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DP Merrill accessories

G43

New member
I just acquired the DP 1, 2 and 3 Merrills. Huh... they are really cheap now. 360,- Euro pcs. Somebody here who remembers how much Foveon cameras costed when launched? :eek:

I hope someone would give me an advice what kind of accessories would be helpful starting using these cameras.
I ordered quite some batteries, but what about the lens hoods? Are they efficient or are there better alternatives.
Any other suggestions?

Thanks.
 

darr

Well-known member
(1) I use standard rubber hoods after I found the Sigma designed hoods limit filter use.

(2) I have the three DPMs as well and use the RRS Grips on two and a JLM Sigma Merrill Grip on the other. I prefer the JLM grip over the RRS because it is lighter, but I have smaller hands than most male photographers.

(3) I purchased the two viewfinders for the DPM 1 and 2, but find them about useless.

(4) I recently purchased Hoodman Cinema Straps to use with my Hoodman HoodLoupe, and find it to work okay after taking one of the straps off and using only the remaining strap to keep the Hoodman secure onto the screen when using it.

(5) I installed ACMAXX 3.0" Screen Protectors to all my screens upon purchase and find them to work just fine.

My 2 cents. Congratulations on your gear acquisition, and I look forward to your upcoming photos from the DPMs. :)
 

G43

New member
Thanks a lot darr... :)

The JLM grips looks cool to me and does not cut the sigma logo in half vs the RRS grip.

Since I never use filters my thought was to keep a lens hood mounted to the lenses. I do however not know how efficient the Sigma lens hoods are. The DP2Q lens hood is worthless.

Batteries I found here: 3X Battery 750mAh for Sigma DP1 Merrill DP2 Merrill DP3 Merrill | eBay

Sure I'll upload some images when I get going and have learned to do a decent job with the cameras.
 

foveon

Member
I use the standard Sigma lenshood for DP2m, it works fine; but as mentioned above, I dont see how to use fliters, especially polarizer.
I also use a small Cokin set, especially for graduated grey filter.

These filters you cannot fake in software

btw: my settings are: neutral, contrast -0.2, saturation +0.2
 

G43

New member
Thx Foveon

I am aware no PP can simulate a true filter in any way. Time will show if I would use such filters. There's though a need of a ND filter for blur effect on water in high light etc.

Thanks for the tips for the settings.

I have no relation or any wish to promote DigLloyd, bust just saying there's no site that has dealt with the DP Merrils as his. His findings has influenced my choice of the DP Merrills for printing large. That the Merrills makes a truly amazing B&W file is just a very nice spin off.
 

G43

New member
Does anybody see the Iridient RAW developer as a valuable *accessory* ? Would you be able to describe the different looks after conversion to tiff? Links?

The only fear I have is what challenge/nightmare the SPP will expose on me. It is incredible what you may read about the crashes and inconvenient behaviour. I am a man with nerves made of iron, not titanium :)
 

foveon

Member
SPP is part of the game, I mostly use it just for converting to tif. From my experiene its wise to copy the pic you want to convert to an empty folder and open it from there with that SPP.
 

G43

New member
foveon..

Do you mean you do not use the SPP for anything but direct conversion to tiff? No global adjustments at all?
This is certainly what I could hope for works for me. I am not quite sure at this moment if I can leave everything as is and just importing the tiff to ACR/PS and take it from there.
That would not be a too quirky PP workflow.
 

foveon

Member
Just sometimes play a little around with that fill light, but mostly do all the work in PS.
From my experience it seems that SPP applies some sharpening with sharpening set to Zero.
When I blow up pics in PS to make large prints and I sharpen them I see artefacts that IMO are characteristic of double sharpening, so I wonder, when one sharpening is done in PS, where does the other come from.
I havent installed SPP 6.x so its just a hint to test this by yourself
 

G43

New member
What are these artifacts? Halos?
Do you process in ACR before PS? (guess would require a DNG conversion first).
 

foveon

Member
Some fine Halos and other irritating things, its kind of feeling, and I noticed only in uprezed files for larger prints, 60x90.
If I reduce sharpness settings in SPP a little sub zero, uprez and sharpen in PS I dont get Halos.
This may chance with the update of SPP, but Sigma never says what they are real changing.
Its just a hint to have an eye on it since you wrote you are interested in large prints, you can get large prints with lots of details, not like large prints from bayers, where you see sharpness, which is easy done in software, but no details.

I convert to 16bit TIFF and open in PS where I do adjustments and work with layers and masks if necessary.
 

G43

New member
Some fine Halos and other irritating things, its kind of feeling, and I noticed only in uprezed files for larger prints, 60x90.
If I reduce sharpness settings in SPP a little sub zero, uprez and sharpen in PS I dont get Halos.
This may chance with the update of SPP, but Sigma never says what they are real changing.
Its just a hint to have an eye on it since you wrote you are interested in large prints, you can get large prints with lots of details, not like large prints from bayers, where you see sharpness, which is easy done in software, but no details.

I convert to 16bit TIFF and open in PS where I do adjustments and work with layers and masks if necessary.
Thanks for sharing Foveon.

OOC that sharp, detailed and saturated I would have believed would not need further sharpening even printing large. I will of course have to learn how the PP'ed files shows on prints. But I trust you... very detailed and punchy.

I am not sure yet how my workflow will look like with the Foveon files. Am so grown into ACR basic developing and gradients and all the basic stuff there including B&W conversion, that I think I will open the TIFF in Lightroom first since it's basically the same developer routine.

TIFF should actually show the linear gamma in DNG files which will let ACR open the file. This is an advantage the way I work by synchronizing batches to get some consistency in a series of images taken the same place under the same light conditions. I.e. to let the blue sky show the same color tone for a stripe of bundled images.
 

saltytri

New member
Please let us know if these fit well. The problem with a number of after-market batteries of this configuration is that they are tight in the battery slot and can be difficult to remove.
 

X3inca

New member
Hi,
since i also jumped late on the Merrill Train, i also looked for perfect fitting screen protectors, but was disappointed from the results. Regarding the mentioned ACMAXX LCD-Screen protectors: What i can see in the linked picture it does not cover the whole glas screen. The whole glas area is something about 3.2" inch - only the underlying pixel-LCD is 3".

GGS & Co does not manufacture a dedicated & perfect fitting protector for Merrills , but i found that the GGS ones build for a Nikon D3100 and Canon 40D/50D (and 5DMk2) fits nearly perfect.
Here's i a picture from my setup, GGS glas for Canon 40D fitted.

Regarding lens hood: a B+W 900 rubber lens hood.
Regarding mounting plate: a small Kirk PZ-130

Bye, X3inca
 

G43

New member
Thanks for the tips. Really appreciated.

The thread forms a very nice list of purchase and that's pretty cool when a new camera family is coming in.

Would anybody recommend some adaptor suitable for the 52 to 49 mm filter threads so that only one VND filter is necessary, or that could maybe be any adaptor from any manufacturer?
 
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