Disheartening Very Disheartening

furtle wrote:

D Cox wrote:

Iain G Foulds wrote:

… The Sigma camera company is essentially a failure. It had a brilliant and unique sensor in the original vintage Foveon, lost much of that quality in the Merrill by sacrificing colour in pushing resolution. Realized that the colour was wretched in the Merrills, so pushed colour in the Quattro- causing over saturation and simplified colour. Then, abandoned their brilliant and unique sensor altogether, and followed the crowd- unsuccessfully.

Perhaps you should try using a Merrill camera for a few months before writing them off. I think what you are complaining about is entirely a matter of people's preferences when processing the raw files. Bear in mind that eyesight and colour vision vary considerably from one person to another, and at different ages in the same person.

The saturation of an image from a Quattro sensor isn't inherently any different from that of any other Foveon. It just depends on your processing skills and intentions.

If you read the most recent interview with Mr Yamaki, you will see that his company is still working on a new three-layer sensor. It isn't easy under current conditions.

Don

These are such good comments and something I completely agree with. I know very well how one can mangle images in post and I’ve done it. I have a couple of dp Merrills and I think they produce exceptional images ( under the right conditions). So, they shouldn’t be condemned. I wish they’d have a faster processor. The dp and DP Vrange have great lenses and fit in my coat pocket, so, tick every box.

Sure, I’m interested in the FFF but a faster Merrill would be cool. I don’t care about anything above ISO 100 or 200

ISO 400 would be nice now that I'm getting older and less steady. I suppose IBIS is the answer, but it strikes me as something that is liable to break. Roger Cicala posted some photos from a camera with IBIS, showing cracks in the frame that holds the sensor. The great thing about the fp is that it has no moving parts (except the control wheel).

That said, shutters seem to be very reliable gadgets, after more than a century of development.

Don