Amazing quality

Sigma SD 14 after enlargement

Canon 450D

I bought this camera for 150€ on ebay, mainly to test the Foveon sensor (I have a 1DsMarkII, a 5DMarkII, a Leica M9 and various canon bodies with APS-C sensors).I think that the future in 24x36 bodies belongs now to the Foveon, because the maximal possible density of pixels has now been reached on the bayer cameras with 50Mp (diffraction problems), which might explain the move of Fuji to the GFX 50S.

I use it with an M42 50mm 1.4 Pentax lens, that can also be used on my canons.

I am astonished by the quality of the image. I took exactly the same shot with it and with a 450D (APS-C, 10MP) and upscaled it to the same size as the 450D. Details are on par, maybe even "more pleasant" better than on the 450D. What is remarkable is the absence of "blotch" in dense foliage, which is unpleasant on the 450D.

I think sigma was really bad at marketing its foveon sensors cameras. If they had used a mount that could have been easily interfaced to canon lenses (as Sony did, and that could have been very easy for Sigma, as canon and sigma lenses share almost everything, from the lens-sensor distance to the electronic signals) these cameras could have been a hit.

WIth the SD1 now around 800€, I seriously think about buying one...

james123 wrote:

I am astonished by the quality of the [SD14] image. I took exactly the same shot with it and with a 450D (APS-C, 10MP) and upscaled it to the same size as the 450D. Details are on par, maybe even "more pleasant" better than on the 450D.

All the more astonishing when we consider that up-sampling inevitably reduces image quality - especially when done for comparison purposes.

If you want even better image quality shoot it at iso 50.  And the SD1M is a very different camera, much higher resolution with even better microcontrast to enhance fine detail, but the smaller pixels do produce more noise in the shadows and file processing takes around 15 seconds each. But it's definitely worth buying (if you can get it for a good price). And you will find its resolution is the Bayer equivalent of around 24-28 mp.

Amazing indeed.

One thing I noticed about the cropped images...the image from the Sigma shows  significantly more tonal detail in the highlights (the patch on the lower left) than does that of the Canon which appears rather flat and almost  void of any detail.

I've had my Sigma DP3 Merrill for about two years now and consider it's images to be the best I've ever captured with any digital camera.