the evenings out here - Thoughts, rants and musings about absolutely everything except photography. Or cats.

Sigma Merrill: good in parts

the sky’s the limit

in Photography , Tuesday, October 28, 2014

On a few days wandering around the trails of Grindelwald, under the shadow of the Eiger, I decided to take my Sigma DP2 Merrill out for another outing.  Although it’s a nice camera to use - at least I find it to be - it is ultimately so frustrating that sometimes I’m tempted to just bin it.

In good conditions, which for the Sigma means flat, diffuse light, it is an absolute dream. It produces colours so real they’re surreal, and detail which just goes on and on without getting overwrought or artificial.

But, Lord help me, point it any kind of interesting sky, or indeed snow, and it’s a total lottery.  This, below, for example. Is the sky that colour on your planet ? Does it have gorgeous purple rainbows in the corners ?

Drm dp2m 20141026 1809

But then again, what camera that size could extract this kind of detail ? The Eiger ridge Mittelegi Hut is clearly visible at 100% zoom. You can even see the light.

Eiger detail2

In more subdued light, it really can be quite remarkable…

Drm dp2m 20141025 1775


...but on the whole, it’s just too unpredictable, and using it has a feel of being different for the sake of being different. The experiment of using it in Antarctica was a disaster, and although probably I’d do a bit better with it now, last weekend’s outing underlined that wintery landscapes can really trip it up badly. The white balance goes so wrong that it is near unrecoverable.

It some surroundings it is great - along with it’s sibling DP3, it has let me produce some very satisfying photos of Venice. But otherwise, it’s too risky to rely on. I doubt I’ll be buying the new Sigma Quattro.

Posted in Photography on Tuesday, October 28, 2014 at 09:48 PM • Permalink • Comments (2)

2 comments

Andrew Macnaughton November 05, 2014 - 10:58
Sigmas are funny. I still have the original DP2 and although its resolution is nothing like that of the Merrill I am still astounded by the detail that I can pull out of the files using Iridient Developer. You are right - they can be a bit hit or miss - but I don't think I'll part with it. It is just so different. I never rely on AWB. Following Bruce Percy I tend to use a daylight setting for almost all outdoors photography.

2 comments

David Mantripp November 06, 2014 - 8:22
Well I basically ignore in-camera WB, and set in it Raw development. The problem here is not so much white balance per-se, it's more that it doesn't seem to be consistent across the frame. Probably it isn't actually white balance that's the issue, but some other effect of more extended brightness range on the Foveon sensor / processing. I don't know, I'm not terribly interested in the internals and all the engineering stuff, to be honest. But I've seen the same effect so many times now that I can pretty much predict it - and not rely on the Sigmas in such circumstances.
And I wouldn't part with mine, either!