Sigma SD Quattro Digital Camera with 30mm F1.4 DC HSM

Product Information

I found the body pretty comfortable to hold, despite its weight and I was able to shoot sharp images a long way below 1/equivalent focal length, suggesting I had a fairly stable grip on the camera. The two main dials are well placed, meaning it was easy to set the aperture and exposure compensation. Sigma do a higher-end model now with an APS-H size sensor (1.3x crop over full frame). This doesn’t have much of a low-light boost but the EVF is larger, the rendering from the larger sensor is closer to full frame for Sigma ART lenses and it has a resolution bump over the standard APS-C SD Quattro. Does APS-H make a difference over APS-C? Yes it does, very noticeable. See for instance the Canon 1D C 4K mode vs only Super 35mm. The “SD Quattro H” camera with the 18-35mm is pushing the corner sharpness down a bit but it doesn’t vignette much especially at 35mm. On the full frame lenses like the 35mm F1.4 it will give you close to medium format performance for resolution at F2.8. The camera's apparent weakness in distinguishing color in the yellow/orange part of the spectrum sometimes required a little adjustment of the color response to produce good skintone results. These were very different to the adjustments we'd made for other test shots, so it's something you're likely to need to adjust on an image-by-image (or, at least, subject-by-subject) basis. Li-ion Battery BP-61, Battery Charger BC-61, AC adapter SAC-7 (optional) [DC connector CN-31, AC cable (supplied)]

The Foveon X3 Quattro sensor used in the SQ Quattro is slightly different to the original Foveon sensor. The blue photosensor layer at top has 4 times the high resolution of the red and green photosensor layers underneath it are of lower (1/4th) resolution. This is to combat the major weakness of the Foveon sensor, poor high ISO performance as light need to travel through the three layers. That said, landscape shooting does tend to reward a patient approach to picture taking, so neither this need to take extra care, nor the considerable delay as the camera writes its huge DNGs were of particular concern. We suspect most people will be happy enough with the image quality to overcome the occasional hurdle placed in your path. The sd Quatro H has a new option which helps open possibilities: DNG files. All of us using raw file editing programs can rejoice and not have to worry about conversions. However, the format has a lower bit depth than the .X3F format. In keeping with Sigma's history of idiosyncratic innovation, there are two things that set it apart from the majority of mirrorless cameras: the use of a full-depth DSLR mount (the company's own SA mount) and the use of a Foveon X3 Quattro sensor, which captures light and perceives color very differently from other cameras. Full depth SA mount While the SD Quattro’s dynamic range appears to be not as good as the latest Nikon or Sony cameras, the camera has a Super-Fine Detail (SFD) exposure mode which basically shoot seven photos each at different exposure and the results are combined together as a huge X3I format file. (7 x normal raw file size) This mode is used to improve the dynamic range and also minimise the image noise. Downside of the SFD mode is that you pretty much have to use a tripod and you might also end up having some weird results when shooting a scene with moving objects.

Sigma sd Quattro review: Build and handling

We as a staff collectively find, even above and beyond all of Foveon's shortcomings, that the biggest hurdle to using Sigma cameras is their very own software. Even now, in the year 2017, Sigma Photo Pro is just painfully slow and unstable.

One nice touch is a large switch beside the eyepiece that allows you to select between viewing
with the EVF or LCD or changing between the two automatically using an eye sensor. It’s much more intuitive and satisfactory than having to cycle between modes by pressing a button, and I wish more camera makers would follow suit. When using the EVF, the rear screen can be set to display the camera’s detailed status, or turned off completely
to conserve power. Effective Pixels: Approx. 38.6MP T(Top): 6,200×4,152 / M(Middle): 3,100×2,076 / B(Bottom): 3,100×2,076 No matter the lens (and I tested the camera with a Sigma 14mm, 50mm, and 120-300mm), the amount of detail you can pull out of images is fascinating. Image crispness is helped further by the sensor’s configuration, which does not suffer from moiré like other cameras with Bayer pattern sensors. I tried and tried to shoot and show some moiré, but it’s just not there. Lossless compression RAW data (14-bit), DNG (No compression RAW Data 12-bit), JPEG (Exif2.3), RAW+JPEGisn't cheap but it's far from unreasonable. The larger-than-typical APS-H sensor helps maximise the camera's image quality and the solid construction makes it immediately apparent where your money's going. Normally when I write a camera review, the conclusion or verdict would be pretty much based on the sum of its parts. But there are always exception and this review is one of those. Like the dp Quattro compacts we’ve already tested, the sd Quattro’s Foveon X3 sensor offers a decidedly Jekyll and Hyde approach to image quality. At low-sensitivity settings of ISO 100-400 it’s excellent, with astonishing pixel-level detail. But at high ISOs it’s awful, lagging far behind conventional Bayer sensors. In what appears to be a tacit admission of this, Sigma Photo Pro 6.4, by default, now drops the output resolution to 4.9MP at ISO 800 (2,712×1,808 pixels), 2.2MP at ISOs 1,600 and 3,200 (1,808×1,205 pixels), and just 1.2MP at ISO 6,400 (1,356×904 pixels). It’s still possible to extract full-size images if you prefer, but they’re not great. Dynamic range

types (Auto, Auto (Lighting Source Priority), Daylight, Shade, Overcast, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Color Temperature, Flash, Custom 1, Custom 2, Custom 3) It might not be competitive against the latest technology and it might not be the most flexible option available, but that doesn't mean it doesn't possess a certain appeal.The sd Quattro cameras' ability to shoot in DNG means is that you can finally edit your Foveon Raw files using a converter other than Sigma Photo Pro. As you might expect, there's a few caveats. When you enable DNG capture on the Quattro H, you don't have an option to simultaneously capture a JPEG (although there is a whopping 13MB JPEG embedded in every DNG, should you want to dig it out).