That is really a false comparison IMO.

A better comparison will require a little bit of an historical aside. Remember the introduction of T-grain film emulsions? The original marketing was that T-Max films were radical: the new grain structure was much, much finer grained than traditional film. It mean that 35mm film was suddenly able to provide medium and high ISOs with grain structure and detail that rival medium format detail, sharpness and tonal smoothness. Suddenly, 35mm could answer all the criticism of its image quality leveled at it by larger formats.

If OP won't define how a Sigma sensor overlaps in capabilities with MF (of any kind), it seems a waste of words.

Most people won't have seen MF, and digital MF is not really 2x the area of 35mm, it's something like 44x36mm the last camera I saw. But you can work backwards from FF to APS-C sizes to get an idea of the difference - the main difference being in tonality. You can definitely get more real gradation and detail out of shadow areas in FF. Strangely though, this is not what I see quoted from users on Sigma sensors. I've only ever seen a per-pixel sharpness and a theoretical advantage in color quoted (I have to be careful with words here because I haven't yet seen a convincing demonstration of the latter).

The parting shot of the review is more honest. OP likes to feel he has something special and novel compared to the usual run of cameras, and that's what he really enjoys. It's like a countercultural blow or a teenager becoming a goth.

Of course shooting Sigma is "counter-culture", just like shooting film is, we're the Photography anarchists, audacious low ISO rebels! come the revolution.....

As for Sigmas being unique in clouds... the Fuji SuperCCD already did much better than modern sensors in maintaining highlights there.

You mean the sensor that no longer exists because it was so popular?