I See The Sigma SD Quattro H Has Landed.

Keith said:
Excellent Eric ... I'll look forward to your thoughts though I have to say I'm probably not far away myself. I have a rent bond refund coming in the next few days so I suspect that will be the decider. I'll probably sell something as well because the whole digital collection is becoming a little ridiculous now! This will be my fourth Sigma and I'd quite like to sell the SD1M if this H is the goods but the reallity is it's (the SD1m) probably not really worth much used.
Click to expand...

Keith - the camera arrived yesterday. I had a chance to use it today as well as view images in SPP6. So these are initial impressions only.
The camera is solid and heavy. The build quality seems better than the SD1m.

The EVF is very good - much better than the optical viewfinder on the SD1m. The controls are very different from the SD1m but I am confident that I will get used to it.
The shutter is much louder than on the SD1m - even without a mirror!
The images are stunning. I haven't done the SD1m comparison yet but the images have the Foveon look.

There are some quirks. As you know, it shoots RAW, JPG, and DNG. I haven't shot DNG yet. The JPGs look great as do the XF3 files. I can't export a decent TIFF file from the XF3 file in SPP6. I read about this before the purchase and it seems to be so in my hands as well. There may be some trick to this that I don't know yet. So for now, I can't really use the XF3 files - that's a big disappointment. I will try DNG tomorrow.

Image size is also a little weird. The highest resolution is what is called an S-HI image size of 51M that can only be shot as a JPG. The default is a HI image size of 26M. HI can be shot in any of the three file formats. I don't see a large difference so far between HI RAW and S-HI JPG. But since I can't really use RAW because of the export problem, I will probably just use S-HI for now.

Only nine focus points but I don't need a zillion of those anyway. The operation is slow but a little faster than the SD1m. The colors look good. I am eager to compare that with SD1m soon.

Autofocus is not blinding fast but fast enough for me. I am not usually in a big hurry.

I have only shot so far with the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art lens. I will try other lenses over the coming days.

More soon as I learn more...
Eric
 
Eric T said:
Keith - the camera arrived yesterday. I had a chance to use it today as well as view images in SPP6. So these are initial impressions only.
The camera is solid and heavy. The build quality seems better than the SD1m.

The EVF is very good - much better than the optical viewfinder on the SD1m. The controls are very different from the SD1m but I am confident that I will get used to it.
The shutter is much louder than on the SD1m - even without a mirror!
The images are stunning. I haven't done the SD1m comparison yet but the images have the Foveon look.

There are some quirks. As you know, it shoots RAW, JPG, and DNG. I haven't shot DNG yet. The JPGs look great as do the XF3 files. I can't export a decent TIFF file from the XF3 file in SPP6. I read about this before the purchase and it seems to be so in my hands as well. There may be some trick to this that I don't know yet. So for now, I can't really use the XF3 files - that's a big disappointment. I will try DNG tomorrow.

Image size is also a little weird. The highest resolution is what is called an S-HI image size of 51M that can only be shot as a JPG. The default is a HI image size of 26M. HI can be shot in any of the three file formats. I don't see a large difference so far between HI RAW and S-HI JPG. But since I can't really use RAW because of the export problem, I will probably just use S-HI for now.

Only nine focus points but I don't need a zillion of those anyway. The operation is slow but a little faster than the SD1m. The colors look good. I am eager to compare that with SD1m soon.

Autofocus is not blinding fast but fast enough for me. I am not usually in a big hurry.

I have only shot so far with the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art lens. I will try other lenses over the coming days.

More soon as I learn more...
Eric
Click to expand...


Thanks Eric ... I really appreciate this quick report on your initial feelings about the camera. 🙂

The EVF being decent is really important to me because that was a let down on the SD1M when trying to focus manually which in poor light is really the only way to guarantee accuracy if doing a close up portrait. All the other stuff sounds acceptable and the usual 'you'll get used to it' philosophy that Sigma seems to delight in confronting it's customers with. I'm happy to venture into the beyond now and just need to check that the agent still has stock ... they were low last time I looked.
 
Keith - I learned more today. I can shoot in x3f format and export as an S-HI resolution jpg in SPP6. So I don't need to limit myself to shooting in the S-HI jpg format without a RAW file. I will try DNG tomorrow. I am getting more accustomed to the controls now.
The colors and dynamic range appear to exceed those of the SD1m but I won't do direct comparison testing until the weekend.
This will be heresy but I prefer the images on this new Sigma camera to those from the Sony A7rii. I can't explain it but the Sony photos appear to have no soul compared to what I get on the new Sigma. Of course, this is just a matter of personal taste and I know I am severely limited to low ISO and slow operation on the Sigma all the way around. But I am in no hurry. I can't wait to take this Sigma to Yosemite National Park in July.
Eager to hear your thoughts when yours arrives.
Eric
 
Eric T said:
Keith - I learned more today. I can shoot in x3f format and export as an S-HI resolution jpg in SPP6. So I don't need to limit myself to shooting in the S-HI jpg format without a RAW file. I will try DNG tomorrow. I am getting more accustomed to the controls now.
The colors and dynamic range appear to exceed those of the SD1m but I won't do direct comparison testing until the weekend.
This will be heresy but I prefer the images on this new Sigma camera to those from the Sony A7rii. I can't explain it but the Sony photos appear to have no soul compared to what I get on the new Sigma. Of course, this is just a matter of personal taste and I know I am severely limited to low ISO and slow operation on the Sigma all the way around. But I am in no hurry. I can't wait to take this Sigma to Yosemite National Park in July.
Eager to hear your thoughts when yours arrives.
Eric
Click to expand...

Good to hear Eric.
My day will come soon enough. 🙂
Just not in a hurry at the moment.
 
If I had a dollar for every time I've been to the Sigma retailers site and hovered over the 'buy' button ... I'd have around fifteen dollars to put towards the Quattro H.

Life's a bitch! lol 😀
 
Keith - took a few shots to compare the SD1m and Quattro H today. Used a DG lens (35mm f/1.4 A) and a DC lens (10-20 mm f/3.5) and the same settings on both cameras. I much prefer the look of the Quattro H images. They are little sharper and much better color - a bit warmer. The SD1m images are quite blue by comparison. The color issue is not such a big deal because it can be fixed in post. But I do like that the color looks more natural coming straight out of the camera.
One thing surprised me that shouldn't have. That is, with the DC lens, the corners are much sharper on the Quattro H compared to the SD1m. The difference is very large. Of course, this happens because the sensor is cropped a bit on the Quattro H with a DC lens. Therefore the corners on the Quattro H are not on the edge of the sensor for a DC lens. So I now see the advantage of using the DC lenses on the Quattro H - keep your DC lenses. I will try the 18-35 f/1.8 DC lens on the Quattro tomorrow. That should yield some nice results.
I prefer using the SD1m - quieter shutter, easier to takes lenses on and off, and some of the settings (such as program mode) are easier to change. But despite that, in my view, the Quattro H is a clearly superior camera - the images are much nicer.
More soon...
Eric
 
Eric,

Thanks for trying things out.
To be clear, the DC lenses can cover the H's sensor size? This would change my lens wish list.


Thank you,
 
Eric T said:
No, DC lenses are automatically cropped to APS-C size (1.5x) on the Quattro H.
Click to expand...

This isn't exactly correct. You can turn this feature off in the menus. And there are some DC lenses that cover the H sensor. I'm using the DC 30/1.4 and the DC 18-35 lenses. With the camera's crop feature turned off, the 30mm lens does not vignette. With the 18-35mm, it vignettes a bit at 18mm, but not at 19-35mm. These are the only two lenses I have, but I'd bet there are other DC lenses that can be used on the un-cropped H sensor without vignetting.
 
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