Sigma SD9 photos not impressive!!!

[Wangler56634]

Can not tell exactly why I love those samples so much. They definitely have a quality which has never been achieved by any of the existing DSLR, including 1DS. Look at the smooth tone, it is not a picture, it is real!!

As a former user of D30(one year) and D60(several months), I swear the sigma can easily blow out them in both resolution and smoothness.

Time to think hard...

I don't know what the actual car color is (haven't seen it), what
the girls complexion looks like (don't know her), or what the color
of the box is suppose to be (never had 'em). So how in the heck
does anyone know if they are acurate or not? No one here does so we
can only ask are they pleasing and vibrant and I say yes on both
accounts.

Might not want to admit it but there is now more competition in
town. It's about time the consumers stopped getting ripped off by
DLSR manufacturers.

I would point the finger on the Sigma lens and not the Foveon
sensor. My now lowly D30, Canon 50mm 1.8 combination produces
significantly superior images. That's why I hate to upgrade to
anything else.
--
Sincerely,
Y. Chachad
Shoot The World
http://www.pbase.com/eastrace

--
Dave

http://www.pbase.com/davenit/fp

--
Darkness is made up of dark particles.

 

[Tom Allison]

The fact that these are unprocessed, rushed samples means a lot!

As a former user of D30(one year) and D60(several months), I swear
the sigma can easily blow out them in both resolution and
smoothness.

Time to think hard...

I don't know what the actual car color is (haven't seen it), what
the girls complexion looks like (don't know her), or what the color
of the box is suppose to be (never had 'em). So how in the heck
does anyone know if they are acurate or not? No one here does so we
can only ask are they pleasing and vibrant and I say yes on both
accounts.

Might not want to admit it but there is now more competition in
town. It's about time the consumers stopped getting ripped off by
DLSR manufacturers.

I would point the finger on the Sigma lens and not the Foveon
sensor. My now lowly D30, Canon 50mm 1.8 combination produces
significantly superior images. That's why I hate to upgrade to
anything else.
--
Sincerely,
Y. Chachad
Shoot The World
http://www.pbase.com/eastrace

--
Dave

http://www.pbase.com/davenit/fp

--
Darkness is made up of dark particles.

 

[Laurie Caddell]

Can not tell exactly why I love those samples so much. They
definitely have a quality which has never been achieved by any of
the existing DSLR, including 1DS. Look at the smooth tone, it is
not a picture, it is real!!

As a former user of D30(one year) and D60(several months), I swear
the sigma can easily blow out them in both resolution and
smoothness.

Time to think hard...

I agree. The Sigma samples were absolutely stunning. By contrast, I spent ages downloading the two 10mb official Canon portrait samples and was completely underwhelmed; bit more impressed by the test 'box'. Couldn't see any tangible benefits over previous Canon fare.

And for those who say that the Sigma will be hit by the fact that you are stuck with Sigma lenses, well there are many pros out there who are happy to use Sigma wide-angle zooms and 300 2.8s on their Nikons and Canons... .

Laurie Caddell

 

[Josh L]

There are many nervous equipment snobs this week.

Can not tell exactly why I love those samples so much. They
definitely have a quality which has never been achieved by any of
the existing DSLR, including 1DS. Look at the smooth tone, it is
not a picture, it is real!!

As a former user of D30(one year) and D60(several months), I swear
the sigma can easily blow out them in both resolution and
smoothness.

Time to think hard...

I agree. The Sigma samples were absolutely stunning. By contrast, I
spent ages downloading the two 10mb official Canon portrait samples
and was completely underwhelmed; bit more impressed by the test
'box'. Couldn't see any tangible benefits over previous Canon fare.
And for those who say that the Sigma will be hit by the fact that
you are stuck with Sigma lenses, well there are many pros out there
who are happy to use Sigma wide-angle zooms and 300 2.8s on their
Nikons and Canons... .

Laurie Caddell

--
Josh
DSC-F707
Hoya S/HMC Cir-Polarizer / Hoya S/HMC UV0 Filter

 

[Bernie Ess]

I must be missing something...

Yes you do miss something... the specialness of these samples doesn´t lie in their low noise but there is a terrific naturallness and smooth look I didn´t see in another digicam. Whereas those have this strange digital look the Sigma shots look incredible fine detailed and natural.

At last digital makes an important step up which is more than dumb pixels...

Goodbye Beyer.... was nice for a start. Now lets get to the real thing!

 

[JCW]

I haven't had lunch yet today.

That sushi photo, looks good enough to eat.

Yum.
--
jason: http://www.jcwphoto.net

 

[sub-mariner]

I've heard that Sigma has an contract with Foveon to be the only camera manufacturer able to used the chip for a year. If true when the year is up other companies will be looking at Foveon real hard.

I haven't had lunch yet today.

That sushi photo, looks good enough to eat.

Yum.
--
jason: http://www.jcwphoto.net

 

[Steven]

and if I like it I will buy it . Details are very impressive.

Havn't had a chance to print them but the silkiness and vibrancy of
the colours is very impressive. I especially liked the subtle tones
in Phil's dinner.

This is not a 1Ds killer but at the price point suggested and
bundled with a couple of Sigma zooms this could become the first
DSLR for many new adopters. Sigma will be able to offer killer
deals on this body with a couple of Sigma zooms.

I wouldn't buy one (I have too much EOS mount [Sigma] glass +
550EX) to jump ship. But if I didn't, this looks like an excellent
package at a competitice price.

--
Steven
D30
22-55
24-85
28-80 L
80-200L
100-300L
50 1.8
2x Tamron
420ex

 

[Dolan Halbrook]

Yeesh, people. The dude used a Macro lens (50/2.8) for these shots -- that's about as sharp as you get. The Sigma 50/2.8 would bury a Canon 50/1.8 any day of the week in that category -- if it didn't it would be a pretty pathetic Macro lens. Notice how Canon's 50/2.5 is also sharper than the 50/1.8 or the vaunted 50/1.4. Argue with these ratings:

http://www.photozone.de/2Equipment/easytxt.htm#Zuw

The benefits of the Canon mount are choice and build quality, but not necessarily optical quality.

But you got to admit that there is great details in the pictures
with leaves in them. I mean even if the glass is not the best, the
sensor captures great detail. I wonder how the sensor would perform
with L glass in front of it

--
Joel
http://www.pbase.com/joels/galleries
http://www.pbase.com/joels/my_favorites
'A common mistake people make when trying to design something
completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete
fools.'

 

[Andrey Tverdokhleb]

Don't take it too close. Most people just want nice looking images straight from their cameras, some kind of internal "Auto Levels" function. SD9 is for them since they don't care if this image useless for farther processing. I understand them and agree that it makes sense in most of cases. They often believe that unsharp mask suppose to fix some flaw in sensor and don't understand that this is more about human perception, than sensors. And that good HI-Res image should look "flat" and "soft" from the beginning, because this way we preserve maximum amount of information about original scene and can process image with few mouse clicks in photoshop up to great looking photo.

Andrey

 

[Greg M]

Can't Sigma change the mounts for you?

Havn't had a chance to print them but the silkiness and vibrancy of
the colours is very impressive. I especially liked the subtle tones
in Phil's dinner.

This is not a 1Ds killer but at the price point suggested and
bundled with a couple of Sigma zooms this could become the first
DSLR for many new adopters. Sigma will be able to offer killer
deals on this body with a couple of Sigma zooms.

I wouldn't buy one (I have too much EOS mount [Sigma] glass +
550EX) to jump ship. But if I didn't, this looks like an excellent
package at a competitice price.

 

[Greg M]

They look terrific. Look at the leaves on the tree.

I have to go along here. I am really impressed with these images.
And with no post processing in flat light. Imagine some
professionally done photos. I can't wait to see them.

I won't buy it though. I don't want to be forced to buy only sigma
lenses. Some of them are good but not very many. Plus, I rely on
buying used to maximize my investment. I doubt that you will see
many used Sigma mount lenses on Ebay.

With the prices of Sigma lenses you don't have to buy used. Plus over the last year Sigma has greatly improved their EX lenses. They have got a pretty good spread of lenses to choose from. Sure they aren't Canon or Nikon, yet. It looks to me that they are trying to move into the higher quality lenses along with keeping their cheap versions.

I think that it was a big mistake for Sigma to use it's own lenses
for this camera. It will limit their sales much more than choosing

This I disagree with. Why on earth would they not choose their own mount? They have many very good lenses and they continue to add to there line.

an established line. Who in their right mind is going to sell their
Nikon or Canon system to go to Sigma.

Not many who are on this forum would but there are many future buyers who will look at the price differences and jump on the Sigma.

We will have to wait and see the ultimate quality and useability of
this camera. But, with the new crop os 11-14mp cameras I am afraid
that this one will become a passing marvel that came out too late.

Not if you look at the price gap.

--
Thanks & God Bless,
Chuck
D30, Canon 24-85 USM, Sigma 24 f2.8, Sigma 70-200 f2.8 APO HSM,
Sigma 2x APO teleconverter, BG-ED3 Battery Grip, 1 gig microdrive,
340 MB microdrive & accumulating.

 

[JohnM31499]

I know there's no TIFF file for the apple, but am I missing
something? The noise in the apple shot is terrible!

That was shot at ISO 400, roughly what I'd expect in terms of noise.

So what, that is WAY too much noise for ISO 400.

-John

 

[Steven Noyes]

The sensors using the bayer algorithm look soft because they have to.
It is difficult to get a sharp transition between color boundaries so
an USM is used to exaggerate the contrast differences. These pictures
have NO in camera processing. None at all. No saturation increase.
No sharpening. The data in the camera is RAW. I do not know what the
dynamic range is but I am guessing 10 to 12 bits. Similar to the
D30/D60.

But these images appear sharper than the D30/D60/1D out of the camera BEFORE
sharpening is applied. What this means is that there is MUCH more
latitude to tweak the images compared to the other DSLRs.

As for "flat"??? That is more of how the curves are applied when doing
the color mapping.

Steven

Don't take it too close. Most people just want nice looking images
straight from their cameras, some kind of internal "Auto Levels"
function. SD9 is for them since they don't care if this image
useless for farther processing. I understand them and agree that it
makes sense in most of cases. They often believe that unsharp mask
suppose to fix some flaw in sensor and don't understand that this
is more about human perception, than sensors. And that good HI-Res
image should look "flat" and "soft" from the beginning, because
this way we preserve maximum amount of information about original
scene and can process image with few mouse clicks in photoshop up
to great looking photo.

Andrey

--
---
My really bad summer pictures:
http://www.pbase.com/snoyes/summer_travels

 

[Greg M]

I would point the finger on the Sigma lens and not the Foveon
sensor. My now lowly D30, Canon 50mm 1.8 combination produces
significantly superior images. That's why I hate to upgrade to
anything else.
--
Sincerely,
Y. Chachad
Shoot The World
http://www.pbase.com/eastrace

 

[Leah]

Here are the specs from SSD. Phil has said only up to 400 ISO so they have that wrong...and the autofocus operating range seems to be in question. SSD lists EV -1 to 18 while everyone else says EV 2 to 18. Wish someone knew which it was!

I had a D60 image that was "close" to the same situation as the SD9 swimgoggle pic...I said close, I know the lighting and distance are definately different, but just for a general comparison I thought you guys might also want to compare:

D60
http://www.pbase.com/image/5172707

SD9
http://img.dpreview.com/news/0209/sigmasd9/swimgoggles244.jpg

Leah

SD9 Digital SLR X3 Technology

Detailed Specifications from SSD
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Main Specifications:

Camera type Interchangeable Lens SLR Type Digital Camera

Storage media CompactFlashTM (CF) (Type I/II), MicroDrive

Image sensor size 13.8 x 20.7mm

Usable lenses Sigma SA Series

Angle of view Equivalent to 1.7x the focal length of a lens when used on a 35mm SLR camera. Image sensor FOVEON X3 (CMOS), Total pixels: 3.54 Mpx3 Effective:
3.43Mpx3

Aspect ratio 3 : 2

Image recording format Lossless compression RAW data
Resolution HI: 2268x1512 x3
MED: 1134x756 x3
LOW: 756x504 x3

Interfaces IEEE1394, USB, Video out

White balance 8 types

Viewfinder type Pentaprism SLR viewfinder

Viewfinder frame coverage 98%

Viewfinder magnification 0.75x

Eye point 22mm

Diopter adjust range -2dpt ~ +1dpt

Focusing screen Fixed, Full matte screen

Auto focus type TTL phase difference detection system

AF operating range Ev-1 ~ +18 (ISO100)

Focus mode Single AF, Continuous AF (AF predict function)

Metering systems 8 segment evaluative metering, Average metering, Center area metering Metering range Ev1-20 (with 50mm f1.4 at ISO 100)

Exposure mode P: Program AE (with program shift function), S: Shutter speed priority AE, A: Aperture priority AE M: Manual exposure ISO sensitivity ISO 100, 200, 400, 800

Exposure compensation + -3Ev (in 1/2 steps)

AE Lock AE Lock (Exposure settings are locked while the shutter button in depressed.) Auto bracketing Three different exposure levels: Appropriate, Under and Over exposure: Maximum variation of + -3Ev in 1/2 steps. Shutter type Vertical traveled metal focal plane shutter, electronically controlled through entire speed range. Shutter speed 1/6000 to 30sec., Bulb, X=1/180 sec.

External flash synchronization Hot shoe (contact X synchronized at 1/180sec or less with dedicated flash linking contact) LCD monitor display 1.8" Color TFT LCD with 130,000 dot low-temp polysilicon

Reviewing images Single-image display, Zoom-in display, 9 segments simultaneous display, slide show Language Japanese/English/French/German

Power source Battery Lithium CR123A x 2 pcs
Lithium CR-V3 x 2 pcs.
"AA" alkaline dry cell x 4 pcs
Ni-Mh x 4 pcs.

AC adapter

Dimensions and weight 152mm/6" (W) x 120mm/4.72"(H) x 79mm/3.1" (D)
Weight: 803g/28.4oz

I would point the finger on the Sigma lens and not the Foveon
sensor. My now lowly D30, Canon 50mm 1.8 combination produces
significantly superior images. That's why I hate to upgrade to
anything else.
--
Sincerely,
Y. Chachad
Shoot The World
http://www.pbase.com/eastrace

 

[QueenAnnesRevenge]

NT
--
Jon
D60
Canon 50mm 1.8
Canon 28-135 f3.5-5.6 IS USM
Canon 75-300 f4-5.6 IS USM

 

[steve reed]

Actually, I'm not sure there is "no sharpening" applied. Phil says there is "no additional sharpening" applied.

I would not be surprised if a little extra sharpening is applied during the Raw to Tiff conversion. (same as Canon's RAW converter)

That might some of the extra noise as well.

-Steve Reed

But these images appear sharper than the D30/D60/1D out of the
camera BEFORE
sharpening is applied. What this means is that there is MUCH more
latitude to tweak the images compared to the other DSLRs.

As for "flat"??? That is more of how the curves are applied when doing
the color mapping.

Steven

Don't take it too close. Most people just want nice looking images
straight from their cameras, some kind of internal "Auto Levels"
function. SD9 is for them since they don't care if this image
useless for farther processing. I understand them and agree that it
makes sense in most of cases. They often believe that unsharp mask
suppose to fix some flaw in sensor and don't understand that this
is more about human perception, than sensors. And that good HI-Res
image should look "flat" and "soft" from the beginning, because
this way we preserve maximum amount of information about original
scene and can process image with few mouse clicks in photoshop up
to great looking photo.

Andrey

--
---
My really bad summer pictures:
http://www.pbase.com/snoyes/summer_travels

 

[Yatin Chachad]

I agree the pics are smooth, they just aren't breathtakingly impressive.

As a former user of D30(one year) and D60(several months), I swear
the sigma can easily blow out them in both resolution and
smoothness.

Time to think hard...

I don't know what the actual car color is (haven't seen it), what
the girls complexion looks like (don't know her), or what the color
of the box is suppose to be (never had 'em). So how in the heck
does anyone know if they are acurate or not? No one here does so we
can only ask are they pleasing and vibrant and I say yes on both
accounts.

Might not want to admit it but there is now more competition in
town. It's about time the consumers stopped getting ripped off by
DLSR manufacturers.

I would point the finger on the Sigma lens and not the Foveon
sensor. My now lowly D30, Canon 50mm 1.8 combination produces
significantly superior images. That's why I hate to upgrade to
anything else.
--
Sincerely,
Y. Chachad
Shoot The World
http://www.pbase.com/eastrace

--
Dave

http://www.pbase.com/davenit/fp

--
Darkness is made up of dark particles.

--
Sincerely,
Y. Chachad
Shoot The World
http://www.pbase.com/eastrace

 

[Yatin Chachad]

NT
--
Jon
D60
Canon 50mm 1.8
Canon 28-135 f3.5-5.6 IS USM
Canon 75-300 f4-5.6 IS USM

--
Sincerely,
Y. Chachad
Shoot The World
http://www.pbase.com/eastrace