Topic: Sigma DP Quattro (Read 140086 times)

Quentin · « **Reply #300 on:** September 07, 2014, 05:29:56 am »

Bit of automotive Quattro fun from last Friday

And the very tasteful...

capital · « **Reply #301 on:** October 04, 2014, 02:37:40 am »

Dali @ 400 ISO and 100% crop using Foveon Classic Blue & SPP 6.0.6.

SPP 6.0.6 brings back details from beer garden and appears to have less noise reduction applied at lowest setting. Not sure why Sigma ever released SPP6.0.5 and prior with a very dumb noise reduction algorithm that applies luminance smoothing if the grey tone is about 80 (out of 256) or lower even when noise reduction was turned all the way down.

Now on to Dali, anyone know why there is a distinct blue line at the woman's upper chest even though in the full context of the original painting she is sitting in ankle deep water?

Quentin · « **Reply #302 on:** November 16, 2014, 05:04:13 am »

I recently acquired a both a DP2Q and DP1Q. Testing the DP1Q yesterday, there appears to be an issue with backlit fine detail not present in the earlier Merrils.

the first shot shows the problem, taken with a DP1Q

Compared to a shot taken shortly afterwards with a DP2M (ignore size and colour differences)

I am not the first to notice this as it has been raised before I believe on this forum by Capital.

We are either seeing a limitation of interpolation necessary to get the new sensor to work, or a software processing error (I used Sigma Photo Pro 6.1, the latest iteration).

Given that the DP1Q, which has a 28mm equiv. angle of view, would appear to be a great choice for landscapes, this issue needs to be addressed by Sigma - assuming it can be.

Another issue is highlight clipping. there is less headroom with the "Q" than with the "M" and this is most noticeable in practice with overexposed skies, or when using the X3 fill light function in SPP. X3 does not work nearly as well with the "Q's" as with the M's"

Nonetherless the "Q" can produce very nice colours and has an edge (not a big one) in resolution over the Merrills.

capital · « **Reply #303 on:** November 16, 2014, 03:55:02 pm »

Quentin's examples are more clear cut since the sky is generally cloudy. Here is an example on a "blue sky day". The exposures for both DP2M & DP2Q cameras were identical: 1/250 sec, F/8, ISO200, and Tripod Mounted with Delayed shutter release. In SPP, color balance for each is set at Sunlight and an eye dropper was placed on some foreground road surface for neutrality. My personal observation is that blue saturation of the Quattro is higher overall, though there appears to be a much more pronounced blue bleed into the fine details, compared to the Merrill sample.

Sigma's SPP software saw massive gains in red resolution and shadow resolution for the Quattro, I hope this blue bleed is a case that may similarly be addressed by SPP and not a limitation of the Quattro layout.

I am updating this post with a comparison to a bayer rendering of very fine details against a blue sky, showing a similar phenomenon to the DP2Q blue bleed, contrasted with the DP2M.

Quentin · « **Reply #304 on:** November 17, 2014, 01:32:00 pm »

Based on more shots today, the issue appears almost absent if the background against which the shot is taken - say, bright sky - is not blown out.

capital · « **Reply #305 on:** November 17, 2014, 03:48:55 pm »

I wonder if we are seeing two different issues, overexposure fill and fine detail bleed.

Interesting area to photograph especially with fall colors.

NigelC · « **Reply #306 on:** November 18, 2014, 06:31:10 am »

Not been using DPm's (or any camera for that matter) for a while. I have no interest in acquiring a quattro and I wondered what current thinking is on SPP version if you are sticking with merrills? I get the impression best stick with 5.5.3

Chrisso26 · « **Reply #307 on:** November 18, 2014, 03:58:12 pm »

I'm happily using 6.1. Although some people say 5.? is faster/better for merrill.

Alan Smallbone · « **Reply #308 on:** November 18, 2014, 04:25:23 pm »

I am also using 6.1 and don't have any problems, I have a DP2Q and DP3M. The 6.1 release was a big difference, and made it respond a bit better, it is not blazing fast it works. I am using Windows. I see Mac users complaining more.

Alan

Bruce Cox · « **Reply #309 on:** December 15, 2014, 11:07:39 am »

Dumb, yes, but they spelled the name right.

I kinda like it.

petermfiore · « **Reply #310 on:** December 15, 2014, 11:14:29 am »

Quote from: capital on October 04, 2014, 02:37:40 am

Dali @ 400 ISO and 100% crop using Foveon Classic Blue & SPP 6.0.6.

SPP 6.0.6 brings back details from beer garden and appears to have less noise reduction applied at lowest setting. Not sure why Sigma ever released SPP6.0.5 and prior with a very dumb noise reduction algorithm that applies luminance smoothing if the grey tone is about 80 (out of 256) or lower even when noise reduction was turned all the way down.

Now on to Dali, anyone know why there is a distinct blue line at the woman's upper chest even though in the full context of the original painting she is sitting in ankle deep water?

It appears she was painted on top of the landscape.
All oil color no matter how opaque will become increasingly transparent over time.

Peter

Bruce Cox · « **Reply #311 on:** January 21, 2015, 12:59:54 pm »

The attached is a section from a 360 degree pano that I shot a couple of days ago with a DP2 Q intended to show late-Christmas party decorations, but which also shows blown out highlights.

Quentin · « **Reply #312 on:** January 21, 2015, 06:21:52 pm »

Quote from: Bruce Cox on January 21, 2015, 12:59:54 pm

The attached is a section from a 360 degree pano that I shot a couple of days ago with a DP2 Q intended to show late-Christmas party decorations, but which also shows blown out highlights.

Working with Merrel DP3 frames in SPP I developed a preferance for leaving the Highlight Control slider in the middle at .5.

With the DP2 Q it seems I am better off moving it all the way to the left at Neutralize, as I did here.

Sadly the DP2Q suffers from irrecoverable, harsh clipping of the highlights which your shot seems to show. The Merrills are the exact reverse. For this reason the Merrills are a better bet for panoramas.

slowframe · « **Reply #313 on:** January 21, 2015, 10:36:00 pm »

Quote from: Quentin on January 21, 2015, 06:21:52 pm

Sadly the DP2Q suffers from irrecoverable, harsh clipping of the highlights which your shot seems to show. The Merrills are the exact reverse. For this reason the Merrills are a better bet for panoramas.

I've read this now in a few places, but I can't say that I'm entirely convinced. I own two Merrills. The histogram on the camera doesn't give an accurate readout with respect to when highlight clipping occurs. So, if one exposes with the histogram all the way to the right, or even slightly beyond it, it is possible to reduce the exposure or highlight slider in SPP to bring the highlight brightness into a useful range for jpeg/tiff conversion. That doesn't happen on the Q, because as far as I can tell, the DP2Q's live histogram's representation of when highlight clipping occurs correlates much more closely with when highlights have in fact clipped. That's not a difference in recoverability, roll off, etc, but in the relationship between what the histogram displays and what has actually occurred with respect to the RAW data.

mmbma · « **Reply #314 on:** January 22, 2015, 04:06:22 pm »

after a month, i finally returned my quattro today.... the camera had so much promise but ultimated proved to be too much trouble than it's worth. I find myself constantly worrying about focus, about not overblowing the highlights when i'm out shooting, than to be able to focus totally on the shot. the controls were also not intuitive for me as well.

The good files were good, but lacked the shock and awe of the DP123M cameras.

capital · « **Reply #315 on:** January 22, 2015, 08:51:08 pm »

Quote from: petermfiore on December 15, 2014, 11:14:29 am

It appears she was painted on top of the landscape.
All oil color no matter how opaque will become increasingly transparent over time.

Peter

Thank you Peter, that is an interesting idea. Any write-up on this painting that I have found thus far does not really address the details.

Hulyss · « **Reply #316 on:** January 23, 2015, 03:41:02 am »

So we agree that the Quattro is almost, if not totally, a fail ?

I mean that with what we used to output out of the "tiny" Merrilland even with the pre-Merrill, the Quattro fall short. First, the compactness is gone, by a large margin. We assume that if compactness is trashed it is for a good reason such as noise issue, bigger batteries, new features ... but no, only bigger batteries. Odd design, kinda awkward, uncontrollable noise even at base ISO, blown highlights, no video anymore; I used to shoot old school videos with DP - http://youtu.be/OCepB3snYBE same as other folks around the world - http://youtu.be/WIlkgU7Et1o - http://youtu.be/wUvxwl-8umc ...

The video output was not stargazing but creativity was here. Video should have been pushed with foveon because of no moiré ... In the Q it is gone. We lost IQ and features such as flash, rear wheel for manual focus (far more useful and precise than lens ring manual focus...).

What more to say ? Deception. They lost the plot and the sensitivity behind what was foveon devices, the world's first APS-C compact camera. How to trash a legacy !

Listen SIGMA. Hire back Shinzo Fukui and return to the basics please ...

Your little game at following MP race is just useless. In facts, It's actually killing your products and your reputation, a reputation who was carved for years by happy, inspired consumers, focussed more on Art than technology. So now you focus on hype and provide prototype crippled products, trying to hook technogearheads around the world but here again, you failed.

You had free evangelists, now you will need to pay them or finding naive guys to follow you on events like Paris photo, CP+ ... Foveon was to photography what apple used to be for computers : a niche with a lot of room for development : UNIQUE.

RobertJ · « **Reply #317 on:** January 23, 2015, 05:59:20 am »

I really wanted to like the Quattro, but I ended up buying all three DP Merrills, and I'm very happy with all three.

One thing I'm really disappointed about is how the Quattro was released. It was basically unfinished. Look at the difference in image quality after SPP 6.06 and the corresponding firmware came out, compared to what we saw with the very first early sample images. Completely different.

What are you thinking Sigma!?

Not to mention, the Quattro earned "The Dumbest" of the year award from the Luminous-Landscape.

Bruce Cox · « **Reply #318 on:** January 23, 2015, 02:00:18 pm »

The attached was shot at the same exposure [and point of rotation] as my previous post: ISO 100, f 5.6, and 1/2 sec. The processing is a little different.

The detail is at 100% and shows both noise and blown highlights. I did not engage any noise reduction.

Though hoped for advances in Sigma's software and or firmware will likely only get us so far with this model, I may keep trying to get it to work.

Dave Millier · « **Reply #319 on:** January 23, 2015, 05:32:49 pm »

Hulyss

Like you, I've been in the Foveon game a while and still own 3.4MP, a 4.6MP and Merrill cameras (not a Quattro, though) but I disagree with your characterization of the Q as unfinished prototype. Well, it may be, but so is every other Foveon model. To my knowledge, with the exception of perhaps the original Kodak 14n, no one else other than Sigma releases such under-cooked, unfinished, under-specified products as Sigma.

Whilst I applaud them for soldiering on, I find their products weird, essentially doomed to fail in the market place before they ship and their long term strategy inscrutable. I am still buying their stuff from time to time but only ever at bargain prices - the full price is ridiculous for such poor (overall) products.

If you want the Foveon look above all else, it may make sense but otherwise the whole exercise has the feel of vanity publishing hobby products from Mr Yamaki...

Quote from: Hulyss on January 23, 2015, 03:41:02 am

So we agree that the Quattro is almost, if not totally, a fail ?

I mean that with what we used to output out of the "tiny" Merrilland even with the pre-Merrill, the Quattro fall short. First, the compactness is gone, by a large margin. We assume that if compactness is trashed it is for a good reason such as noise issue, bigger batteries, new features ... but no, only bigger batteries. Odd design, kinda awkward, uncontrollable noise even at base ISO, blown highlights, no video anymore; I used to shoot old school videos with DP - http://youtu.be/OCepB3snYBE same as other folks around the world - http://youtu.be/WIlkgU7Et1o - http://youtu.be/wUvxwl-8umc ...

The video output was not stargazing but creativity was here. Video should have been pushed with foveon because of no moiré ... In the Q it is gone. We lost IQ and features such as flash, rear wheel for manual focus (far more useful and precise than lens ring manual focus...).

What more to say ? Deception. They lost the plot and the sensitivity behind what was foveon devices, the world's first APS-C compact camera. How to trash a legacy !

Listen SIGMA. Hire back Shinzo Fukui and return to the basics please ...

Your little game at following MP race is just useless. In facts, It's actually killing your products and your reputation, a reputation who was carved for years by happy, inspired consumers, focussed more on Art than technology. So now you focus on hype and provide prototype crippled products, trying to hook technogearheads around the world but here again, you failed.

You had free evangelists, now you will need to pay them or finding naive guys to follow you on events like Paris photo, CP+ ... Foveon was to photography what apple used to be for computers : a niche with a lot of room for development : UNIQUE.

Author Topic: Sigma DP Quattro (Read 140086 times)