So I did it, I gave in to the fascinating idea of having exceptionally high image quality in a very small, light & portable package: who wouldn't, right? Up to now, however, it seemed like an almost impossible dream; we all know that sensor size plays a huge role in image quality (usually the larger, the better), and that quality lenses take up lot of space and weight as well. When the first Sigma DP compact cameras have been announced a few years ago, they seemed like a move in the right direction; however, their resolution was too low for serious work (read large print) plus they were slow and quirky to operate; in the end, despite my curiosity, I decided to skip that round and kept using my usual, large & heavy rigs. Flash-forward a few years, Sigma kept working and improving on the concept, and out come the new Sigma DP1 Merrill & Sigma DP2 Merrill (the name is an homage to Dick Merrill, developer of the Foveon sensor). These new compact cameras sport APS-C sensors, and their increased resolution of 46 Foveon-Mp (or 15.36 Regular-Mp x 3 levels of colour) is now enough for printing large; they feature new, specially-developed lenses supposedly outputting great image quality, respectively a 19mm (28mm equivalent) and a 30mm (45mm equivalent) lenses; finally they promise to have improved on speed and the operational quirks of the precedent generation DP cameras.
In November 2012 I went back home to Milan and then for a couple of days to Venice to do some shooting for my Fine Art website; while I normally wouldn't use new gear on a serious working expedition nor suggest anyone to do so, this was an easily repeatable trip for me in case things would go wrong. So, rather than carrying around my Nikon D800E or my MF rig, I decided to save some ten pounds weight and some cubic inches and to give the newly purchased Sigma duo a try.
This is not a classic review and as such it will not show photos of resolution boards, controlled tests and so on. These are my on-the-field impressions about these two cameras, which I put to the test the only way I know of: by using them in the field and seeing if they suit my needing. All images presented here have been shot either in Milan or in Venice with the Sigma DP1 Merrill & Sigma DP2 Merrill and processed according to my aesthetic vision as I normally do for my own work: I shot all images below in RAW only, developed them in Sigma Photo Pro and finished them in Photoshop CS6.
Were my hopes and dreams for high image quality in a small package fulfilled? Let's find it out after the jump...!
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| Sigma DP2 Merrill, 2 sec. f8 |
Let's get the bad news out of the way first. Sigma ships both cameras in a standard white box; included with the camera, beside the usual stuff, is a second battery - which not only you'll desperately need, sadly it will not even be enough to seriously start working! This is the first, and most serious, bad news: battery life with both the DP Merrills is incredibly low; as an even worse surprises, today you cannot buy spares - they are just not available. Luckily, Ricoh DB-65 batteries are exactly one and the same with the Sigma BP-41, and what's more important, they can readily be found. One battery is good for much less than 100 images; depending on your use of the LCD screen and on how much you leave the camera on stand-by it can last even way less than that: I got as low as 50 images on one charge. After charging these new batteries a few times, as usual, the situation improves a bit; plus, once the cameras are set-up, one doesn't need to fiddle with the menus as much. Still, 70-100 images per charge is very poor in this day and age. Such a low battery life is probably due to the high energy requirements of Foveon sensors and to the necessity of keeping the battery small to keep bulk under control; still, with the 3.6V 1250mAh 4.5Wh BP-41 batteries you'll need at least 2-3 spares (4-5 battery total per camera) to go through a heavy day shooting.
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| S. Giorgio Maggiore - Sigma DP1 Merrill, 1.6 sec f8 |
The second bad news concerns RAW shooters (and you'd want to shoot RAW with these cameras!); Sigma Photo Pro is not the most user friendly, nor the stablest, nor the most powerful RAW processor on the market. Not even close. In fact, I think is quite poor: it doesn't take long to get used to it, but there is just so much it can do, and it works in such a quirky way that one wonders why, oh why, do camera companies think they must be software developers as well. Please Sigma, give your RAW sauce to Adobe and Phase One, and support their implementation of RAW conversion options for your Foveon cameras. We'd really, really appreciate it.
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| Riva degli Schiavoni - Sigma DP1 Merrill, 0.8 sec. f8 |
Once one got to grips with the above, though, things start looking much better. Camera menus are well organised and short, without the usual hundreds of tabs and options, and the camera itself is very easy to setup. Ergonomically, there isn't much to say; the DPs are small bricks, and while the small bumps that Sigma added both on the front and on the back of the camera help a bit with holding it, the slippery finish and the absolute lack of any protuberances/holding helps/grips of sorts make it necessary to use either a neck strap or a hand strap (my preferred solution) for safety. As far as control goes, between the top wheel and the 4-way controller on the back you can do pretty much all you need in a very intelligent way; even MF is well implemented and easy to use, once you get over the loathed classic focus-by-wire feel of the focus ring. In short, a wonderful simplicity permeates the whole camera, from hardware to software setup: it is a very welcome breath of fresh photographic air in today's overcomplicated, over-featured cameras. It works perfectly well in the field, too, which is what counts. No frills, just photos: kudos to Sigma here.
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| Leaves, Milan 2012; Sigma DP2 Merrill, 1/50 sec. f2.8 |
The back LCD works well and is very visible in all but the brightest light. However, when composing and focussing in low light the LCD image is very desaturated, almost to the point of going BW; as well, the LCD is very prone to fingerprints.
In use, the camera is very responsive for a compact camera; at start-up it is ready to shoot in 1-2 sec, focusing is very quick and it seldom hunts or miss, and while file writing takes some time, a deep enough buffer makes it possible to keep shooting - too bad that you'll not be able to play images back during this time, it would be great if Sigma could implement a fast, low res preview to be displayed while the camera writes its files at leisure. Is it a fast street shooter? Definitely not, but it holds its ground. For my purposes as a Fine Art photographer, using it either on a tripod or at a very tranquil pace, I have been very happy with it and never had to wait for it.
Using the Merrills on a Arca-Swiss compatible tripod head is very easy: the tripod mount is aligned with the centre of the lens and a small and light universal Really Right Stuff compact-camera plate did the trick for me. As far as using filters goes, no problem here as well: both cameras have a 49mm filter thread and features internal focus, non-extending lenses. For portability, I used a Cokin A system, which proved to be not such a great idea for colour cast (especially so on the DP1M); I should have used my Singh-Ray filters instead. No problems whatsoever with the DP2M.
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| Leaves, Milan 2012; Sigma DP2 Merrill, 1/200 sec. f2.8 |
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| Leaves, Milan 2012; Sigma DP1 Merrill 1/60 sec. f2.8 |
So what about image quality? In a word, wonderful. The clarity of the Foveon files and their per-pixel sharpness needs to be seen to be believed; detail is impressive - really impressive! - with no smearing, no aliasing, no moire, no interpolation artefacts whatsoever. Comparisons between the Merrill and other cameras started to appear on the web, and you might want to check out diglloyd and Reid Reviews (both paid websites, but both worth the money) for more "technical" reviews; in particular, Lloyd's findings on the rendering of smooth surfaces with the Sigma DP2 Merrill are amazing, and confirm my impressions with the camera.
Colour rendition is very appealing but particular to Sigma; meaning, the files aren't necessarily 100% faithful to reality, but when they depart from it they do it mostly in a subtle way and always very aesthetically, for a lack of a better word. That said, I wouldn't use the Merrills for critical reproduction work.
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| High tide in S. Marco, Venice 2012; Sigma DP2, 1/100 sec. f4 |
Interesting enough for cameras that make their "full colour" sensor their main strength, the black and white images produced by these two little machines are simply amazing. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that the Merrill outputs the best BW images I have ever seen from any digital camera, short of the Leica M Monochrom and very likely of the Phase One Monochrome back (which I never used). The files have an amazing clarity and detail, the BW tones are so rich and the transitions so smooth, the images so deep and tridimensional looking that one would want to shoot BW all the time. Speaking of the Leica Monochrom, by the way, it is worth considering that one can get the DP1M, DP2M and the newly announced Sigma DP3 Merrill (75mm equivalent, f2.8) for less than the Leica's body alone, which is something worth thinking about.
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| Intersection, Venice 2012; Sigma DP1 Merrill, 1/1250 sec. f2.8 |
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| Gran Caffè, Venice 2012; Sigma DP1 Merrill, 1/80 sec. f2.8 |
DP1M & DP2M: DIFFERENCES
In short, the only differences between the DP1M & DP2M is in their lenses. So, how do they perform? Generally, I'd say very very well; keeping the lenses on the slow side (f2.8 is far from state of the art speed!) was wise on Sigma's part to help keeping aberrations & distortion low and sharpness high over the whole frame. More in detail, starting with the "normal" equivalent 30mm lens on the DP2M, the lens is - well - just great: it is very well corrected, wide open is already amazingly sharp on centre and it gets sharp all over the frame to the very corners from f4 on; plus, it's colour rendition is very well balanced. Some barrel distortion is apparent at close focus, and can be corrected adding about +2 in Photoshop. A hint of green-magenta fringe and red-blue chromatic aberration (as per Sigma Photo Pro's terminology) appear on high contrast objects, but is easily corrected either in SPP or later in Photoshop. Out of focus areas are very pleasant, and so is the lens drawing in general: I'd rate this a 9/10, just missing top marks due to the slight chromatic aberrations.
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| Ponte dei Sospiri - Sigma DP2 Merrill, 4 sec. f8 |
The DP1M, on the other hand, sports a little weaker lens compared to its sibling; the 19mm Sigma lens is very sharp and renders beautifully as well, but it isn't as sharp as its bigger brother is if one starts pixel-peeping down into the extreme image corners up to f5.6 / f8. Chromatic aberrations are present here too, are larger in pixels and get triggered a bit more easily and frequently than in the bigger brother. Colour rendition is generally balanced, even if less so than with the 30mm; however,under certain conditions a heavy hot-spot (magenta colour cast in the middle of the image) can make its appearance, sometimes a very sizeable one such as in this uncorrected example:
As you can see, in the image above you'd definitely need to fix it; in some of the other examples in this post, however, I choose to correct the cast to different extents, either completely or partially according to the mood of the image. That said, of course, I would not expect to see such a heavy colour cast from a camera aiming to such high levels of image quality.
Besides these minor problems, many of which easily correctable in post, the 19mm too is an excellent lens, and especially so considering that it is a wide angle: my rating here would be 8/10.
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| Sigma DP1 Merrill, 0.3 sec. f8, heavy magenta color cast |
As you can see, in the image above you'd definitely need to fix it; in some of the other examples in this post, however, I choose to correct the cast to different extents, either completely or partially according to the mood of the image. That said, of course, I would not expect to see such a heavy colour cast from a camera aiming to such high levels of image quality.
Besides these minor problems, many of which easily correctable in post, the 19mm too is an excellent lens, and especially so considering that it is a wide angle: my rating here would be 8/10.
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| A gondola's dance - Sigma DP1 Merrill, 0.6 sec. f8 |
FUTURE IMPROVEMENTS
While the DPs work very well and are a joy to use, despite their quirks, my suggestions would be:
- add an hot-shoe based external EVF for those of us (like me, for instance) who don't like to always shoot keeping the camera at arm's length;
- open the RAW format to third-party developers and work with them to make the best of these great files (Capture One and Adobe Lightroom/Camera Raw comes to mind);
- increase battery life;
- fix or at least improve chromatic aberrations;
- fix the magenta hot-spot in the DP1M; alternatively, add a software fix or a LCC function in Sigma Photo Pro.
- fix the magenta hot-spot in the DP1M; alternatively, add a software fix or a LCC function in Sigma Photo Pro.
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| S. Giorgio Maggiore at dusk - a Sony NEX7 image for comparison |
CONCLUSION
As you could see, I had a lot of fun using these cameras on the field and the results are generally up to the level I demand from the gear I use for my professional work. The cameras are small, light and easy to use; they allow filters; what counts the most, they produce great files. I'll definitely keep these little cameras and wait for Sigma to release the DP3 Merrill to complete the trio, while hoping for future improvement on the software side.
Plug: if you like beautiful Fine Art Prints, printed masterfully in-house on Hahnemuhle Fine Art paper, want the security of my unique 6-POINTS WARRANTY and of my CERTIFICATE OF AUTHENTICITY, look no further: prints of my Venice images are available for sale HERE!
Plug Nr. 2: support the blog! Use the links in the right sidebar and in the text above to purchase your equipment at Amazon - it doesn't cost you anything, and it helps me running the blog and offering you more articles and reviews!
So this is about it for my field review of the Sigma DP1 Merrill & DP2 Merrill! Thank you for reading thus far and stay tuned for more...
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| Golden gondolas - Sigma DP1 Merrill, 1/6 sec. f8 |
Plug: if you like beautiful Fine Art Prints, printed masterfully in-house on Hahnemuhle Fine Art paper, want the security of my unique 6-POINTS WARRANTY and of my CERTIFICATE OF AUTHENTICITY, look no further: prints of my Venice images are available for sale HERE!
Plug Nr. 2: support the blog! Use the links in the right sidebar and in the text above to purchase your equipment at Amazon - it doesn't cost you anything, and it helps me running the blog and offering you more articles and reviews!
So this is about it for my field review of the Sigma DP1 Merrill & DP2 Merrill! Thank you for reading thus far and stay tuned for more...
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