Discovering the SD15...

So I bagged a mint condition SD15 complete with Sigma 18-50mm F2.8-4 lens all the way from Latvia for the princely sum of £190, which I consider to be quite a bargain. Judging by the condition of both camera and lens they had hardly been used. The file count is only around 1700 shots and the condition of both items reflects that. I bought it for infrared shooting and having done some tests with the combination it works very well. I've mounted an old Helios optical viewfinder in the hotshoe which is marked 35mm, 85mm and 135mm so I can recompose after putting the IR72 filter on the lens and switching to manual focus and it all works as I'd hoped. The lens is not bad at all, not Sigma Art quality but good enough for my purposes.
When I processed the X3F files I discovered that Lightroom 4 actually supports SD15 X3F's, which was a pleasant surprise to me. Not only that but it doesn't do a bad job with them either so happy days. I also learned that focusing is a bit flaky on the SD15, sometimes it's a bit hit and miss so you have to be careful. You also have to sharpen the X3F's from the SD15 by quite a bit, which isn't how I remember the files from the DP2X, which I think has the same sensor, the colour definitely seems the same as the 2X anyway, which is good as I liked it, the dynamic range also seems pretty much the same and a bit more forgiving than the Merrills.

Anyway, overall I'm pleased with the set-up, a typical Sigma cam, no frills, does what it says on the tin, though I do like the mirror lock up being on a dial and the bracketing feature, which is neat. Hopefully we'll get some decent sun this weekend so I can do some IR shooting and post back.

The SD15 is not supported by Adobe ACR, in Lightroom or Photoshop.  The last camera supported was the SD14.  While files from your SD15 will open in ACR, they will not process correctly.  Use SPP for RAW conversion.

Peter A. Stavrakoglou wrote:

The SD15 is not supported by Adobe ACR, in Lightroom or Photoshop. The last camera supported was the SD14. While files from your SD15 will open in ACR, they will not process correctly. Use SPP for RAW conversion.

Well they looked ok to me so I'll not worry too much about it.

papillon_65 wrote:

So I bagged a mint condition SD15 complete with Sigma 18-50mm F2.8-4 lens all the way from Latvia for the princely sum of £190, which I consider to be quite a bargain. Judging by the condition of both camera and lens they had hardly been used.

Hmmph! My new-in-box SD14, ordered 5 days ago, hasn't even shipped from Amazon yet, grrr.

Anyway, overall I'm pleased with the set-up, a typical Sigma cam, no frills, does what it says on the tin, though I do like the mirror lock up being on a dial and the bracketing feature, which is neat. Hopefully we'll get some decent sun this weekend so I can do some IR shooting and post back.

Quite tempted to pop the filter out of the current SD14, now we've got some sun around here  . . .

papillon_65 wrote:

Peter A. Stavrakoglou wrote:

The SD15 is not supported by Adobe ACR, in Lightroom or Photoshop. The last camera supported was the SD14. While files from your SD15 will open in ACR, they will not process correctly. Use SPP for RAW conversion.

Well they looked ok to me so I'll not worry too much about it.

Peter is right to an extent, especially re: SD14. The SD15 colors were not quite right in ACR, if I recall correctly, even though the X#F could be opened and would display a review image. I find similar for FastStone Viewer - both for DP1s and Merrill X3F and, yes, FSV does decode X3Fs if you set it to.

Still, for IR or even full-spectrum work, color accuracy is virtually irrelevant, is it not? I've had pleasant results from RawDigger RGB exports for SD10, SD14 and SD1M, they come out not so insanely pink.

Looking forward to seeing your stuff . . .

xpatUSA wrote:

papillon_65 wrote:

Peter A. Stavrakoglou wrote:

The SD15 is not supported by Adobe ACR, in Lightroom or Photoshop. The last camera supported was the SD14. While files from your SD15 will open in ACR, they will not process correctly. Use SPP for RAW conversion.

Well they looked ok to me so I'll not worry too much about it.

Peter is right to an extent, especially re: SD14. The SD15 colors were not quite right in ACR, if I recall correctly, even though the X#F could be opened and would display a review image. I find similar for FastStone Viewer - both for DP1s and Merrill X3F and, yes, FSV does decode X3Fs if you set it to.

Still, for IR or even full-spectrum work, color accuracy is virtually irrelevant, is it not? I've had pleasant results from RawDigger RGB exports for SD10, SD14 and SD1M, they come out not so insanely pink.

I do all my black and white stuff in the Silver efex plug-in from Lightroom so I have to go through it really.

Looking forward to seeing your stuff . . .

Thanks, hoping to get in the forest this weekend, no shortage of green stuff in there at the moment.

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Pedantry is not a felony.
Ted

xpatUSA wrote:

papillon_65 wrote:

So I bagged a mint condition SD15 complete with Sigma 18-50mm F2.8-4 lens all the way from Latvia for the princely sum of £190, which I consider to be quite a bargain. Judging by the condition of both camera and lens they had hardly been used.

Hmmph! My new-in-box SD14, ordered 5 days ago, hasn't even shipped from Amazon yet, grrr.

Well the Latvian Postal system must be uber efficient, only took two days to get here in the UK.

Anyway, overall I'm pleased with the set-up, a typical Sigma cam, no frills, does what it says on the tin, though I do like the mirror lock up being on a dial and the bracketing feature, which is neat. Hopefully we'll get some decent sun this weekend so I can do some IR shooting and post back.

Quite tempted to pop the filter out of the current SD14, now we've got some sun around here . .

Should work as well as the SD15 for IR stuff and popping the dust protector/Filter out is no biggie. I also lkie it because you get to shoot when normally you'd do the opposite due to the harsh light.

.

-- hide signature --

Pedantry is not a felony.
Ted

An amazing, immortal camera, the colors are appealing, love mine.

I ordered my SD15 from Sigma Outlet this past Wednesday at about 1:00 PM. I received it this morning at about 10:00. At the Outlet web page they state that your camera could be refurbished, a return, or old/new stock. From the looks of my camera, I got lucky and received a new camera.

I popped in the Pentax M42 adapter and have been playing around with a couple of my Pentax M42 lenses. JPEGs look pretty good. I haven't recorded any RAW files yet.

For $399, I could not pass on it. Oddly enough, it has the same feel as my Merrills: sort of like one of the Merrills has morphed into a DSLR and developed a few more aggravating little quirks along the way. I think I am going to like it.

Here are a couple of my first shots with the Pentax lenses

Pentax M42 Takumar 200mm 1:3.5, Sigma SD15

Pentax Macro Takumar 50mm 1:4, Sigma SD15

tennjed wrote:

I ordered my SD15 from Sigma Outlet this past Wednesday at about 1:00 PM. I received it this morning at about 10:00. At the Outlet web page they state that your camera could be refurbished, a return, or old/new stock. From the looks of my camera, I got lucky and received a new camera.

I popped in the Pentax M42 adapter and have been playing around with a couple of my Pentax M42 lenses. JPEGs look pretty good. I haven't recorded any RAW files yet.

For $399, I could not pass on it. Oddly enough, it has the same feel as my Merrills: sort of like one of the Merrills has morphed into a DSLR and developed a few more aggravating little quirks along the way. I think I am going to like it.

Yes I think I'll like mine, basic and old school, I always like that, and the feel that you're not one of the pack.

tennjed wrote:

Here are a couple of my first shots with the Pentax lenses

Pentax M42 Takumar 200mm 1:3.5, Sigma SD15

Pentax Macro Takumar 50mm 1:4, Sigma SD15

How did you find the manual focusing? I have a super tak 55m F1.8 which I will be trying on mine when the adapter arrives.

The screen is not ideal as it is small and does not appear to be real contrasty. Images do not jump into focus with the two Pentax lenses I have tried. The autofocus indicator is not even close. However, I think it is good enough.

The two images are from the first 50 images that I have shot with this camera. As you can see, the focus is not perfect, but I believe I will get better as I practice. This weekend I will get a few shots with my Zeiss M42 50 1.4. As far as manual focus lenses go, the optics on that lens cause the image to virtually leap into focus on my Pentax cameras. It will provide the real test.

So .... then we are back to the pre Merrill color look. Flower photos with strangely colored and desaturated greens. That is a property for the sensor found in all the pre Merrill DP cameras and SD14 and SD15.

And, of course, SD9 and SD10 had other color problems. Foveon blue skies and yellow skins, anyone?

I would say that Merrill and Quattro are the only sensors with natural looking colors. At least out of the box.

maceoQ wrote:

Roland Karlsson wrote:

So .... then we are back to the pre Merrill color look. Flower photos with strangely colored and desaturated greens. That is a property for the sensor found in all the pre Merrill DP cameras and SD14 and SD15.

I don't know where this comes from. The SD15 is (in general) known for very good color.

Yes it is - in particular compared to SD14.

But - IMHO - the sensors that are found in the SD14 to SD15 generation of cameras has a hard time handling flower pictures. If you choose to get the petal colors correct, then the green is often desaturated and a strange color. Just look at this image. No green greens there.

The main issue for me was the highlight clipping and relatively low resolution for bigger prints.
I wish my SD1 could produce this result (without photoshop) in such situations:

ISO400, auto WB

One of the main disadvantages of Merrill and Quattro is noise. The two lower RAW channels are very noisy. Something you have to correct when doing color conversion. But ... there is a limit to what you can do.

We in Kalpanika have, just as Sigma, managed to tame the noise in Merrill and Quattro. But, it did take some rather exotic noise reduction of the two lower layers before doing the conversion.

If you are referring to the shots that I included with my previous post, I have the picture settings at -.6 saturation. It was one of the things I changed, right out of the box.  Generally speaking, I find most cameras over saturate.

tennjed wrote:

If you are referring to the shots that I included with my previous post, I have the picture settings at -.6 saturation. It was one of the things I changed, right out of the box. Generally speaking, I find most cameras over saturate.

Do you have a calibrated monitor?

DMillier wrote:

The greens here do have rather a SD9 greyness to them. In fact the whole image looks to have very greyish, low contrast look. I think this is likely to more a processing choice than the sensor.

I tried to adjust the colors. Increasing saturation made the nearby greens good, but the grass in the background still was grey, even though it is in the sun. The blue flower though got a tendency of over saturation before the nearby green looked good. I think it is the same problem as always. The color space is seriously bent, like space in the Einstein universe. It is possible to correct, but you need to do serious stuff.

My sense is that Foveon colour becomes more believable and more "Bayerish" with every Foveon generation. The SD9 in particular is peculiar, the SD14 can do nice looking colour if you can tame its tendency to green-yellow overall casts. But for me all the early cameras tended to do odd things to some colours and tended to respond dramatically to the colour temperature of the light. I don't like my SD9 or Sd14 in warmish light, it gets far to yellow/warm looking for my taste. The newer cameras, incl the SD15 seem to have a much cooler rendition that I prefer. The quattros seem to be the most "normal" of all. Some people might think they are too Bayer like?

Good to hear you guys are still hard at work with your dev work, is any kind of progress report hint possible?

As usual ... things are not progressing as fast as you want and first estimated. But ... something is going to happen.