As it stands, you have to take the double risk of investing in an unusual sensor technology and that of buying into a less widely adopted lens system. Sigma offers a program to change the lens mount on its latest 'Global Vision' lenses, which means you could salvage some of your investment if you ever moved away from SA mount, but that's not the same as being able to use your lenses across multiple cameras (for those people who don't solely shoot in good light). The Final Word Dynamic range on the Sigma SD Quattro is comparable with the X Pro2 and other high-end APS-C cameras but not quite up there with Sony’s best full frame sensor. There is quite a sudden burn in the highlights, so be careful exposing the camera. DNG raw benefits

People have asked DxO to allow Adobe DNG files, but no. They say, "We understand the issue with this format and here is an explanation: a DNG file cannot be used as just another RAW input file, since it does not contain all the calibration data Optics Pro uses when processing RAW files (especially, but not only, for the denoising algorithm). Therefore, even if Optics Pro could process DNG files without the data it requires, it could not achieve the same quality level as with an original RAW file, and we do not believe people who shoot RAW would be interested in such a substandard solution... This is the reason why Optics Pro only supports the DNG files generated by the cameras we calibrated in our labs..." P) Program AE (Program Shift is possible), (S) Shutter Speed Priority AE, (A) Aperture Priority AE, (M) Manual Its battery life is pretty reasonable but it's pretty slow to focus and is also relatively large and heavy to carry around. All of which significantly counts against it in terms of carrying it everywhere and being able to respond spontaneously to unexpected sights. To give you an idea of how extreme this crop is, here is the original shot – at 50mm (full frame) on the Sony and 35mm on the Sigma (APS-C) – The X3F has more bit depth and thus more information. However, Sigma Photo Pro is not the most refined program in the world and takes some patience to use. You will get the most out of the camera if you can take it slow and edit in Photo Pro. With that said, the DNG files are excellent (if a bit inflated in MB) and can be edited easily in Lightroom and other programs compatible with the format.In summary, the Sigma sd Quattro H ports the 3-layer Foveon technology from the fixed lens, compact camera design of the DP-series to a more adaptable mirrorless design, which should broaden its appeal. Compared to the cheaper Sigma sd Quattro camera, the H version increases the megapixel count thanks to the larger sensor, and additionally offers Adobe DNG support, although the resulting file sizes are huge. It's still something of a hard sell when compared to its direct competition, but no other camera delivers quite the same image quality as the Sigma sd Quattro H (except the Sigma sd Quattro)... The DP Quattro range has a very unusual design but I enjoyed it. The strangely reversed grip isn’t the most comfortable but you do get used to it. The menus are the same on the SD Quattro and the DP range – responsive, sensibly laid out, attractively colour-coded and with a big clearly legible font.

On paper, the sd Quattro has a bang up-to-date viewfinder
and screen. Its EVF uses a 2.36-million-dot panel and offers a magnification equivalent to 0.73x. The 3in rear screen has a 1.62-million-dot resolution, although it’s fixed rather than articulated and not touch-sensitive. One nice feature is the addition of a small OLED sub-monitor alongside the LCD that displays key settings such as shutter speed, aperture, metering mode, ISO and exposure mode. Film makes you think more therefore you actually learn more shooting it. You have to live with the consequences as they are tactile. I shoot digital with the same discipline as film and I am a better photographer for it. I don't see any benefits of digital beside ISO and colour balance over film. The Sigma sd Quattro H's image quality is outstanding when shooting in the RAW format, with great results from ISO 100-1600. Curiously the quality drops off noticeably when shooting JPEGs, with only ISO 100-400 worth using thanks to a lot of noise and colour desaturation at the higher ISOs, so our advice would be to always use the sd Quattro H's RAW mode if possible (despite the so-so Sigma Photo pro software and the huge file sizes). The night photograph was very good, with the maximum shutter speed of 30 seconds allowing you to capture enough light for the majority of after-dark situations. The good news is, that while you have to be a bit careful when you shoot your images, the arrival of DNG compatibility means that processing is no more difficult than for any other camera. You'll probably need to take a little time to fine-tune the color response to your tastes (and you may occasionally find a subject that the camera can't capture properly). yes, DNG RAW for compatibility is certainly good when we consider Sigma's own software is not much ... but hey, this is not they type of camera i'm going to use daily and shoot thousands of action shots in a sport or wedding event for example! this is the type of camera i'm going to use only occasionally and for mostly still shots in the studio and possibly for some landscapes outside too ...

There has always been controversy over how many pixels are reported on the Foveon sensors. Sigma says the images in X3F format have 39 megapixels, while the JPEG Superfine has 51 megapixels. Yet, the images that come out of the camera are 6192×4128 or 25,560,576 pixels = 25.5MP. So what gives? There are 7 ISO settings available on the Sigma sd Quattro for both JPEGs and RAW files. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting, with JPEG on the left and RAW on the right: types ( Standard, Vivid, Neutral, Portrait, Landscape, Monochrome, Cinema*, Sunset Red*, Forest Green*, FOV Classic Blue*, FOV Classic Yellow* )* On test here is the H3D-39II with 39 megapixel Kodak KAF-39000 sensor and the Hasselblad 80mm F2.8 stopped down to F5.6. The field of view of this lens is equal to about 55mm on a full frame camera with its piddly small crop sensor 🙂

In the past, Sigma cameras had two options: their proprietary 14-bit X3F format or JPEG. This meant either using Sigma’s Photo Pro software (currently on version 6) or outputting compressed JPEGS. You don’t spend money on a camera like this for the JPEGs, so it caused some consternation. Scotelly. Shooting for free? Well I would disagree with the economics there. Digital full frame cameras are expensive. Most people shoot less than 50,000 frames before deciding that they need an upgrade. This equates to about 30- 40 cents a shot for you average full frame camera based on a shutter rating of 100,000. I can shoot film for around that price per shot and I get a physical consequence (much better for learning) and a far more enjoyable experience. The Sigma Quattro H is a mirrorless interchangeable lens camera with an APS-H (1.3x crop) sensor. It has a spatial resolution of 25.5MP but uses a sensor technology very different from other cameras, capturing around 38M pieces of information and capable of producing files with far higher levels of detail than you'd expect from a conventional 25.5MP camera. Key Features Even the best bayer CMOS sensors do seem to have a veiled look to colour versus film or Foveon. It’s a bit plastic. It’s nothing to do with noise reduction, although in the shot above it may look like it. Of course the Sigma is noisier than the X Pro2 even at ISO 200, but it doesn’t have that overwhelmingly digital look to the greens – and we’re talking about a Fujifilm here, with some of the best colour science on the market under the hood. It’s not a measure of how bad the X Pro2 is – it’s actually very good. It is in fact an indication of how eye-poppingly good the image out of the Sigma is. And while it’s true that the latest 36MP D810 or even the D800E can both output sharper image than the D800, when I was working on the D810 review, I found the difference between them and the D800 is actually pretty small when shooting real life photo. So I’m pretty sure the output from the D810 still can’t resolve as much fine details as the Sigma SD Quattro.

Sample Images

Sigma and Foveon continue to claim that this 3-layer approach results in better looking colour images straight out of the camera when compared to a more conventional CCD/CMOS sensor. Whilst this may be true, from the user's point of view the final image is 6192x4128 pixels in size, which limits how big you can print or crop the native image without interpolating it in Adobe Photoshop or another application.

The sd Quattro’s most important feature is its Foveon X3 Quattro image sensor. Unlike conventional sensors, which
use a pattern of red, green and blue-coloured filters over their light-sensitive photodiodes to determine colour, it’s based around the fact that the different colours of light can penetrate silicon to different depths. It has a top layer with 19.6 million pixels that’s most sensitive to blue light, with two layers beneath that each use 4.9 million pixels four times in area, and that are sensitive to green and red light. Because of this arrangement, Sigma calls it a 29.5-million-pixel sensor. types (Auto, Auto (Lighting Source Priority), Daylight, Shade, Overcast, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Color Temperature, Flash, Custom 1, Custom 2, Custom 3) The Sigma sd Quattro H camera is a mixed bag with a specific audience. They have made strides in shooting speed and buffering over time (the first iterations of their Foveon sensor cameras were quite slow, almost to the point of uselessness) and that has helped bring up overall usefulness.

Digital film is here

Auto-focus is also subpar and often seems to favor the contrast-detection aspect more than the phase-detection aspect of its hybrid focus system. There isn’t much hunting, but in low light, it does struggle more than I would like. I often found myself defaulting to manual focus when I knew the light was not ample. While there are only nine focus points, arranged in a standard 3×3 grid, Sigma does give you the capability to change the size of the focus points in three steps, with the larger size covering a decent 60% of the viewing area. You can also select individual points instead of using all nine. This combination allows for a fair amount of control for wide-open scenes down to a need to focus on an individual stamen on a flower. Sigma has also announced another camera for it’s mirrorless camera family, the Sigma SD Quattro H, which is very similar but with a slightly larger 25.5MP APS-H size (1.3x crop factor). The claimed equivalent resolution is 51MP.