First photos with the SD15. I am delighted

I took advantage of a 2 day holiday to fix my newly acquired SD15, adjust the 18-35mm via USB dock to match the camera and to take my 4-year-old son to enjoy the zoo.

Of course, that was the excuse to test the SD15 in a real world situation. I could not be happier with the results. Processing the files in SPP 6.6.1 was a breeze, noise was not an issue in high ISO files and the details and colors delivered by this 10 year old FOVEON sensor made me smile. On my screen, they look superb. Way better than what I was expecting. Now I need to do some large printing to check if the magic can be replicated on paper as well.

Please find below some pictures from today. All of them were shot with the 18-35mm f/1.8, converted as TIFF in SPP and lightly tweaked in DXO Photolab before being exported as jpegs.

What a great camera this is. I hope you enjoy the pictures!

They look good. Even the ISO 400 one, Did you do any additional NR in DxO?

David

Wow you really nailed it...I need to adjust mine..Yours says the DOC. Did you use both methods to adjust the camera. Some stunning image. What is the snake? I would reprocess the lizard shot which has the blown highlights

Rick

Thanks David! SPP did all the noise reduction work quite remarkably. I was really surprised.

Thanks Rick!

I used both methods: adjusting the screws in camera and adjusting the 18-35mm lens to perform perfectly with my SD15 body.
The snake is a python. Regarding the lizard, it was an exposure error on my part. The highlight are totally blown and I could not recover it in SPP using the exposure slider or the highlight slider... Is there another way?i remember checking the histogram after shooting, but it not show this problem.

krloz said:

krloz wrote:

SPP did all the noise reduction work quite remarkably. I was really surprised.

Click to expand...

Hello:

In your (first / above - thread)- earlier post you mentioned this:

(Quote):

"converted as TIFF in SPP and lightly tweaked in DXO Photolab before being exported as jpegs."

So, I am curious - once you imported the TIFF into DxO Photolab - did you allow the DxO software to perform "automatic tweaking"?

Thanks -

Ed

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Camera Equipment, Computer Gear and more

It does automatic tweaking by default for Tiffs (ie turn on noise reduction, change the exposure/lightning). I turned them off and messed with contrast and dehaze tool (as the animals were behind a somewhat cloudy glass covered by fingerprints). Did not use saturation, sharpening, noise reduction etc.
For supported RAW files (not tiffs) DXO performs many other optimizations under hood. Unfortunately those do not work with sigma files.

Not that I know...A few times I took highlights and exposure down heavily and then if I could get the highlights under control, us a NIK GND to bring up the shadows. But blown is blown.

You should try ISO800 if you need an extra stop or two for stability. I think the sensor - F13 if I remember correctly (there are variants of it) - does reasonably well as long as the light is not too low. Here are a two from DP1 and DP1X. Great little cameras.






Ruby's Bryce Canyon National Park




Avila Beach store, central California

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http://www.silveroaksranch.com

Great stuff, I'd recommend if you are sending files to a print shop to send them AdobeRGB colorspace images, so that your prints can get the most from the awesome color range the camera has!

The SD-15 really did deliver some nice colors.

Hi,

thank you for sharing these great photos.

The SD15 is a masterpiece from Sigma and for me is, despite its megapixel count, an immortal camera along with Merrill and pre-Merrill generation.

The excellent image quality that it deliver is natural and realistic and I'm happy that this SD15 is fallen in the right hands (yours). Enjoy with your awesome, unique in the world camera and please, if you can post some photos. Love mine. ;-)

Thanks for the tips!
I definitely need to do more proper testing with higher ISO. Because it is a Foveon sensor, common sense says one should keep ISO the lowest possible. However, the latest version of SPP showed me that, at least for the SD15 sensor, it can do miracles.

Your photos just prove that a proper exposure can make old Foveon sensors sing.

Now I am enticed to buy old Foveon cameras such as the DP1 and DP2. Too bad they are very difficult to come buy in my country.

Thanks Kendall!
Good thing that I set in camera to record in AdobeRGB. My understanding is that, if it were the opposite, ie setting to sRGB in camera, and then exporting via SPP to adobeRGB, it would not work. Sounds about right, but I am not very familiar with color spaces.

Thank you very much for the kind words and encouragement.
I will definitely use this camera even more now that I am confident in the results I can get from it. I am officially postponing my plans to get a SD1M or a SDQH for now. Even though those camera have better IQ overall, the SD15 is no slouch either and probably can fit my print quality needs. As a bonus, files are small which in turn, makes SPP a pleasure to use!