Thank you Larry.
I can't imagine prints of 20x30 inches from such a low resolution. If possible, please send me RAW from SD15, best landscape and detail, if possible, I will try to enlarge the image in Ligtroom (SuperRes). Then, in my experience, I will be able to make a 16x24 photo. But I have no experience with the SD15 camera. Is it possible to print an image larger than 16x24 from the SD15?
The documentation states that SD15 can also be extended to ISO50 - is that true?
Thanks Larry. Peter
I've used both the SD14 and SD15 extensively and they both have their advantages and disadvantages.
IMO the SD14 produced the best looking photos because of all Sigma cameras it is the only one that can produce noise free shadows and skies when shot at iso 50:
https://pbase.com/mikeearussi/sd14_iso_50
I've never seen any digital camera by any manufacturer produce a file as clean looking as the SD14, they all have some noise.
The advantage of the SD15 over the SD14 is a 21 shot raw buffer and 2x faster processing times (3 seconds vs 7 for the SD14). The colors are also cleaner and more accurate out of the camera but not as saturated as the SD14, especially the yellows.
A possible (albeit minor) advantage of the SD14 over the SD15 is that the raws can be processed accurately in ACR whereas ACR will open the SD15 raws but they don't look very good.
I've owned four SD14s and two SD15s and none of them autofocused correctly, though I would get the occasional lens that was accurate on one of my bodies. Nor was the focus screen accurate enough to ensure accurate manual focus.
In order to ensure accurate focus you have to ship the body and all your lenses into Sigma repair so all the lenses can be calibrated to that one body.
This also means if you're thinking of trying to use old manual focus lenses on any Sigma body (except for the Quattro ones with live view) your focus will be hit and miss. Of course if you're using focus stacking then you'll be fine.
As for your primary question regarding maximum enlargements, that depends on how fussy you are and also the subject matter. For "soft and fuzzy" subjects like flowers you can go quite large, even the occasional 20x30, but for landscapes with fine detail then no.
I shoot a lot of landscapes but use panostitching in order to get the level of detail I require (for my taste), and the SD15 with its 21 shot buffer is excellent for that. I even taught myself to handhold a panostitch up to 20 shots and get useable results. I also learned how to focus stack flowers handheld again because of that buffer.
So I would say that the SD15 is the most versatile SD body of that chip generation.
I now use the SD1M both because of it's much higher resolution and its ability to fine tune the AF. I wish it had the buffer and processing speed of the SD15 and the noise free skies of the SD14, but everything with Sigma is a tradeoff.
BTW, here is a very good test of the SD15:
https://www.optyczne.pl/138.1-Test_aparatu-Sigma_SD15-Wstęp.html
I don't know how to post raw files on dpreview, but if you PM me I can try that way nor will it allow me to post a 16 bit tiff, but here is a jpeg you can work with:
SD15 with 70mm macro at f4
This is a single shot of a 47 shot panostitch that made a 146.6mp file.
