I am pleased to announce that I am now the proud owner of a silver Olympus E-P5. I wasn’t planning on any gear acquisition, but a super-low special offer price of just CHF 660 made it irresistible, and my significant other talked me into it (she tried to push me to get an E-M1, but that’s just too expensive and not really what I need just now). So I finally have a latest-generation micro Four Thirds sensor, even if the signs are that it won’t be latest-generation for much longer. At least it’s fully debugged now.

I can also blame Neil Buchan-Grant for lending me his E-P5 in Venice. Yes, it’s his fault, he must be PAID by Olympus to DANGLE candy in from of innocent unsuspecting photographers who can’t RESIST the shiny lures. I’m sure of it!

I’d have preferred a black one, for subtly, although the silver is certainly prettier. But the black one wasn’t on sale.

I think it’s bit late to do a review. The world+dog did theirs well over a year ago. So I won’t bother. I’ll just take some snaps with it.

I’m a bit sad to retire the E-P3, which is probably the digital camera I have used the most, but I’m planning on giving it a new role as a dedicated infrared camera. For now though it’s having a bit of a rest.

For ages now I’ve been wondering about buying the brilliant-but-flawed Sigma DP2. Or maybe DP1.

All the internet gurus seem to be raving about it, from eminent elder statesman photographers such Michael Reichmann or David Taylor-Hughes to uber-tech-geeks such as LLoyd Chambers. Not to mention the hordes of forum dwellers, including some of the more intelligent of the species. It seems to be the camera that has everything: amazing image quality, close to ultimate resolution, film-like rendition, practically pocketable, discrete, well designed and not unrealistically expensive. Of course you have to accept that it has a fixed lens (a very, very good one apparently), that it can’t take photos in the dark, like the latest Canikons, that it munches through batteries like a pig in a field of clover, and that you can only process it’s RAW files in Sigma’s own software, which apparently is truly dreadful.

Well, on that last point, most of the reviewers obviously have led a very sheltered life when it comes to software. I’ve downloaded Sigma Photo Pro, and found a few DP2 Merrill RAW files, and tried it out. It isn’t that bad. I would put it about on a par with Olympus Studio/Viewer - a bit slow at times, a tendency to do things in an unconventional way, but it works. It seems it’s biggest sin is that it’s not Lightroom, which is not a problem as far as I’m concerned.

And the results are, indeed, breathtaking.

But… in what way are they breathtaking? The resolution and clarity is exceptional, and to a lesser extent so is the colour. But unless I’m going to be printing on the side of a house, does this matter? At screen / web size, there’s no practical difference between the Sigma images and those from my 12 megapixel Olympus E-5 or E-P3. And both of those come with exceptional, interchangeable lenses. Which I’ve already got. I doubt that there is any practical difference in printing up to A3, or even A2, which is as far as I go. And there’s no end of software applications which can happily handle Olympus RAW files.

So, it’s a thumbs down then? Well, I don’t know. I have a feeling that the Sigma could be very nice to have along with me on my forthcoming trip to Antarctica, but then I’d start getting (even more) stressed about which camera to use. On a nice, clear day it could really come into it’s own for certain landscape shots, but then again the E-5 does a good job too. And I’m still debating if I should take the XPan, adding even more variables to the mix.

Of course there’s a considerable deal of GAS (Gear Acquistion Syndrome) and Retail Therapy involved here. But this is counterbalanced by a general feeling of too-many-toys nausea. And they don’t call me Indecisive Dave for nothing.