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Sigma DP1 14MP Digital Camera
Price: $671.83
- 14-megapixel resolution; SLR-sized image sensor
- 16.6mm F4 lens designed exclusively for the DP1
- Large, 2.5-inch LCD; 3 metering modes and 5 exposure modes
- JPEG recording format for convenience plus a RAW data (X3F) recording mode
- Capture images to SD/SDHC cards and MMC (not included)
Just misses.Date: 2008-11-30 Rating: 6 out of 10I--like many others--had high hopes for this camera. A (nearly) DSLR sized sensor in a compact body is a very attractive concept, and it is one that I hope and assume will be developed and improved upon by Sigma and other makers. Having such a large sensor means that noise--the primary problem with compact digital cameras--is vastly reduced and effectively neutralized as a negative issue. I have personally verified that this camera achieves this point, and that of course is laudable. Noise handling is phenomenal with this camera. In addition, chromatic aberration is virtually nonexistent, which again for a compact digital camera is phenomenal and again laudable.
Regarding the speed of the camera which has been a topic of extensive criticism, I must say that either I got a freak fast unit or my standards of speed differ from the mainstream. The speed is not remarkably slow, and if no one had ever said anything about the speed I would not have noticed at all one way or the other. The speed is the approximately the same as other point and shoot compacts that I have used. If you are in that much of a hurry, then you need to either slow down or get a DLSR that can rattle off 5 frames a second. Seriously, the speed is a non-issue to me and I am normally a DLSR shooter used to being able to churn out a "spray" of frames.
Size: it is larger than I expected, and frankly almost too large to be considered a compact point and shoot. It may have just barely crossed the line in this respect.
Ergonomics: excellent, and I did not experience the same issues with accidentally moving settings that other people seemed to have experienced.
Last but certainly not least: the MP issue, and it is a biggie. It is such a biggie that my rating went from 5 stars to 3.5 stars. I think the camera generally gets close to 5 stars on everything except the MP issue, which for me gets 1-2 stars. It's that bad.
Folks: you have been lied to. There is just no nice way to say it so I'm not going to sugarcoat it. This is a 4.7MP camera, and Sigma should list it as such. This is not--I repeat not--a 14.0MP, 14.06MP, or 14.1MP camera. It is a 4.7MP camera. What Sigma has done--and I applaud, frankly--is to make a sandwich out of three translucent sensors (4.7MP each for red, green and blue) which helps deliver a great picture quality in terms of color handling/saturation, low CA and most importantly noise levels. That's great, it really is, but this is still a 4.7MP camera. When you open the file with Photoshop and click on image size, the pixels come to 4.7MP, not 14MP. This is all that matters at the end of the day. I don't care if Sigma wants to sandwich 10,000 sensors together or just use 1. It is totally irrelevant to me. The actual pixel output is the only pertinent number. I am outraged that this company thinks it is O.K. to market this camera as a 14MP camera when it is actually a 4.7MP camera.
This is a problem on two levels. It is a problem for me in principle because I think the company is being misleading. It is furthermore an operational problem because 4.7MP is not enough for most of my shooting. It would have been a few years ago but this is not a few years ago. This is now, and 4.7MP doesn't cut it. No, I have not drank the MP Koolaid. I know that MP aren't everything and in fact when used to excess can degrade image quality (i.e. G10, 50D, etc.). That being said, I need at least 6-8MP. 4.7MP is simply too small. The average post-cropped picture will end up being just over 4MP. This is big enough for an 8x10 and that's it. If you only shoot for 8x10s then maybe this camera is for you. I simply can't be held to that size because too often I need larger sizes.
Not to beat a dead horse but again please understand that I only mention this because the company misleads about the MP size. If they advertised that it was 4.7MP then how could I complain that it was only 4.7MP? I would not have bought the camera in the first place, frankly, if I had known. I did extensive research on the internet prior to purchase and somehow this important fact nugget eluded me. Consider yourself informed. If 4.7MP is enough for you then this camera is a home run, otherwise it is just a valiant but ultimately insufficient effort to put a larger sensor in a compact camera. Frankly, at the current retail price it is more than insufficient. $600-$700 for a 4.7MP camera in 2008? This value would make even Leica blush.
Accessories
Bewertungengood cameraDatum 2008-11-04 Rang: 6 von 10I just read all reviews here at amazon and I'm glad more buyers were happy about their DP1. I actually pre-ordered my DP1 from amazon a few months ago before it was released. I was not so happy with it at first until after 2 weeks of using it. (I don't know if I'm actually happy or I just got used to it after 2 weeks.) I understand that it is made for Making pictures and not Taking pictures. But I still believe that I don't deserve a slow lens, slow focus, slow write speed, slow start up and an ugly LCD with a price that much. With an f/4, it would have been appreciable for it to have a VR/IS/OS. It loses the essence of being a hand held pocket camera just because at f4 you will need a tripod to make it steady.
It's 2008/2009! Ever heard of HSM? OS? 920K LCD? F/2.0?
Honestly, I'm just torn. I love it on daytime and hate it at nighttime. I just wish that this category/camera will find competition very soon from the big guys so they wont slack on their product development.
Recently they have announced the DP2. I wonder if i could continue to support/spend ridiculous amount of $ on Sigma if their improvement is just minimal considering Olympus & Panasonic has announced the MICRO FOUR THIRDS System. This system will be very very small SLRs with interchangeable lenses. And from what I read, it maintains the same quality as the existing four third cameras.
I check for firmware update from Sigma's website everyday. And my DP1 is still my official camera to date. It is well accessorized with sigma and hoya products, but I don't know for how long will I be able to use it... since I just bought it barely 7 months ago.Image Quality makes this a 5 star for meDatum 2008-10-10 Rang: 10 von 10You may have read reviews that complain about some of the old fashion aspects of this camera - it's slow, its display is hard to read in the sun, it doesn't have a bunch of bells and whistles. But when it comes right down to what matters most, image quality, this camera has all of the other small cameras beat by miles. The combination of large size sensor and foveon technology makes this camera a winner for me. If you are a point-and-shooter I wouldn't buy this camera because it lacks many features of the usual point-and-shoot camera. But if like me image quality is what you seek, you'll find it in this funky little camera. I love mine and have taken over 6000 pictures with it. I took it with me to Italy and got some great photos. I shoot raw and use the Sigma software to process my photos. It's slow to use but handles dynamic range really well.Great image quality in a compact, take one.Datum 2008-10-09 Rang: 8 von 10Although there are a number of widely varying opinions amongst the reviews on this page, hardly anyone says anything that I'd say is wrong. It's just a question of what priorities you have and what you want in a camera. If you're looking for the best all-around compact you can get, and are satisfied with perfectly decent image quality, maybe you'd be better off with something like the Canon G10 or Panasonic LX3, excellent cameras by all accounts. On the other hand, if you want a compact camera that has, hands down, the best picture quality of any compact digicam on the market today, and you are willing to put up with a slow, quirky, limited camera to get it, welcome to the Sigma DP1.
A lot has been written about this camera, both in these Amazon reviews, and elsewhere. Since there is no shortage of information, I am going to limit my comments to two areas. First, some specifics regarding image quality, followed by a couple of clarifications regarding things that people have said in other reviews on this page.
Other than being cool looking (to my eye), and very solidly built, this camera is basically a one trick pony, and its trick is unsurpassed image quality. So even the most minor image quality flaws bear mentioning. Keep in mind, the pictures from this camera are outstanding, and I am doing everything I can to nitpick here.
1. Color noise, especially at high ISO in dark areas, takes the form of green and magenta mottling. It is much less finely grained than color noise usually is, and as such, is not entirely removed by the normally very effective "color noise reduction" slider in Lightroom.
2. White balance sometimes tends towards magenta in the highlights, and green in shadow areas, making a global white balance correction difficult in some cases.
3. Color saturation is greatly reduced at high ISO.
4. Chromatic abberation, though slight and easily corrected in Lightroom, seems more pronounced in many of my photos than it had been in sample photos that I'd looked at before purchase.
Again, I'm really looking for flaws here. Sharpness and dynamic range are incredible. Color and noise levels are amazing. The picture quality of this camera bests not only any other compact, but indeed many lower end DSLRs as well.
Lastly, a few comments regarding some things said in other reviews on this page.
1. The latest DP1 firmware (1.04 as of this writing) includes a number of improvements, including the ability to map the ISO controls to the otherwise useless "zoom" buttons on the camera. This means that ISO can now be changed directly with a single button push, without going into any menu. (My camera, ordered a couple weeks ago from Amazon, did not come with the latest firmware, but it is easy to download and install from Sigma's website.)
2. As of this writing, Adobe Camera Raw, DNG Converter, and Lightroom 2.1 now offer "preliminary" support for DP1 raw files. I have been using Lightroom 2.1, and to be honest, it does not render the DP1 raw files as well as Sigma's own software. But it is adequate in most cases, and it is reasonable to expect that this will improve once the support is no longer just "preliminary."
3. Some reviewers have mentioned that the camera is not really 14 megapixels, one reviewer going so far as to suggest that the claim is misleading, "since each pixel records only one color." By that logic, the megapixel claims of all manufacturers are spurious, since the same is true of every camera on the market. If you're interested in this camera, you probably already know what the Foveon X3 sensor is, and understand issues of color interpolation vs. spacial interpolation, and photo sensors vs. final image pixels. But if you're interested in reading more about this, Mike Chaney gives the best explanation I've encountered. (Amazon apparently won't let me give a link here, you can do a Google search for "Chaney" and "sd14" and click the first result.) Mr. Chaney is talking about the Sigma SD14, but the SD14 and the DP1 use the same image sensor, and all of his comments are applicable to the DP1 as well.
All in all, I am very happy with this camera, and I hope it is a sign of things to come. It is not perfect, but it's a step in the right direction, and it would be great to see Sigma, and other manufactures, continue down this road of making compact cameras for serious photographers.Glad I bought itDatum 2008-10-08 Rang: 10 von 10I thought long and hard about this purchase. After all, I am retired, fixed income. I have a Leica Digilux 2 cameera, which is excellent, but very bulky. I have wanted a Foveon camera since they were first announced. However, the first ones to market were very expensive and I could not justify it.
This little camera, however, is a dream. I photograph in daylight, nothing fancy, and I am not in a hurry. The photos are incredible. They are everything you have read, and more. The camera is small and easy to carry around. Others have written better reviews than this, but if you understand what the Foveon sensor is, you must have this camera.
Produkt InformationRecording label: Sigma Corporation Hersteller: Sigma CorporationModel: DP1EAN: 0085126924997Format: ElectronicsErscheinungdatum: 2008-03-18Universal product code (UPC): 085126924997Batterien sind dabei: 1Brand: Sigma
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