The peril of the Merrill ... a short review of the Sigma DP2M.

[Keith]

I won't gloss over hard facts here and the first thing I'll emphasise is that the DP2M is not for everyone ... in fact I suspect a lot of people would find the camera damned frustrating.


Focus ... slow and seems to have a mind of its own occasionally. In many situations when attempting to focus on a subject it will lock on the background unless you're very precise and deliberate. I generally try to focus manually using the AE button set for this purpose in the menu.

Exposure ... AE is fairly slow to react to light changes but seems intuitive regarding backlighting etc.

Shaped like a block of cheese ... and with dry hands as slippery as an eel! (a grip will help here)

The in camera processing engine absolutely mutilates files shot at anything over ISO 1600 and anything over 800 will often have a magenta cast depending on lighting and subject. I really like the files at 400 for colour and for black and white conversions 1600 is very good with the not so ugly noise providing excellent texture.

The provided software for raw conversions is adequate ... for image adjustments it's very limited and sluggish. Export the TIFFs and work on them with something better. I use ACDSee Pro 6 and it seems to love the 84 meg files from the little Sigma.

Write speed to card ... take a book so you have something to do while it chugs away! (but you knew this)

Overall placement of controls and how they function ... no complaints here. Seems very minimalistic for a digicam and you can go through the entire menu system in a minute or so. Try doing that with anything else these days!

Image quality ... phenominal! No other description fits but you have to get it right, the files really suffer with over or under exposure. (check out Gary's 'Post your foveon images' thread!)


Not a particularly glowing report is it? In fact you probably won't rush out and buy a Merrill based on what I've stated here.

Your loss though ... it's a fabulous camera! 😀

 

[kbg32]

Sounds like the early versions of some P&S!

 

[jsrockit]

Exposure ... AE is fairly slow to react to light changes but seems intuitive regarding backlighting etc.

Image quality ... phenominal! No other description fits but you have to get it right, the files really suffer with over or under exposure.

Yes, these two... :bang: I can't be sloppy with this camera as I can with my Fujis. 😀 Reminds me of using my M8 when I use my Sigma.

 

[xyz3450]

Thanks for your report. Very helpful actually. I've had my eye on one for a while. Do the known slow write speeds prohibit taking images at that write time? How do you find image taking hand-held? -- Martin

 

[jsrockit]

Do the known slow write speeds prohibit taking images at that write time?

No, you can shoot up to 7 shots I think while it writes.

 

[Keith]

Thanks for your report. Very helpful actually. I've had my eye on one for a while. Do the known slow write speeds prohibit taking images at that write time? How do you find image taking hand-held? -- Martin

Hi Martin ... as John said you can take about seven images before it runs out of buffer.

Hand held is good but I do struggle a bit with using an LCD for composition ... totally new to me!

 

[btgc]

Hand held is good but I do struggle a bit with using an LCD for composition ... totally new to me!

Keith, basically it works same way as OVF - move camera until scene you want to photograph appears on LCD 😀

Today used my DP1 and easily composed low angle shot which would be hard or impossible with OVF only. I just watch speeds and when they go slow try to find support for hand.

When I think about whole LCD issue I find them like 1:1 finders - can see framed image and real subject without taking camera off the face. Nice!

 

[Keith]

Keith, basically it works same way as OVF - move camera until scene you want to photograph appears on LCD 😀

Now you tell me! 😀

 

[pb908]

congrats for your new camera !!
Mine is just arrived and what i struggled with is color acuracy.
I shoot red color and it looks like pink+orange, little bit muted red (on jpeg)

But overall, i had great fun it. +1 on fabulous camera !!

 

[bk1970]

I agree with pretty much everything, Keith. For my purposes it's fantastic, but I won't even pretend that I walk around with an all purpose camera. Which is completely fine by me, don't need that.

One thing I have to add is that I never experience problems with writing speeds, apart from when I want to turn the camera off - then I need to wait a little bit. Many times I take multiple pictures quite quickly one after another, but it never happens that it won't do the next one. Maybe it's writing even while shooting?
No idea how it works (the whole camera), but it does. And the results are, as said, wonderful. I've yet to try it with a tripod, I imagine it'd be even better.

Woldn't mind more resolution, though 😱 but I'm guessing that's just me. I won't be happy until I have a pocketable machine that can print a wall-to-wall abstract 😎 Maybe in 10 years?

 

[GaryLH]

Number of shots in buffer varies w/ which raw file size u use

Number of shots in buffer varies w/ which raw file size u use

Thanks for your report. Very helpful actually. I've had my eye on one for a while. Do the known slow write speeds prohibit taking images at that write time? How do you find image taking hand-held? -- Martin

The camera has the ability of saving raw file in three different sizes..
- small is around 7mb (not worth using)
- medium about 22 mb (my default raw file size for b&w)
- large 47-52mb (I use this for color)

The reason I mention this is that the number of pictures that can be taken before the buffer is full
- medium raw is 9 shots
- large is 7 shots

Gary

 

[GaryLH]

congrats for your new camera !!
Mine is just arrived and what i struggled with is color acuracy.
I shoot red color and it looks like pink+orange, little bit muted red (on jpeg)

But overall, i had great fun it. +1 on fabulous camera !!

Do u c the same issue using raw... Sigma Jpg algo is not really among the best out there. I shoot in jpg+raw, but I only use the jpg to c which raw files I want to go thru the extra raw to tiff16 work..

Iso 100-200 jpg are ok, above that the jpgs start to look pretty bad in terms of noise or color accuracy issues. 400 if u are not as picky.

Have fun with your new camera
Gary

 

[GaryLH]

Keith,

Good to c another point of view on this camera. Thanks for the writeup..

Have fun w/ it
Gary

 

[noimmunity]

Nice write-up, Keith!

 

[sepiareverb]

The Sigma software has been impossible on an i7 Mac.

 

[hausen]

Thanks Keith, was wondering how you found it. I had a play with one and decided to get the RX-1 instead. Reading your review makes me happy I did🙂

 

[Keith]

Thanks Keith, was wondering how you found it. I had a play with one and decided to get the RX-1 instead. Reading your review makes me happy I did🙂

Glad I could help ... I think? 😀

 

[louisb]

Keith

As you have already pointed out the list of cons is greater than the pros but here is the important part: the IQ is unmatched by anything else I have owned or seen.

It never fails to annoy me when a review waxes lyrical about button placement and screen quality or menu systems. It's the IQ you want to pay for not the frilly bits!

You did not mention the other important aspect of the IQ: dynamic range.

I have never had a camera which could do this:: preserve the highlights and allow shadows to be recovered.

LouisB

 

[Keith]

Keith

As you have already pointed out the list of cons is greater than the pros but here is the important part: the IQ is unmatched by anything else I have owned or seen.

It never fails to annoy me when a review waxes lyrical about button placement and screen quality or menu systems. It's the IQ you want to pay for not the frilly bits!

You did not mention the other important aspect of the IQ: dynamic range.

I have never had a camera which could do this:: preserve the highlights and allow shadows to be recovered.

LouisB

So true Louis ... though when I described the image quality as 'phenominal' I was also thinking of the dynamic range as much as the resolution and colour rendering.

I'm also extremely impressed with how well the files convert to black and white. This was one of the main things that impressed me about the DP series from the first model.

Do we love our Sigmas? Yes we do! 😀

ps ... lovely photo by the way. 🙂

 

[pb908]

Do u c the same issue using raw... Sigma Jpg algo is not really among the best out there. I shoot in jpg+raw, but I only use the jpg to c which raw files I want to go thru the extra raw to tiff16 work..

Iso 100-200 jpg are ok, above that the jpgs start to look pretty bad in terms of noise or color accuracy issues. 400 if u are not as picky.

Have fun with your new camera
Gary

Garry, as i just did test within a week, so i try to figure it out first how is the normal response of the camera. at this point i use jpeg exclusively and try different setting available to see how it become. at the time of shooting i compare the color result from LCD directly to the object i take, and i feel that for red color, the camera give muted color.

with RAW, i loose the ability to compare directly to the object tone on site, so at this moment i haven't play much with it, until i am confident enough with jpeg.

for BW, jpeg up to iso 1600 is acceptable if not great. color wise, i think I need to shoot RAW.