DP1- A Quick Look

[photogdave]

Had a chance to briefly hold a DP1 down at the camera shop before they sold both of them - literally within minutes of hitting the shelf.
The screen sucks! The refresh rate seems ridiculously slow with a lot of lag as I panned the camera around. Did the same with the LX2 and the screen followed along in real time no problem. The menu seemed kind of glitchy too.
Anyway, I only had about four seconds with the camera so I can't say anything else!

 

[kdemas]

DP-1 Waiting at Home

DP-1 Waiting at Home

I posted this in another forum so I don't want to be repetitive but I got mine in the mail yesterday. All I can say is the quality of the images had better be good because the quality of the package is really weak. I am not a Sigma hater, some nice lenses, but this thing feels really cheap in the habd with crappy ergonomics.

I have a GRDII, a D-Lux 3 and an older Contax TVS-D and all 3 are built better by a light year. That said, if the pictures are incredible this all may be a bit moot, I'll let you know.

Kent

 

[Keith]

Here's hoping there's a trend here ... the M8 comes with fabulous packaging! :angel:

 

[mangamonster]

Interesting.

I've been following the DPReview Sigma forums for DP1 info and haven't heard anything bad about it at all. Surprisingly, it's getting praised bigtime...much more than I had anticipated. There's a few early reviews on there as well which are pretty much stating that it's a revolutionary camera in many aspects, and as far as craftsmanship is concerned, everyone is saying it's built like a tank.

There have been reports of blown out flaring and bad red reproduction but everyone expects this to be fixed in the next firmware update.

There are a couple things that made me shy away from this pretty little camera...slower than average write speeds and sluggish AF.

check out popphoto for a nice review 😉

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Mine's on the way. I'll be shooting a bunch of stuff with it next week and will report here, if people are interested.

There have been lots of complaints about the slow write times (evidently they are cut by two thirds with an Extreme III card), lame AF, and poor low light performance. But if the Foveon images are as good as some samples I've seen would suggest, I don't think I'm really going to give a crap!

 

[mangamonster]

Mine's on the way. I'll be shooting a bunch of stuff with it next week and will report here, if people are interested.

There have been lots of complaints about the slow write times (evidently they are cut by two thirds with an Extreme III card), lame AF, and poor low light performance. But if the Foveon images are as good as some samples I've seen would suggest, I don't think I'm really going to give a crap!

yup, I ordered a Class 6 SDHC card which should bring down the raw write speed to 2-2.5 seconds. Has to be a class 6 card though. I ordered my 8 GB Transcend SDHC Class 6 card last week from newegg for $29....good stuff.

What really has made my week is that my amazon preorder was canceled and pushed back to May/Jun...so I canceled the order altogether. I'll just have to wait until the DP2 to come out with the rumored f2 prime lens 🙂

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

What really has made my week is that my amazon preorder was canceled and pushed back to May/Jun...so I canceled the order altogether. I'll just have to wait until the DP2 to come out with the rumored f2 prime lens 🙂

Same thing happened to me...so I went over to B&H, and voila, it said in stock. So I bought one. Five minutes later, out of stock. Bizarre! I should have it monday.

Anyway, I said in another thread, I'll do a little Foveon/Kodachrome shootout or something, if I can make some time to do it!

 

[Ronald_H]

If Sigma listens, things will get better. It seems to be a highly anticipated camera and I would bet that Sigma will be overwhelmed by demand initially.

Even if it has all the flaws mentioned, it is still the best in class, because it is the ONLY one in its class. But it would be ironic if Canon/Nikon etc. steal from its thunder by introducing big sensored compacts soon.

If they take the plunge and make an interchangable lens version of it... they will probably conquer the world.

 

[mangamonster]

Well, what get's me excited about these new high quality fixed lens compacts coming out on the market is that they represent the 'digital' versions of their 'famous' film counterparts. I'm talking about P&S compacts such as the Minolta TC-1, Ricoh GR1, Contax T3 and so on. These film cameras were considered prosumer P&S cameras...they were pricey, but damn, they produced some of the nicest images I've ever seen.

I think this trend is starting with digital compacts, as we have seen with the Ricoh GRD, GRDII and now the DP1. I truly hope others will follow this trend, because I'm a big fan of this niche market 🙂

 

[retow]

I received my DP1 on Friday and went out shooting yesterday.
Yes, its Raw write speed is slower than the GRDII's and the G9's and the AF is somewhat sluggish. Using a fast card and turning off preview helps improving speed though.
UI is not as good as with the GRDII, but in this respect, the Ricoh is simply the best. Also, the DP1 does not lay as comfortably and almost naturally in the hand as the GRD does.

Forget the badmouthing of the DP1's allegedly inferior build quality. It is up there with the best, built like a tank. And unlike with some Ricoh's, no wobbling around the lens.

However, after downloading my first DP1 raw files and converting them (simple batch processing, no fancy stuff), I knew, all of the above does not matter.
IQ wise this camera is in a different league than all the highly praised small sensor cameras. I'm truly excited that Sigma has raised the IQ bar for serious compact digital's to an extent which will force competition to rethink their strategies. If IQ matters most and landscape/cityscape shooting is what you enjoy, I think the DP1 wins hands down among the compact digitals.
😀

 

[shadowfox]

... and please don't color your fonts black. It's hard to read on dark grey background.