Quattro user preview from commercial site in Japan

N

noimmunity

scratch my niche
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http://photo.yodobashi.com/sigma/imp/dp2q.html

Reading through the Japanese, it sounds like the user, who has been a Foveon user from the start, is convinced that the Quattro is a noticeable improvement over the Merrill in just about every way. Noise gain of two stops. Higher resolution as promised. Better color definition. Much better battery life. Much better ergonomics. Better AF. Sounds like a home run!

I think it is important to remember that this is posted on a commercial site.
 
At 1100 USD I think I will skip it. Wow! The viewfinder is 250 USD. Yikes.

That said I do enjoy Sigmas Feveon sensor photos. They are lovely.
 
Maiku said:
At 1100 USD I think I will skip it. Wow! The viewfinder is 250 USD. Yikes.

That said I do enjoy Sigmas Feveon sensor photos. They are lovely.
Click to expand...

It is being sold at under 1000 at b&h and other cameras mail order stores on pre-order. So I'm assuming this is Canadian dollars u are talking about?

I have been perfectly happy using an old film ovf (40mm from Rollei), u don't have to get the sigma.

The Merrill's are current all under 700 in the US currently. In other parts of the world I think I have heard under 650. The pre-Merrill are always under 300 on the used market these days.

Gary
 
I'm happy to stay with the Merrills for another generation, but may look at replacing the DP1M with a Quattro version in another year or so when the prices come down. I mostly use the Merrills for landscape, and what they deliver is good enough for me.

If I were "in the market" I'd probably be pretty excited by the Quattros. But I wouldn't hesitate to pick up a Merrill now if budget were an important concern. Indeed, I don't think it's worth spending the premium to replace a Merrill with a Quattro except for some very specific circumstances.
 
Well this post at getdpi.. Doesn't look good for the Quattro in terms of color related issues popping up in certain situations. W/o the side by side though I would not have noticed very easily.

http://www.getdpi.com/forum/590094-post65.html

I think if u are are primarily color shooter, then this is something to think about. As primarily a monochrome shooter w/ the dp series, it give me pause, but right now unless I c some issues crop up w/ monochrome mode, I think I will still give the new Quattro a try.

The low size raw mode where the top portion of the 4-1-1 (blue-green-red), where the 4 blue photo sites are mapped into the green and blue layers as a 1-1-1 mapping should do away with any interpretation problem at expense of resolution though.

If this is an algo related problem that is showing up, how much of it can be corrected in post processing of the raw in spp. It is not clear if this was a beta copy firmware results though..the poster (Hulyss) at getdpi has been on the Sigma beta program before.. He has inferred his disappointment way before anyone ever received any news of the sigma free trial offer, in a post about 3-4 weeks ago over at getdpi.

I am still going to try for myself, but I am a bit disappointed w/ this example since I probably shoot about 20-30% color w/ my dp Merrill's currently.

I guess the other question that comes up.. How would a Bayer or xtran algo have handled this situation (same, better or worse)? His example seems to be similar to issues that are seen w/ cameras that Bayer sensors and have no AA (so probably no worse then when it happens to them)....????

Gary
 
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Ouch indeed. And blinds also have some aliasing. If you look at the text on the sign however then resolution is up.
 
Maiku said:
At 1100 USD I think I will skip it. Wow! The viewfinder is 250 USD. Yikes.

That said I do enjoy Sigmas Feveon sensor photos. They are lovely.
Click to expand...

Btw. All the dp Merrill's are currently on sale. All under 700 in US.

Gary
 
:( I still want an ILC version...Sinked too much funds into alpha and M lenses to afford another fixed lens body.
 
In a post further down in the thread.. I am not sure if Hulyss is saying that he likes the Fuji xt1 better than the Quattro if one is after the things about the Quattro that are better than the Merrill from the reference from the digiloyd evaluation..ie color may not be better, but af and higher iso is better as well as resolution. Color aliasing related issues not so good.

http://www.getdpi.com/forum/590137-post75.html

Gary
 
There is a lot of dispute/debate on the dpr Sigma forum site about whether the q is not as good as, or better, or just different, compared to the Merrill, all on the basis of a few not always well processed images. Many people just love their Merrill, and want nothing but more of the same. The yodobashi images look very pleasing. The detail and color in some of the recent images posted elsewhere is amazing. This shows two low res images: http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/53958662
 
Now I am not sure

Now I am not sure

http://sigma-rumors.com/2014/07/sigma-dp2-quattro-yellow-on-blue-issue/

This post about the Quattro, now I am not sure about getting it..not that the Merrill was perfect either, ie., Jon's magenta skies. I think it maybe a algo related issue that could be fixed in spp...but because both the color and monochrome version of this issue should be a possible issue plus spp 6 still has a lot of complaints.. I am thinking about holding off now.

What do u think?
Gary
 
I think it is still too early for any definitive conclusions.

But it already hurts Sigma that the opening round of user feedback has been mixed, to say the least. The Fuji XP1 is a fine example of how hard it can be for a manufacturer to change the image of a product even with updates that address most of the big complaints.

In short, I would definitely hang back and wait for the dust to settle. I don't see yet any compelling reason to opt for a Q over one of the Merrills.

For the record, those were green skies (clouds, actually), not magenta ones. But overall, I've gotten so many keepers using the Merrill DP cameras for landscape, I have nothing to complain about. All the more so considering the astronomical price that I'd have paid to do the same thing with RVP-50, as I used to do until I got the Merrills. I'm very happy to keep using them for a few more years.
 
One interesting tidbit came out on one of the forums I follow. I can't remember where now, but someone mentioned that the Quattro has a new setting for limiting dynamic range which is defaulted to active. The op mentions that once he disabled it, the colors looks very close to the Merrill in his opinion.

In a recent thread on getdpi, someone used a third party mac uitility app and discovered that spp is still a 32 bit app and does not even use the GPUs for anything. The 32 bit part not surprised about, but not taking advantage of any gpu functions is..:(

I think spp is still buggy. I cancelled my order and decided to wait it out for a while to c how things go.

Gary
 
In a recent thread on getdpi, someone used a third party mac uitility app and discovered that spp is still a 32 bit app and does not even use the GPUs for anything. The 32 bit part not surprised about, but not taking advantage of any gpu functions is..
Click to expand...

It is not because you are working on images that a GPU is a good choice for the algoritms involved. Without knowing those there is nothing sensible to say about that. Not having a 64bit version on the other hand is not excusable.
 
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