Here's some Sigma DP3M impressions, as I had a chance to try one briefly last Friday:
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To my incredible surprise a friend of mine, that we have been both chiding each other about who will get a sigma dp Merrill first called me for a coffee and showed me the impossible- A sigma dp3m right in front of me. He revealed his secret- he just ordered it last Tuesday from Sigma ditectly and got it yesterday.
So a couple of impression from playing with it a scant ten minutes:
- lens seems sharp & good with nice bokeh
- manual focus ring feels real nice. Wasnt expecting that. Has enough resistance to feel "class" but not too much. I find it very nice.
- close up/macro distance is nice. Not super super macro but its nice.
- overall buttons feel "sturdy enough" that they don't feel bad but decent
- image quality - didnt shoot much but seems obviously good with color reproduction akin to what I remember my dp2. (Iso 100). Did not see any weird color artifacts that were obvious to me in the shots I tried.
Makes me wonder for aps plot secoi luff Signa had a chance to improve the low level pipeline for it or even the sensor tolerances (hard to tell with not so many shots).
- iso 1600 color (dayligh and shade ) looks O-K
- iso 3200 makes a leap to not much good at all. Could still use b&w
- iso 6400 in color was pretty horrible and b&w was bad (less horrible but still bad)
All conditions in good daylight with a mix of light and shade.
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Some samples (note: not 100% files so no 100% crops but you should get an idea of the bokeh)
Sample shot ISO 4000 in B&W (unfortunately daylight/good light high iso doesn't mean much)
- Ricardo