Sigma DP1

[asabet]

Hi Jack, it's not too much fun to shoot with, but the files are great to work with in PP and super sharp!

Just to give the contrasting opinion, I find it super fun to shoot with. I'd love to have manual controls like my OM-2N, but this is about as much fun I've had shooting with a digital camera. The form fits my hand well (I like small and boxy), and the controls are as good as I could want considering the absence of dials for shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. I like the simplicity of having easy access to control over all the basics. Aperture and shutter are as easy to control as can be with buttons, and ISO is just a few clicks away. More often than not, I zone focus and set the exposure manually. Shutter lag is minimal. It's a lot like using a film camera in that there aren't any extras to confuse matters. It's also film-like with regards to exposure latitude (especially highlight retention), minimizing (for me) the need for a live histogram.

The only problems from my standpoint are as follows:
1) Low end LCD (hard or impossible to see in bright lighting)
2) LCD freezes for a moment on shutter button half press
3) 5 second shot to shot time using fast SDHC card
4) Relatively poor battery life (not worst ever, but not good)

When I get around to buying an external OVF, problems 1 & 2 above will be remedied (again, speaking only in terms of my needs here). Buying a spare battery will help with #4. #3 I presume is here to stay until I pick up the DP1 replacement or something else that comes along. In the meanwhile, I'm having great fun shooting with the DP1.

 

[Brian Mosley]

Good for you Amin!
I think the UI is pretty poor... but appreciate that opinions differ.

Kind Regards

Brian

 

[helenhill]

Well heres my take: The Love & Hate between helen Hill & the Dp1

Feels oh so fine in the hands......
Solid, good sense of weight , Perfect Really /no hand grip necessary
Firm buttons, well placed
Love the no Frills Aspect /Photography back to the Creative basics

Turning it On...... there is always a rickety Whine .......like an old gate

To access the USB Port the plastic door is flimsy & hard to open and difficult to connect /seems in due time the door could possibly come off

The LCD screen possibly the worst I have come across / not a sharp screen
(spoiled by Dlux 3,GRD1&2, Digilux2)
be it bright light or low light its difficult to view & playback looks dreadful (even though there may be some great shots )

Battery Life Extremely Poor /you need a few batteries for the day out & about
but my biggest complaint is FOCUSING /very hard to accurately focus
& particularly on screen.
This is where I have my hardest time -Manual Focus
Perhaps its me because when you look at EVERYONES work here
(accept mine ) its DEAD ON CRISP


But when you get a GOOD Shot its PURE MAGIC
and there is something Quite Special about the 'LOOK' when done right
Its a camera that DEMANDS you learn its Weaknesses & Strengths
A challenge which can be Rewarding
Look at Jim Radcliff's work :clap: ....(not mine)
but I must admit theres something I still love about the DP!, even though I'm pulling my hair out.
Best, H

 

[Terry]

We tried to get our hands on the DP1 yesterday but couldn't at B&H. Your description is what is so disappointing to me as someone who wanted to like the camera. All the little niggles and most of the bigger gripes were issues that could easily have been addressed before launch. The big delay on this camera was supposedly lens/sensor combo not the other things like LCD or AF/MF.

Well heres my take: The Love & Hate between helen Hill & the Dp1

Feels oh so fine in the hands......
Solid, good sense of weight , Perfect Really /no hand grip necessary
Firm buttons, well placed
Love the no Frills Aspect /Photography back to the Creative basics

Turning it On...... there is always a rickety Whine .......like an old gate

To access the USB Port the plastic door is flimsy & hard to open and difficult to connect /seems in due time the door could possibly come off

The LCD screen possibly the worst I have come across / not a sharp screen
(spoiled by Dlux 3,GRD1&2, Digilux2)
be it bright light or low light its difficult to view & playback looks dreadful (even though there may be some great shots )

Battery Life Extremely Poor /you need a few batteries for the day out & about
but my biggest complaint is FOCUSING /very hard to accurately focus
& particularly on screen.
This is where I have my hardest time -Manual Focus
Perhaps its me because when you look at EVERYONES work here
(accept mine ) its DEAD ON CRISP


But when you get a GOOD Shot its PURE MAGIC
and there is something Quite Special about the 'LOOK' when done right
Its a camera that DEMANDS you learn its Weaknesses & Strengths
A challenge which can be Rewarding
Look at Jim Radcliff's work :clap: ....(not mine)
but I must admit theres something I still love about the DP!, even though I'm pulling my hair out.
Best, H

 

[asabet]

Two from today:

 

[helenhill]

Amin
You're second shot is WONDERFUL

 

[Brian Mosley]

Yes, that 2nd shot works well Amin. Well done

Kind Regards

Brian

 

[Brian Mosley]

Hi Helen, I agree - it's shocking... but for the IQ obsessive amongst us, the pain of using the DP1 just makes the reward of capturing a well framed steady shot in the right lighting conditions all the more sweet

For the moment, it's the only game in town - (large sensor compact) Sigma have enough complaints about the UI to give it a decent go for the replacement(s) which they've already announced will be announced(!) this fall... I hope the DP1 gets a good firmware upgrade before then.

Kind Regards

Brian

 

[Will]

I struggled with this one a bit. The light was so harsh, and the green is so lush in real life with all the rain we have had, I found it hard to get it looking true to life. I like the different reds and oranges, and the green of the book against the grass came out well.

Parma ham, and my daughter (managed to catch her not posing like Britons next top model for once!)

 

[Brian Mosley]

Nice colours Will, and super sharp as always!

Here's my effort from this morning...

Kind Regards

Brian

 

[asabet]

Thanks Helen and Brian!

Will, love the colors in the shot with your daughter. Funny, you have a problem with her posing for you, and I have a problem getting my sons to pose for me .

Brian, the colors in this most recent image look almost Olympus-like. Do you have a certain color look in mind, realistically as you saw it or otherwise, that you try to process to with all your cameras? In other words, if you were to take the same landscape image with both the DP1 and the E-420 or E-3, would you process them to the same result (color-wise) where possible? I tend to think of the different cameras as I would think of different film stocks, so I let the particular sensor/RAW developer/color profile pull me in one way or another.

Edit: Just saw Helen's post in the E-420 thread. I guess she and I noticed the same thing.

 

[Brian Mosley]

Hi Amin, as I said there... I'm doing a lot of PP work to get control of the DP1's RAW files (as Will mentioned above) - the side effect is that I'm learning how to get foveon like output from my Olys and Oly like output from my DP1

I now feel reasonably confident that I can go in either direction with either cam

Kind Regards

Brian

 

[LCT]

Is it me or are greens oversaturated in asabet's and will's pics above? Just curious.

 

[Will]

Is it me or are greens oversaturated in asabet's and will's pics above? Just curious.

It isn't just you, I deliberately over-saturated the greens.

 

[Will]

A couple more. Blue this time.
The colour of the flowers is spot on btw.


Slightly cropped

Plane crashes into giant wisteria!

 

[DavidE]

Plane crashes into giant wisteria!

And there I was thinking you had a jet-propelled honeybee.

Nice photos, Will, Brian, Amin, hermie, and Helen. Keep 'em coming. Spring is in the air.

 

[Brian Mosley]

Will, lovely colours there... do you think that we're allowing our DP1 shots to be oversharpened? I know there's a lot of pride that the Foveon sensor is sharp, but are these images looking a tiny bit artificial?

edit: actually, I've just gone back over this thread and I think I'm the worst culprit... but I think your last couple of shots are heading that way too?

I tried to dial back the sharpness of the last shot above... did I go too far?

Kind Regards

Brian

 

[Will]

Will, lovely colours there... do you think that we're allowing our DP1 shots to be oversharpened? I know there's a lot of pride that the Foveon sensor is sharp, but are these images looking a tiny bit artificial?

edit: actually, I've just gone back over this thread and I think I'm the worst culprit... but I think your last couple of shots are heading that way too?

I tried to dial back the sharpness of the last shot above... did I go too far?

Kind Regards

Brian

It's become an addiction, we need more sharpening each time to get the same fix!
Your probably right but I have always tended to over sharpen, it's a weakness of mine and not the result of using the DP1.I think in my case it is also to do with me now needing reading glasses but being to stubborn to wear them, I sharpen the image on screen to compensate. To me they still look slightly soft focus lol

Having said all that I do think that the DP1 file can hold up with quite a lot of sharpening.

Here is one of them again straight from neutral RAW editor settings to jpg and cropped. No pp at all.

 

[Brian Mosley]

Yes, having said that, I think the image of your daughter is really enhanced by the sharpening - you did well with that one.

Kind Regards

Brian

 

[DavidE]

It is tempting to oversharpen the DP1 images, as they do take an incredible amount of sharpening. Probably new owner's pride -- we want to be sure it was worth all that money.

Here's another one from the Vegas trip.