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Sigma DPxmerrill best practice thread

Jim DE

New member
Hi all, I have been using Minolta/sony digitals almost exclusively since the introduction of the KM A1. Not for any other reason than it was what I liked. I have gotten very used to the cameras, controls, and manipulation of the files in PP. That said I recently jumped ship so to speak and bought this DP2m and am really enjoying the IQ this lil black brick creates. I am sure I will buy more of these as time goes on.

Yesterday Charle2 made a post about setting the sharpening to -1 and positions for two of the noise reduction sliders to the left of center position. I tried these and he was spot on it did make a difference. But, anyone who has worked with Sony 24mp apc sensors knows moving to less NR and sharpening just never is a good thing to do so these moves never crossed my mind with PP sigma files either.

Michiel and others have graciously offered me some SPP and camera starting points to try and those too have been spot on. I thought that a best practice thread and discussion maybe a good thing for new DP users such as me and for the more experienced users who may like me just never thought to make this or that adjustment due to their past practices with other cameras and makes.

Here's what I have found so far in using my DP2m for scenics: I set the color to Neutral in camera..... the white balance the jury is still out on for me and I usually am shooting AWB..... always shoot iso 100.... now using a UV filter due to IQ suggestions of others.... the sigma hood with a neoprene hood hat.. a Franiec grip... and a manifrotto hotshoe bubble level... I shoot M or A, center weighted metering, manual focus mostly, and a exp comp of +3 - +7, using a 2 sec delay shutter on a light tripod. Now, these are my goto "starting points" for my scenics but I do make other adjustments as needed.

In SPP I am using the custom setting with the exposure set back a bit -.7, sharpening to -1, Croma NR set far left and luma NR set 1st position left, my color wheel setting is halfway from center to the 0300 position, and that is pretty much it then I export a full size 16bit tiff to my desktop to be finessed in other PP software if needed.....which usually isn't needed now.

Those are my starting points for my camera and SPP..... but as I said I am very new with this camera and PP software. Lots of the stated items above are pretty SOP stuff and of little help but maybe it just might help someone looking for a place to start.

How about you all..... would you care to share your goto initial camera and SPP settings so others may see something or try a setting they never considered due to their past practices? I know it sounds like a lame thing to post but I am sure I was not the only one so set in his ways with another make camera and PP techniques that the settings Charles suggested NEVER would of been considered by me if he had not of posted them and I gave them a try........... How about it? Care to share? Who know if we see trends maybe Sigma might make some product software changes to take care of them for us.
 

mezzoduomo

New member
Hi all, I have been using Minolta/sony digitals almost exclusively since the introduction of the KM A1. Not for any other reason than it was what I liked. I have gotten very used to the cameras, controls, and manipulation of the files in PP. That said I recently jumped ship so to speak and bought this DP2m and am really enjoying the IQ this lil black brick creates. I am sure I will buy more of these as time goes on.

Yesterday Charle2 made a post about setting the sharpening to -1 and positions for two of the noise reduction sliders to the left of center position. I tried these and he was spot on it did make a difference. But, anyone who has worked with Sony 24mp apc sensors knows moving to less NR and sharpening just never is a good thing to do so these moves never crossed my mind with PP sigma files either.

Michiel and others have graciously offered me some SPP and camera starting points to try and those too have been spot on. I thought that a best practice thread and discussion maybe a good thing for new DP users such as me and for the more experienced users who may like me just never thought to make this or that adjustment due to their past practices with other cameras and makes.

Here's what I have found so far in using my DP2m for scenics: I set the color to Neutral in camera..... the white balance the jury is still out on for me and I usually am shooting AWB..... always shoot iso 100.... now using a UV filter due to IQ suggestions of others.... the sigma hood with a neoprene hood hat.. a Franiec grip... and a manifrotto hotshoe bubble level... I shoot M or A, center weighted metering, manual focus mostly, and a exp comp of +3 - +7, using a 2 sec delay shutter on a light tripod. Now, these are my goto "starting points" for my scenics but I do make other adjustments as needed.

In SPP I am using the custom setting with the exposure set back a bit -.7, sharpening to -1, Croma NR set far left and luma NR set 1st position left, my color wheel setting is halfway from center to the 0300 position, and that is pretty much it then I export a full size 16bit tiff to my desktop to be finessed in other PP software if needed.....which usually isn't needed now.

Those are my starting points for my camera and SPP..... but as I said I am very new with this camera and PP software. Lots of the stated items above are pretty SOP stuff and of little help but maybe it just might help someone looking for a place to start.

How about you all..... would you care to share your goto initial camera and SPP settings so others may see something or try a setting they never considered due to their past practices? I know it sounds like a lame thing to post but I am sure I was not the only one so set in his ways with another make camera and PP techniques that the settings Charles suggested NEVER would of been considered by me if he had not of posted them and I gave them a try........... How about it? Care to share? Who know if we see trends maybe Sigma might make some product software changes to take care of them for us.
Jim: This is a great idea. I'm not sure i have anything to contribute, but I'm looking forward to additional recommendations as Charles has noted.

Thx!
 

Charles2

Active member
Am no expert, merely shared a counter-intuitive setting that works for my shots. That is the best method I've found: try it and if you like it, keep it.

With some adjustments, it is difficult to see much difference. These become territory for those who insist they have scientific data in favor of one setting or another. They rarely convince my eye.

After these remarks, comments on a few settings in Jim's initial post:

- I use Daylight or Shade white balance in the camera. Can't prove that AWB is shaky, just a feeling. Sometimes I use one of those translucent white gadgets that go over the lens (incidental, not reflective, balancing) for custom white balance; verdict still out on that.

- I shoot ISO 200 when there is plenty of light, based on slightly more than a feeling that you can draw out more shadow detail later than with ISO 100. Some experts state that 200 is the base ISO of the camera. When light begins to challenge the shutter time, I go to ISO 320 max for good IQ, higher for a shot intended only to document something.

- Perhaps Jim meant +0.3 - +0.7 EC in camera? That's what I do, occasionally even +1.0. But when the camera really needs light, don't be afraid to go -EC.
 

kgelner

New member
A few additions from me:

* ISO 200 has somewhat greater dynamic range in highlight recovery than ISO 100. If you have a scene that does not have a lot of DR use ISO 100; but if you have a wide range of brightness then use ISO 200, but expose to try and blow out the in-camera JPG a little (+0.3 to +1.0ev). You can recover nearly two stops of blown highlights in ISO200.

ISO 200 will have a bit more shadow noise and more sky noise, so you may want to leave the noise reduction sliders at least one unit away from the left end.

* To best recover blown highlights, first add some fill light (just around +0.3), then reduce the exposure slider until you get your highlight back. Fill Light also acts to recover highlights a little so doing that before adjusting exposure means the resulting image will not be as dark. You can then try adjusting up shadow or highlights sliders, but if you do too much of either it can reduce saturation in darker parts of the image. Instead export after highlight recovery into a 16-bit TIFF file and recover darker areas in other applications.

* If you find color looking a little weak in Neutral mode, try adding just +0.3 exposure. There's kind of a gap between +0.2 and +0.3 that brings a lot of life back into colors (though it can be a bit much for some scenes).

* Don't forget that SPP features CA reduction controls!

* If you save a set of custom settings for batch conversion of images, it will not save noise reduction or other non-primary settings. Those do get saved to the X3F though so you can go through, set noise reduction settings and batch process when done. I think Sigma may change that in the future.
 

Jim DE

New member
Some very informative information already shared on this thread ... Thanks all!

With the mention of using ISO 200 instead of ISO 100 for greater DR I spent the last two hours on the net looking for a definitive Sigma statement on what the base iso is for the Merrill's. All I got for my 2 hours was a definitive headache and no definitive answer. Wonder why this is so difficult find.

I do truly believe you guys that you are getting better DR from ISO 200 and it is worth a try but I must warn you I am anal about noise. Even in the 60's I went to medium format gear because I hated the grain that was visible on my 11x14 prints using a 35mm. I acquired a boatload of softwares to try and defeat noise on my Sony 24mp apc sensored cameras. As I said I am anal about noise far more than I need added NR. I know me if I see noise at 200 I will go back to 100 ASAP ;). But I will give it a go...

Did not know the changes in NR did not carry over .. Thanks for the heads up and I will keep an eye on this.
 

kgelner

New member
I do truly believe you guys that you are getting better DR from ISO 200 and it is worth a try but I must warn you I am anal about noise. Even in the 60's I went to medium format gear because I hated the grain that was visible on my 11x14 prints using a 35mm. I acquired a boatload of softwares to try and defeat noise on my Sony 24mp apc sensored cameras. As I said I am anal about noise far more than I need added NR. I know me if I see noise at 200 I will go back to 100 ASAP ;). But I will give it a go...
There's no question you will like the skies more at ISO 100. I'd mostly shoot using ISO100 if noise is a real concern, the DR and highlight recover at ISO 100 is still pretty good (say a bit over a stop).

Did not know the changes in NR did not carry over .. Thanks for the heads up and I will keep an eye on this.
That's only for saved SPP custom presets though, it is at least properly saved into the X3F file if you save image settings.

If you don't like noise you may want to leave chroma NR up one notch or so, but turn luminance NR all the way off (or also one notch above the leftmost setting).
 

Jim DE

New member
Has anyone seen a definitive answer from Sigma or even a reputable testing site what the merrills base ISO really is. I know my a77's base was around 100 but it had 3 other iso's below it down to iso 50 that were software generated.

I brought up many of this forums pics and looked at the metadata on the ones that had it attached and it was pretty much a split between 100 and 200 in amount of usage. One other thing I noticed is though some stated differently they seemed to use auto WB on more images than the other WB settings. That was unexpected...... Mant bracketed their exposures and the exp comps were pretty well spread from -.3 to +1 with +.3 and +.7 the most common.
 

biglouis

Well-known member
I can't recall why but I do know I read somewhere that the base iso is 200 and for what it is worth that is my default setting.

LouisB
 

Jim DE

New member
Yeah Louis... I have read both that 200 is base and 100 is base. All the sources seem reputable enough but there is a definite difference between them .......

Honestly, this information really won't make much of a difference in the long run but it is now more a quest for the fact's more than anything. I just e-mailed someone who can get the answer (I think) from the horse's mouth.
 
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Quentin_Bargate

Well-known member
I get better results at ISO100 than I do at 200. Some say use ISO200 and overexpose by 1.3 stops, but that is broadly the same as 100ISO and overexpose by 0.3 stops, which is my usual modus operandi. 200 is the base ISO when the camera is set to auto ISO which might or might not be a pointer, but for me the argument is academic. I use a workflow that works for me. I should add that while I turn down luminance NR in Sigma Photo Pro, most of my finished images are subject to some small degree of NR in Photoshop using Neat Image.
 

Jim DE

New member
Thanks Quentin that is good information to know....... by the way your images are always stellar and were one of several reasons I bought the Sigma. The tomato's in the box image comes to mind as one of images that sent me over the edge ;) Michiels images on the NEX thread is what ignited this thought to buy something other than a Sony and his plus yours and the rest on this forum and the others finalized the decision. I am very happy it worked out this way :)
 

Jim DE

New member
OK, my source at Sigma just answered my E-Mail and stated "the base ISO is 200" for the DP Merrill's. That's solves that "quest for the facts" for me ... nothing better than getting it straight from the horse's mouth. ;)

Now we all know......
 

Jim DE

New member
I did a ISO 200 test shot ..... now it was grey and raining outside so maybe not the best test. Did a SPP conversion reducing the noise sliders and took the TIFF to aperture. A lil tweak here and there then a 400x magnifier view did see noise in grey areas. A quick stop at Topaz denoise at a medium jpg setting and poof no more noise but incredible detail and DR.
I can live with that ;)
 

Jim DE

New member
I think after many shots using both the 200 iso and the 100 iso I too get results more to my liking at 100 iso like Quentin.

I still seem to like the std color a bit better than the neutral setting ... just seems a bit warmer. I am still playing with this as it seems to be a 70-30 thing as to std to neutral results being more to my liking.

I have found that I set my sharpness in SPP to -1 - -4 on most shots. At zero setting with any fill light used at all to control highlights being blown out it just ends up too edgy or HDR like in appearance. I am not a fan of HDR images.

All in all I really like this DP2m and its merrill sensor. So much so I find it difficult to use my cameras with bayer sensors anymore. If the SD1m would do 1600 iso for BIF work I would sell all my gear and switch over to all Foveon merrill gear.
 

ggibson

Well-known member
Can't the color settings be changed after the fact if you use RAW? Is there any difference to picking one or another when shooting?
 

Jim DE

New member
Yeah they can and it is a really nothing more than highlighting one or the other but for time saving during the SPP process to take the raw and convert them to a TIF its faster to select the one you want initially in camera as it is one less thing to do during the conversion process.
 

Jim DE

New member
If you are not printing your DP2m images you are missing out on really experiencing this tools ultimate potential. It has to be seen to be appreciated fully..........

I'm gonna need more wall space ;)

Not in my wildest imagination did I ever think a fixed lens apc P&S would become my favorite photographic tool......
 

kgelner

New member
All in all I really like this DP2m and its merrill sensor. So much so I find it difficult to use my cameras with bayer sensors anymore. If the SD1m would do 1600 iso for BIF work I would sell all my gear and switch over to all Foveon merrill gear.
Try out the newer SPP with ISO1600 shots, color results have been improved for high ISO...
 

The Ute

Well-known member
If you are not printing your DP2m images you are missing out on really experiencing this tools ultimate potential. It has to be seen to be appreciated fully..........

I'm gonna need more wall space ;)

Not in my wildest imagination did I ever think a fixed lens apc P&S would become my favorite photographic tool......

I was a Sony shooter as well. I'm so impressed w the Merrills my Sony is up for sale now.

Having an absolute ball w. these cameras. just had my first canvass print done in 20 x 30. It's beautiful.

I might need more wall space too.

;)
 

The Ute

Well-known member
When I walk around with this little gem neatly disguised by the grip I feel like James Bond.

I have a secret weapon and nobody evens suspects.

Wonderful.

;)
 
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