Quattro initial impression

[GaryLH]

Thanks clear2000 and FA limited.

I plan to shot color mainly for the first couple of weeks to get a better feel for Quattro color and experiment w/ both "low raw" and s-hi jpg, before I start using it mainly as a monochrome camera. Monochrome would hide the issues more easily.

Gary

Ps. From a film analogy - the Merrill feels like loading Kodachrome 25 - the Quattro feels like I am using Fuji nps or Kodak portra.

 

[GaryLH]

I forgot.. The second most stupid thing they did in the new Quattro. At the firmware level, if u choose monochrome, they turn off awb. This is not how the Merrill works. For others the second most stupid thing is Probably the grip 😛.

For those that are not familiar w/ Sigma monochrome since the Merrill.. Starting w/ a fw update for the Merrill and an associated spp 5 update, the fw put a monochrome flag in the raw file. That raw file still has the complete RGB data. What happens is that spp 5 detects the monochrome flag and immediately processes the image as a b&w. Since the complete RGB data is still there, one can decide during post processing to revert to the color version because u feel the color one is better.

The new fw in the Quattro breaks that model by disabling the awb when u are in monochrom mode. What is worst from a spp perspective, unlike spp 5, spp 6 never updates the raw preview to match what the monochrome flag is set to. The only way to figure it out is to use view mode "monochrome marked only".

If I shot in color to get awb, I don't have advantage of seeing what monochrome will look like before the shot.

It feels like Sigma did a lot of this design from both physical, firmware and software with a pretty limited amount of outside beta testing or advice from real users.

Gary

 

[Keith]

Great stuff Gary ... thanks for your efforts.

Even if I hadn't lashed out and bought an M240 I don't think the Quattro would have interested me.

 

[GaryLH]

Thanks Keith...

Gary

 

[GaryLH]

Led focus confirmation

Led focus confirmation

The change from the Merrill location to the right of hot shoe on the edge of top plate to Quattro location in the middle of top plate on the left side is not a good location in extremely bright sunlight when u need the ovf.. The bright sunlight makes the led extremely hard to c w/o shading the area w/ your left hand, thus loosing some of the steadiness of a traditional three point hold of the camera body.

Gary

 

[f16sunshine]

Gary you're putting a nice effort into this. I appreciate it and I'm sure others do to. I hope you get back what you put in.

Hopefully this is not Sigmas "Zune player". 😛

The impression at this point is...Foveon deserves better!

 

[GaryLH]

Thanks Andy

I plan to keep on plugging away. I may seem like I am complaining a lot, but I do like what I am seeing out of the camera. I just need to figure my own DIY workarounds. I plan to put a piece of tape triangle to shade the led for example..next time I got out shooting.

Semilog quoted something like "it's not about what the camera can't do for you, but what it can do", in one of his post. I basically feel the same way right now.. The main goals that Sigma set out to do, they basically accomplished, which meets my needs. They introduced some issues and feature changes that are really not for everyone.

Anyway, I will keep this thread running as I discover things good or bad😛. People can make their own decisions about the camera. For me, so far I can live w/ everything I have bitched about.

At the end of the day, it is really all about the are u happy w/ the end result.

Gary

 

[fireblade]

Great write up Gary....i'm still on the fence with this one.
DP2M has done me no wrong.....maybe the V2 might interest me more in a couple of years 🙂

 

[GaryLH]

Surprise number 1

Surprise number 1

During initial testing, it sure looked to me that the TIFF 16 file was slightly better than the OOC jpgs. Today, I took some different type of pictures. They are so close, I can't really tell the difference.. In fact in some instances the OOC jpg maybe even better 😀 The JPG engine is a vast improvement over the Merrill one.

I will still use raw files since they will be useful in extracting jpg plus using it to play games to extract more info in the highlight or shadow areas.

Again, u be the judge
Gary

OOC JPG - Fine - 50% Crop (1/200@F5 ISO 100)

100% Crop of the JPG

100% crop from the TIFF16

 

[GaryLH]

Surprise number 2

Surprise number 2

The new S-Hi OOC JPG looks surprisingly good to me. S-Hi mode essentially doubles the effective size of the image using in camera processing.

Gary

ISO 100 1/100@F4 60% Crop

100% Crop

 

[GaryLH]

Surprise number 3 ...

Surprise number 3 ...

Did some testing of Large vs Small RAW files today and was blown away from what I saw from the SMALL RAW file.. Right now I actually like it better than the LARGE RAW, go figure 😛 The colors are truer and places where the 4:1:1 algo lost the fine detail, the 1:1:1 small raw retained it.

Gary

Extracted jpg from Large Raw File 60% crop - ISO 100 - 1/100@f4

Extracted jpg from Small RAW file

Extracted jpg from Large RAW file 70% crop - ISO 250 - 1/60@f2.8

Extracted jpg from small raw file

 

[GaryLH]

This new Quattro camera does give u a lot of choices
- need big blow ups --> go s-hi ooc jpg
- need 20mp (non-sigma talk) files use large size
- don't need big blow ups, ok w/ 5mp (non-sigma talk - 15mp old sigma talk - same as pre-Merrill sensor), but want truer color and no algo worries --> use small size

I forgot to mention, I turned off s-curve on all these shots I posted today.

Gary

 

[GaryLH]

A good example of the affect of algo guessing and correct color, look at the difference in color detail and information in the example of large vs small raw.. Look closely at the tonal changes in the skin..

This is actually no different then what is being done w/ Bayer or xtran arrays. The main difference I would hope is the guess is closer to what it should be.

In Bayer or x-tran as u know each photosite represents just one color. Foveon (non-Quattro and Quattro low raw), each photosite repreach all three RGB colors, but in Quattro large raw, there are 4 blue receptors for every red and green receptor. Thus the algo guess. Over time, I would suspect this algo should get better. The blue value is always correct, it is the red and green values which may need a guess based on the neighbor.

Gary

 

[Keith]

One thing that hasn't changed is the quality of the lens ... lovely OOF rendering. 🙂

 

[GaryLH]

Where the converted tiff look better than the extract jpgs comes into place w/ higher iso values. Below 1600, the jpg vs tiff are a push to me. From 1600, depending on the situation, spp chroma and luminous noise algos do a better job then the in-camera algos.

Gary

 

[GaryLH]

Outside of the stupid sd card door design, the dp2 Quattro looks like it will work out nicely for me. I really don't have a need to print big. My normal print is 8x11 and I do occasional 13x19.

I actually really like the results I am seeing in low raw mode.

Using low raw as my default setup is what I am current thinking of doing (raw+jpg). The jpg engine is so good, I may only need to use spp for those special cases. Since the size of the low raw is much smaller, sd card write times are much shorter. To get around the now awb in monochrome, i am going to just shoot in color and do my monochrome conversion from the jpg in silver fx pro 2.

I have changed some of my c2 setting to
- LOW raw+jpg
- std color
- s-curve off
Everything else remains the same.

Gary

 

[GaryLH]

New S-Hi output mode for Quattro only

New S-Hi output mode for Quattro only

New to the Quattro is something called S-HI which is creates an in-camera JPG which is 7680x5120. The file size runs from around 19MB to 22MB. It can only be used in FINE jpg image quality.

However, starting w/ SPP 6, there is an option to save the output from a RAW file in S-Hi. This works only w/ the new Quattro camera. Normally during the output dialog box u had a choice of not only JPG or TIFF save options but the output size of the file. Normal size is the default, with half and two times being the option. Now with SPP 6, a Quattro file has the option of S-HI as an output size option.

Reference size info
- Large RAW file normal size - 5424x3616
- Small RAW file normal size - 2704x1808

- S-Hi in camera JPG - 7680x5120 (19-22MB file size)
- S-HI TIFF16 from Large RAW - 7680x5120 (225MB)
- S-HI TIFF16 from small RAW - 2704x1808 (22.98)

- 2X TIFF16 from Large RAW - 10848x7232 (449MB)
- 2X TiFF16 from small RAW - 5408x3616 (112MB)

Some aspects to note from the above information
- S-Hi output option does not work from a small raw file (it just creates a normal size TIFF16 output instead)
- S-Hi only works for LARGE RAW files
- S-Hi TIFF16 from a LARGE RAW file emulates the file that would have been created if u used a 40MP sensor
- 2X (2 Times) does work on both LARGE and SMALL RAW files
-- a 2X TIFF16 from a SMALL RAW ends up a NORMAL RAW TIFF size
-- a 2X TIFF16 from a LARGE RAW file emulates the file that would have been created if u used a 78.5MP sensor

The reference in-camera S-Hi JPG shot. All shots where done at ISO 200, 1/200th second, f5.6

A 50% crop of that image

The S-Hi processed from the large raw file

The small raw tiff 16 file.. There are times when the small raw will show better overall IQ then the large raw. It really depends on how much variation in color information is occurring over several 4 pixel areas due to the 4-1-1 (4 blue to 1 red or green pixel).

2X TIFF16 from small raw file

2X TIFF16 from large raw file

For me... the 2X from a large raw is just way too much of a data file. My photo SW (Aperture) took a lot of time processing it. The SHi TIFF16 file was almost as bad (500 vs 225MB files). The 2X TIFF 16 from a small raw was very manageable. The SHi in-camera jpg was the best compromise..at expensive of a bit more time to write the file to the SD card due to extra processing for SHi, if u need a big file to play w/ latter. An example would to crop to 90fov and still be able to get a good 13x19 print made.

Gary

 

[noimmunity]

Nice, Gary, really nice.