Sigma fp L: first comments & questions

SandyF

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My new fp L arrived from Japan this afternoon. I've assembled, charged, taken 78 preliminary photos indoors, none are online.

My fp L, unopened box, seems to be the basic body, but it did come with the attachable hot shoe, which works with the little flash I'd bought for the dp3Quattro, but seldom used.

Note the hot shoe attachment interferes with charging the one included BP 51 battery while it's in the camera. A cord is provided to do so, but no battery charger (for a wall plug).

First question for anyone with a dp3Quattro or other DPx Quattro which uses a BP51 battery. Are they the same battery? Can we use the batteries and charger which came with the dp3Quattro for the fp L??

The battery situation is my only complaint today about the fp L. It is indeed small and light weight compared to other cameras, esp 60 MP full frames! Nice in hand, to shoot, view/review. The buttons and controls make sense to anyone used to other Sigmas.

First priority is figuring out which Sigma and Canon lenses I can use. I bought a Sigma MC-21 SA to L converter new from Japan at about half the US$cost. I found an Ommlite Canon EF to L converter eBay US for about US$89. Works fine. Out of stock at Adorama and most places.

First, lenses which work fine, full features, controls, auto focus, seem sharp: 18-300mm (C) and I'll assume the 30mm Art. My 17-70mm OS years old works fine. However older 28-70mm and Sigma 50mmEX Macro did not focus well even though the 50mm is fine on the sd Quattro. Old 17-35mm works fine with auto focus, full features.

I haven't tried many Canon lenses yet. The older Sigma 50mm f/2.8 Macro EF mount: no. The Canon 40mm pancake, my fav small Canon lens seems excellent on the fp L, thankfully. I'll try other lenses tomorrow and get some outside photos.

It's a nice, snappy, small, high MP camera. Very pleased thus far.
 
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First question for anyone with a dp3Quattro or other DPx Quattro which uses a BP51 battery. Are they the same battery? Can we use the batteries and charger which came with the dp3Quattro for the fp L??

The battery situation is my only complaint today about the fp L.
I would examine the markings on the battery case to see if they identical to those of your Quattros. If so, I would be confident that the Quattro batteries would work.

Long ago I had some third-party batteries for my SD1 Merrill that needed some grooves to be widened so they would physically fit; the batteries were OK electrically ... same voltage, same connections, na-ni-na ...

--
What you got is not what you saw.
 
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My new fp L arrived from Japan this afternoon. I've assembled, charged, taken 78 preliminary photos indoors, none are online.

My fp L, unopened box, seems to be the basic body, but it did come with the attachable hot shoe, which works with the little flash I'd bought for the dp3Quattro, but seldom used.

Note the hot shoe attachment interferes with charging the one included BP 51 battery while it's in the camera. A cord is provided to do so, but no battery charger (for a wall plug).

First question for anyone with a dp3Quattro or other DPx Quattro which uses a BP51 battery. Are they the same battery? Can we use the batteries and charger which came with the dp3Quattro for the fp L??

The battery situation is my only complaint today about the fp L. It is indeed small and light weight compared to other cameras, esp 60 MP full frames! Nice in hand, to shoot, view/review. The buttons and controls make sense to anyone used to other Sigmas.

First priority is figuring out which Sigma and Canon lenses I can use. I bought a Sigma t tried many Canon lenses yet. The older Sigma 50mm f/2.8 Macro EF mount: no. The Canon 40mm pancake, my fav small Canon lens seems excellent on the fp L, thankfully. I'll try other lenses tomorrow and get some outside photos.

It's a nice, snappy, small, high MP camera. Very pleased thus far.
Sandy,

It takes the same batteries as the dp Quattros, the BP 51. The Panasonic DMW- BLC 12 is the same battery or any other third party equivalent will do. The same charger will do all of them.
 
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Congratulations Sandy! Please shoot some photos of your new fp L, with various lenses on it (including that 40mm Canon), and post them here for us to see it.

:)

I look forward to seeing some of your photos and pairs of comparison shots, which I'm sure you'll be posting here in this thread.
 
Super, then I should be set for now. I have 2 extra batteries for the DP3Quattro plus the screen viewer. The 2 cameras could be a nice shooting combination.

Disadvantage of using multiple cameras is potentially multiple battery systems. Last time I traveled, I had 3 different battery systems.
 
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My new fp L ...It is indeed small and light weight compared to other cameras, esp 60 MP full frames!




7048cabaffb647d3b03014a8e2c5cc74.jpg.png

The 60 MP FF camera on the right is the only one of the two that has an EVF, a swivelling back screen, IBIS, and a hand grip, and weighs 88g more.
 
My new fp L ...It is indeed small and light weight compared to other cameras, esp 60 MP full frames!
7048cabaffb647d3b03014a8e2c5cc74.jpg.png

The 60 MP FF camera on the right is the only one of the two that has an EVF, a swivelling back screen, IBIS, and a hand grip, and weighs 88g more.
But it isn't L mount.

;)

--
Scott Barton Kennelly
 
My new fp L ...It is indeed small and light weight compared to other cameras, esp 60 MP full frames!
7048cabaffb647d3b03014a8e2c5cc74.jpg.png

The 60 MP FF camera on the right is the only one of the two that has an EVF, a swivelling back screen, IBIS, and a hand grip, and weighs 88g more.
But it isn't L mount.

;)
It cost more too. Yes, adding the EVF to the Sigma can put them near the same price. But the FP-L can be had on sale for under $2k if one doesn't want the EVF. I never use the view finder on any camera I own so I had no problem with the FP-L not having one. The lack of IBIS, small battery, and no tilting screen is a definite negative but I've grown to love the FP-L in spite of it's lackings. I never originally intended to do terrestrial photography with it. I got it for astrophotography and had it an astronomy conversion done on it. Small and few features were ideal for that. The heat dissipation qualities of the FP-L also meant better long exposure performance than a camera that can overheat. It was only later after I got a Lumix S1R that I decided to try terrestrial photography with it since it shares the same L mount as the S1R.
 
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My new fp L ...It is indeed small and light weight compared to other cameras, esp 60 MP full frames!
7048cabaffb647d3b03014a8e2c5cc74.jpg.png

The 60 MP FF camera on the right is the only one of the two that has an EVF, a swivelling back screen, IBIS, and a hand grip, and weighs 88g more.
But it isn't L mount.

;)
LOL good point!

--
There’s some sort of something out yonder
Can’t see it; it’s too far to wander.
“Instead,” said his friends
“Use a much longer lens
And then you’ll no longer need ponder.”
© Gregory Simpson
 
My new fp L arrived from Japan this afternoon. I've assembled, charged, taken 78 preliminary photos indoors, none are online.
When you put some up, will they be fully processed to your taste? Or will there be any un-processed SOOC? Or default SPP?
 
My new fp L arrived from Japan this afternoon. I've assembled, charged, taken 78 preliminary photos indoors, none are online.
When you put some up, will they be fully processed to your taste? Or will there be any un-processed SOOC? Or default SPP?
I'll bore everyone with lots of versions. Yesterday I shot crop, full size, I hope some OOC JPEG, lots of different ratio aspects, ie from 16.9 to 1.1 and crops to 5x. That turned my full frame Canon 40mm into a 200mm view! Definitely the fp L has lots of tricks. I'm about to download now to computer and SPP.
 
Ha ha, every day is a learning experience. It turns out I only shot small JPEGs yesterday, no DNG. I'll reset the camera for some larger and DNG files outside today. Here are two examples of OOC very small JPEGs, evaluative metering, daylight wb, single point focus with fpL + Canon 40mm pancake lens via Commlite EF to L converter, handheld seated; Aperture mode, auto focus, single point focus, auto ISO, standard colormode on camera, no boast to contrast, saturation or sharpness in camera (as I usually do on other cameras) no editing later. Colors are true if rather blah and no "punch." Sofa is indeed light green, old Japanese prints, one on left by Paul Jacoulet, one on right unknown artist of fish and iris. First shot 40mm at 40mm; second shot 40mm @ 5x setting = yielded 198mm

View attachment cbc80fe372e44ca7828a6c51f227600c.jpg

59d2b1349719425e96db5a978cef1ddd.jpg
 
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I get the feeling that you're having fun Sandy.

;)

"He was a good little monkey and always very curious." I can't read anything else on that tag, but that seems pretty good for 1/40 handheld, with no IBIS or optical IS. That lens looks to offer a pretty flat field . . . not a lot of field curvature, like most Sigma cameras in the wide to mid focal ranges seem to produce.

--
Scott Barton Kennelly
https://www.bigprintphotos.com
https://www.sigmaphotopro.com
https://www.sigmacamerapro.com
 
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I shot and processed some more versions from DNG files. They look better, even at ISO 2500 than the small OOC JPEGs. See my flickr feed for full info

36bfc1b5cab44a78b2eb1f134111fdea.jpg

268f2321df7947cea8fc5a52b6c830d2.jpg

Sandy Fleischmann | Flickr
 
Scott, choices, choices. I still haven't settled on what size really to shoot. Definitely DNG+ JPEG, but there are DNG size choices. I haven't made it outdoors yet with the camera. These photos are a bit noisy I realize, but it's not appearing as banded noise. Difficult set up of dark pictures backlit against a window. Anything over ISO 400 is high ISO to me....

That Canon 40mm pancake is the smallest lens I own and it seems as nice on fp L as on the big Canon 5DS.
 
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My best shot thus far is actually with flash 140S of indoor bouquet. I have this edited JPEG online with full shooting notes and file sizes, as well as the unedited OOC JPEG. Shooting middle size DNG + JPEG
Downloaded the SOOC and the 'edited' from flickr at the same size, 2048 wide.

The SOOC is about 10% blown (255/255) mainly in the red channel.

The edited version has much better tones (very few blown) and about 40% more detail/texture.

Nice flowers too ... :-D
 
Ted, thanks for the comments. I have some outdoor shots online now, from yesterday early evening. It was tricky to not blow out highlights outdoors, it was hot and bright and difficult walking, with the bugs, grass, uneven ground and heat. I'm still playing around with colormodes and crop aspect ratios.

Sandy Fleischmann | Flickr

Now I need to process sd Quattro and Canon photos I took in the Shenandoah park last Monday, looking for "diffraction" issues.
 
Ted, thanks for the comments.
You are most welcome!
I have some outdoor shots online now, from yesterday early evening. It was tricky to not blow out highlights outdoors, it was hot and bright and difficult walking, with the bugs, grass, uneven ground and heat. I'm still playing around with colormodes and crop aspect ratios.

Sandy Fleischmann | Flickr

Now I need to process sd Quattro and Canon photos I took in the Shenandoah park last Monday, looking for "diffraction" issues.
I remain interested in that aspect of your adventure ... :-)
 

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