Hey that Sigma DP1 is officially announced

On paper the DP-1 looks like a great camera. I wonder what it will cost in the USA? I've got some cash saved up for an R4A, but the DP-1 is very, very tempting.

Hopefully the image quailty will be up to snuff. I know nothing about the Foveon sensor.
 
Strange that it has a W and T botton on the back that look like the zoom buttons on other PandS cameras. Must be just a carryover from the bad old zoom days....
 
Also it seems that Sigma may have been prowling around web forums after their first anouncement, and that would be why they added the external viewfinder. Looks like a nice camera...if only it had an f2-f2.8 lens instead of f4...
 
I just hope this opens up a new market segment that other makers play in. That could be interesting...

...Mike
 
Hope it comes under USD$1000. Wonder if it will have the same "light hitting sensor at extreme angle" problem as the other digital rangefinders.
 
any chance it'll come in around US$700? I'm thinking of taking the plunge on a dslr, grd or lx2... but this is very tempting if the price is right.
 
Not a full glass, but I'm impressed.

I count almost 4.69 actual mega pixels. On a near APS size sensor that should mean excellent low-light capability. The camera is small - 4.5 by 2.3 by 2" - and weighs only 8 oz. That explains the f/4 rather than an f/2.8 lens. Look for Panasonic and maybe Olympus to field a reply with their 4/3rds sensor.

This is a concept hasn't really been fully explored and it needs to be.
 
kyubi_fox said:
Hope it comes under USD$1000. Wonder if it will have the same "light hitting sensor at extreme angle" problem as the other digital rangefinders.
It's not a RF.

Looks like an interesting competitor to the Ricoh GRD. Slower lens, but if it has faster raw write times that may help make up for it. Especially with a decent sized sensor.

Ian
 
I shot with a Sigma SD10 for the three years between my old M6TTL and my current M7. The image quality, especially the sharpness of the Foveon sensor was outstanding. The fact that the full quality RAW files were only 3.6M also really helped to stretch the value of memory cards.

The Foveon software was great, especially for correcting underexposed shadows and made for a smooth workflow.

There were also a couple of downsides. The most significant being that the Foveon sensor was TERRIBLE in terms of noise at any ISO rating above 100 (which is also the slowest). The noise pattern was really obtrusive. From what I understand this a side effect of the Foveon sensor's vertically stacked RGB strata. I never had much luck when using the popular noise reduction tools because of the noise pattern. I just left the camera permanently partked at ISO100. The new generation of Foveon sensors (in the SD14 and the DP1) is supposed to do better at this, though.

Something else to consider is that Sigma unveiled the SD14 in its supposed final form at Photokina last year but it only started shipping now. The DP1 was announced as a work in progress at Photokina but only shown in its supposed final form now. If the lead time on SD14 delivery to retail is any indication of the DP1's delivery, we may not see this until the start of the holiday buying season.

So... you guys that want one will have plenty of time to think it over!

I for one don't get the f4 lens speed. I think that f2.8 would have been much more in line with the general expectation of a high end ps, either film or digi.

John
 
It could be that the f4 lens is a sign they're really trying... At around 16mm, if they are trying to make it really good, look at the size and price of the Zeiss and Voigtlander 15s...

Tom
 
If Panasonic/Leica could graft a 20/2.8 lens to a similar camera with a 4/3rds sensor the resulting camera would have an 35mm equivalent of 40mm with the depth of field of 20mm.

Cross your fingers and such a camera may come into production.
 
What about VPS ?

What about VPS ?

Hi All !


On the Foveon website, one page deals with a technology of virtual pixel, they call it VPS: http://www.foveon.com/article.php?a=71
Seems very intersting to me, as far as I can understand, it gives the possibility to get better results in low light conditions by reducing the resolution.
But...
... I can't see anything about this on the dp1 datasheet :(
So maybe Sigma doesn't use this or maybe they just don't communicate about it ?
What do you think ?

Laurent
 
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