Quattro review - did you increase LCD brightness?

[kgelner]

Sorry to ask such a basic question, but in reading both reviews one thing mentioned was the LCD is not very bright.  I though it was pretty bright - once I increased the brightness from the shipped default of half-brightness.  Did either of you adjust the LCD brightness up before you went shooting?

Also on SPP being slow - yes it's way too slow right now.  But there are some mitigations.  You can now bulk-edit adjustments to raw images so for example, I take take a set of several images that are obviously blown and adjust the settings to reduce exposure by a stop.  After doing edits like that across images you can batch export all the images from SPP with stored settings so you aren't wasting time in the program waiting for anything.

Also in terms of selecting images to send off for review, you can either shoot RAW + JPG and use the JPG to decide what is worth further conversion.  Or if you just shoot raw, you can very quickly extract JPG images from the raw files in SPP and again use those to review.

I agree that Sigma really needs to focus heavily on improving SPP all around, especially speed (well perhaps stability first). 

[eronald]

The DPm series is now $500 pretax in europe. This price drop fixes any issues one might have with it

It is a horrible camera with  unbelievable image quality, at a low low price.

Other Sigma products have seen a similar price drop over time; at $500, I can see the Quattro as a winning proposition.


Edmund

[Kevin Raber]

Yes, of course we tried adjusting the brightness.  This is not our first doing this. 

Kevin

[michael]

As Kevin wroe.... Of course we did.

It just isn't a very good screen by 2014 standards.

Michael

[eronald]

As Kevin wroe.... Of course we did.

It just isn't a very good screen by 2014 standards.

Michael

If the Quattro is as bad as the DPm, I think the only solution is to mount some sort of external finder, or a magnifier/hood.
There is some one making an EVF in China, and even a Leica mount mod for the DPm.
What would be ideal for tripod shooters would be an ipad connection.

Edmund

[soboyle]

The Hoodman 3.2 works, it adds a lot of bulk, but for tripod mounted most of the time, does the job. Can now manually focus, which is difficult without a hood.

[mfritter]

Are the Quattro raw files slower in SPP than the Merrill ones? 

[Malina DZ]

Are the Quattro raw files slower in SPP than the Merrill ones? 

The same processing speed/time on W7 64-bit PC for both Q & M.

[Malina DZ]

Form perspective of Windows 7 64-bit OS user, SPP6 is more stable, not a single crush so far, and faster than SPP5. SPP5 used to crush a lot when opening folders with 100+ RAW images. SPP6 utilizes more RAM memory, up to 1.5GB (only  ), and loads i7 processor up to its limits during RAW developments. So having 16GB RAM is of little benefit, but faster CPU can make a big difference in your workflow speed.

I'm a fan of Foveon, but won't sugarcoat the DP M/Q's or SPP drawbacks Sigma let us deal with. Thank you for your reviews Michael and Kevin. Had you a little more patience and other than Mac machines, you'd learn some other bugs Sigma has to address for Monochrome processing 
But I'm happy they still support Foveon technology and try to improve it. No one else does. It's good to have a choice.

[eronald]

Form perspective of Windows 7 64-bit OS user, SPP6 is more stable, not a single crush so far, and faster than SPP5. SPP5 used to crush a lot when opening folders with 100+ RAW images. SPP6 utilizes more RAM memory, up to 1.5GB (only   ), and loads i7 processor up to its limits during RAW developments. So having 16GB RAM is of little benefit, but faster CPU can make a big difference in your workflow speed.

I'm a fan of Foveon, but won't sugarcoat the DP M/Q's or SPP drawbacks Sigma let us deal with. Thank you for your reviews Michael and Kevin. Had you a little more patience and other than Mac machines, you'd learn some other bugs Sigma has to address for Monochrome processing  
But I'm happy they still support Foveon technology and try to improve it. No one else does. It's good to have a choice.

What I like about my Merrill is that I take I change batteries (new in camera/old in charger), go outfor an hour in sunlight, and then it has AF that really works, just the right amount of DOF, and sharp pix @ F2.8 or F3.2. It's like a Hassy with a single roll of 220 loaded, except a Hassy needs F8 for the same DOF.

When I get home, Irident then allows me to browse the card, grab the 2 or 3 shots I want to keep, and those I dump on my hard drive and process with SPP, in a folder by themselves and then it doesn't crash. Oh, and yes, I don't reformat the card, I just fill it up and keep it as its own backup

The Foveon sensor works and makes good images, I don't understand why no one else especially MF uses it?

Edmund

[mfritter]

Yeah, I treat mine as though it were a medium format film camera, so it's performance doesn't bother me.  Wouldn't want one as my primary platform, however - for that a Leica M6.