Poll How many of you are going to buy a DP1 ?

Poll How many of you are going to buy a DP1 ?

  • Yes definitely

    Votes: 10 8.3%

  • No way! Digital is evil!

    Votes: 28 23.3%

  • I will wait for some reviews to pop up and then decide.

    Votes: 56 46.7%

  • I am happy with whatever digital compact I own, don't need another one!

    Votes: 26 21.7%
  • Total voters
    120
fgianni

fgianni

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A digital compact camera with 28mm fixed lens and an APS sized foveon sensor, I can't wait to get my hands on one, and I'm definitely going to buy one.

But how many fellow RFFers are tempted to the dark side by this unique camera?
 
I'm tempted but it's too early to tell. I'm not sure I like the f/4 max aperture and having to rely on higher iso's. And of course I need to see what it can do first.

Any rumors about the price?
 
I was tempted until I read some online reviews and comparisons of the Sigma SD14's chip, which is in the DP1. They were not favorable. I am looking forward to checking out the Ricoh GX100.
 
I'm curious about the camera as well, although I'm not the biggest fan of the faveon sensor.

Colors seem to mingle on the chip and I notice some artifacts in test shots.

I am, however, very interested in a small pocket camera w/ a full sized, if still a minute 4.7mp image resolution, sensor camera. The lens is really slow for me though.

The Ricoh GX100 looks good to me as well.

Some reviews are needed though, I'm waiting for that to make my final verdict.
-peter
 
I just upgraded my mobile phone. I now have a 3.2mp Sony Cybershot attached inside the chassis of a Sony-Ericsson phone. I'm set for now :D
 
While it's true that the foveon sensor is more noisy at high ISO than similar sizes bayer sensors, it is still significantly better than the small sensors used in digital compacts.
Also if you look at the some of the samples by Olga Vasilkova (http://www.pbase.com/sigmadslr/olga_vasilkova) the sharpness and detail captured is quite breathtaking, definitely gives my 20D a run for its money, I dont think any digital compact can capture so much detail.

f4 is not a big deal for me, consider the Minolta TC-1 (£1000 new when it came out) and its lens is f3.5, less than 1/3 stop faster, still one of the best compact cameras ever.

It won't be the best available light camera, but for street photography with scale focusing, and for landscape, it could (if the lens quality is good enough) produce results comparable to the best interchangeable lens digital cameras, and all in your pocket.

Personally I can't wait to get my hands on it, give it a good workout during the return period, and return it if it disapponts me, but if the image qulity is anywhere close to the one of the SD14 it'll definitely be a keeper.
 
I've got a GR-D which satisfies my digital needs. It's a great street camera, except that it produces digital images, albeit really nice ones.

Honestly, shooting digital is so unsatisfying to me that the GR-D is basically just a snapshot travel camera for me along side whatever film camera I bring for my more "important" pictures.
 
GRD for me too - I was waiting for the DP4, but found a GRD for 60% of the price with the 21mm lens adapter in the Classifieds....smaller sensor yes, but an f2.4 max aperture and I like the film grain effects at higher ISOs in black and white.
Maybe the GRD can't match a film based RF system, but I don't expect it too - it's a handy carry everywhere snapshot PnS that gives the instant gratification of digital without the waiting for development...lazy maybe, but allows a freer approach to taking photographs and encourages experimentation.
 
Put a 40mm or 50mm (equivalent) f/1.4 on it (or even f/1.8) and I'm sold. As it is, for me the lens is a bit too wide and a bit too slow. The sensor is the right size, though. I'd also love rangefinder focusing but I'm not holding my breath...
 
I'll wait for the reviews, but I've no high hopes.. What I actually want is a digital Konica Hexar AF, and the DP-1 doesn't appear to be made in that spirit..
 
ravnish said:
i dont understand why we cant have just a simple digital 50mm f2 compact
Click to expand...

The problem is lens design restrictions:

Compact cameras tend to have the lens quite close to the film plane, this leads to the light hitting the film at quite a steep angle, and digital sensors don't like it at all (Foveon, with its three layers even less than a bayer sensor), essentially trying to put together a package with a 50mm (equiv) f2 lens that properly covers an APS sized sensor will probably lead to a digital "compact" almos as big as a DSLR.
Even with film, when designers decided that small size was paramount, fast lenses have never been an option and f3.5 or f2.8 at most were used.

The Foveon sensor, despite not being too good in low light, still has a good 2 stops advantage compared to the average tony sensor used in digital compacts, so at f4 you still have an half-decent low light performer, but with good lighting you should get pictures as good as the ones produced by an 8-10 MPix DSLR.

About the 28mm equiv, Sigma seems to think that the sensor is so good that you can use a significant amount of cropping and still get good decent sized print, while if you have a longer lens, you can't widen the angle of view later.

A quick calculation shows that you can crop the 28mm fov to a 35mm fov and still get an image with more pixels that the SD9/SD10 so still in the DSLR quality range, cropping to 50mm equiv may probably mean pushing it a bit too far, and being unable to get good prints past 7x5, still better than nothing.
 
Here is a stress test that compares the Foveon sensors (SD14) with two Bayer sensors (D2X & S3Pro).

Of course the patterns in the stress test are unlikely to happen under normal shooting conditions, and I am not sure what kind of lens they used, so take it with a (big) pich of salt.

The text is in japanese, but I guess the only thing you need to know is that in the charts the SD14 image is top left, the original reference chart top right, the D2X is bottom left, and the S3Pro is bottom right.

http://www.handy3.com/sikaworks/SD14/index.html

Interesting (even if unsure how relevant to everyday shooting) comparison.

Cheers
 
ravnish said:
i dont understand why we cant have just a simple digital 50mm f2 compact
Click to expand...

Ditto for the same in 24/25mm w/ a 3-5 shot burst capability. Could there ever be a better streetshooter?
 
ywenz said:
The DP1 look like it will have horrendous high ISO performance. Since it uses the same sensor as the SD14, we can conclude that at high ISO, image from the DP1 will look worse than a the image from a Ricoh P&S:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1013&message=22995258
Click to expand...

That kind of noise seem to be more an artifact of the Sigma SPP software than anything else, X3F raw files processed with other software like DCRAW don't show any green splotches.

See

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1027&message=22567769
 
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