SIGMA sd Quattro | SHOOTING REPORT Vol.01
sd Quattro SHOOTING REPORT 01 | sd Quattro SHOOTING REPORT 02 | sd Quattro SHOOTING REPORT 03
The SIGMA sd Quattro has been so popular since the announcement in February at CP+2016 and it’s finally released. What makes this camera so special is SIGMA’s unique Foveon sensor. Let’s quickly revisit its basic principle. In conventional Bayer-filtered sensors, each pixel captures the luminance of red, blue, and green. Therefore, it uses the surrounding pixels to supplement the missing colors of a particular pixel. In the Foveon sensor, on the other hand, each pixel has three light-sensitive layers to capture complete red, green, and blue data. In other words, because it doesn’t require demosicing, every pixel captures full color information. As a result, it generates sharp ambiguity-free images (Quattro generation uses more complex processing) as already demonstrated by the dp Quattro series. And, I was more than excited to experience the image quality realized by the combination of this sensor and the SA mount lenses. For this report, I shot high-frequency images of landscapes to best demonstrate the phenomenal image quality. All images are linked to the original images. Ladies and gentlemen, click them and get closer to the monitor.
( Photography / Text : Z II )
Enlarging doesn’t affect the image quality at all!
Because I first wanted to shoot a vast dynamic scene with this ultra-high megapixel Foveon camera, I went to a volcano. The stunning reality of the mountain surface is realized by the precise rendition. Click it to see the original size and look at the people walking around the summit. I think it’s the level you can even recognize who they are if you know them.
I went into the forest. I usually shoot flowers wide open to get soft rendition, but this time I stopped it down a bit. It resolved to the minor detail of the flowers in focus. Perfect texture reproduction of the calyx, colors and tone.
Sharpness is very high even at F2. Wonderful reproduction of the green and shines. I might sound weird, but even the bokeh looks precise with the Foveon sensor. In other words, it faithfully reproduces the light and colors even though they are defocused. There’s another reason I recommend you to stop it down slightly - the ambiguity-free sensor even captures the aberrations of lenses clearly.
The dry tree skin looks bitingly sharp. I’m lost for words beholding so much information that cannot be seen with the naked eye.
The highland looked mysterious with the fog in the early morning. Even under the intense backlight, it wonderfully captured things from the silhouetted trees in the foreground to the misty trees and grasses lit by morning dew in the background.
I went down the mountain to the sea level. I focused on the people in the observatory, but it also resolved the great detail of the texture of the handrails and the waves even though they are hardly visible with the naked eye.
The body design is solid and like nothing else. The unique looking handgrip is designed to work with everyone’s hands, ways of holding, and ways of operation. The optional powergrip not only further improves holding, but also triples the battery life to be ready for extended shooting. The time for playbacking images has become significantly shorter than the previous SD1 and the preview images look so beautiful. In addition, the liveview displays the focal peak clearly and the display timelag is short. This means it assists you to take not only snapshots, but also portraits and landscapes requiring more precise focusing.
Thank you, SD1
Hello, sd Quattro!
The previous SD series were DSLR cameras featuring APS-C sensors. The SD1/SD1 Merrill with 46 megapixels was designed to deliver the very best quality images. And, their operation speed was sacrificed for the astonishing image quality which attracted many users. After that, the Foveon sensor evolved to the "Foveon X3 sensor Quattro" featured by the dp Quattro series. And now, the camera inheriting the name of "sd" has arrived. Following the trend, it’s has the mirrorless style instead of the orthodox SLR style and has highly evolved as a result of the efforts of SIGMA’s engineers. The image quality realized by the Foveon Quattro sensor and the Art line lenses is higher than what we expect from "equivalent to 36 megapixels." Using so much information, this camera captures better than the human eye and its reality is so high that the viewers become speechless. I sincerely support SIGMA who walks their own path with this reasonably-priced camera delivering incredible quality images. I'd like to thank the SD1 who has finished his role and say "hello!" to the new sd Quattro.
( 2016.07.07 )
