There will be some really amazing shots made by the SD15 posted later as well.

Please download some of my RAW-packs in case you don’t own your own Sigma camera and try SPP4′s new engine – especially on higher ISO images where there has been much work done. I will come back with my thoughts when back in business..

Note that even if it looks like you need one SPP4 for each Sigma camera, that’s not the case. Just download the one above and it will work for all Sigma RAW.

2 världar and Broshan (names of above guys) is about to release a new album called Hollywood and asked me if I could take their cover shot. Bob and Olga was staying at my place at the time so we decided to have some fun together. With me and Bob dealing with the camera, Olga took the job of running around with the light, light in this case is my beloved Elinchrom Quadra. It was difficult to find a good spot that was dark enough because we were limited by time – (we had about 30min). Actually we took what was closest at hand, beside the very parking lot that we were at. :) But it worked out great! Olga did a great job of light painting. (above shot is taken with a Nikon D700)

I also went to Brålanda taking this shot of one of my students there – this time using a small LED lamp that someone lent me. and then ending the whole thing with a flash from the Quadra. Above shot is developed using the latest version of Silkypix pro for Foveon. And that shot is a 30s exposure taken with the SD14. Heavily cropped too..

I often discuss work with them, they’re two brilliant artists with a rare eye combined with great technical skills.

Now, during their visit in our home they showed me some photos they’ve taken for Schwarzkopf German Hairdressing Awards – photos were taken back in February but they weren’t allowed to show them in public due to the rules of the competition. But I could have a peak.

Fluid females. Photos taken with the Sigma SD14.

I remember that my first feeling was, oh, such nice light – perfectly lit and great focus on hair. Cool expressions from models, dead cool! Soon I had too look again, something was wrong, (right) and I saw that one of them must’v had some body paint or something. Looking even closer I saw some drops hanging in mid air from one of the girls cheek and I soon realized that it was liquid. I don’t know if Olga perhaps told me before I fully understood but oh how cool I thought it was. Is! If a jaw can drop, this was it!

Now I begged them to tell me how, and we talked for hours about how these shots saw the light of day and I was totally inspired! I’ve been waiting for them to be able to publish them somehow and not only that, here’s an article with a “how to” guide so you can – at least try – your own liquid person!

A huge thank you to Olga Vasilkova and Bob Van Ooik for sharing their work and this article on how they created magic!

“how to” liquid Females article.
V-Studio international. The blog.

get PicLens

480p version. 640×480
720p version. 960×720
Original version. 320×240

What does a 320×240 resolution DP1 video look like when upsized to 480p and 720p? That question has been on some peoples mind and one reader took action and made two versions of the above video. Resized by Dik Hoek with something called “super-resolution”.

“Super-resolution” is a term for a set of methods of increasing image or video resolution. All these methods are based on same idea: using information from several images to create one upsized image. These methods try to extract details from one frames to reconstruct other frames. This approach differs a lot from some sophisticated image upsizing methods which try to synthesize artificial details”. – To get your hands on a 30 day trial version of the software doing this – Click here!

And I can just say, Wow! It really works and it does look awsome! Sure, pixalation etc but it looks very cool indeed and using this you can cut together movies much easier in software such as Adobe premiere and Final cut without coming out with lower resolution video. (useful to take away the hi pitch “cut” sounds) I use the video-part of the DP1 quite often and results are very good. I really love the feeling it gives – something super8 like. :)

What’s next? Said Karlsson’s
Second impressions of the Sigma DP1

He’s another DP1 user that doesn’t come from the world of SD-cameras. He is a professional photographer and journalist – he’s mainly using his Canon 5D but been waiting for something to replace his Ricoh GX100. Said is now an DP1 owner and reading his blog is very interesting as it gives a little different view then the one from me. :) – But maybe best of all, he’s really good with the camera.

Photo and copyright: Said Karlsson

And more from the east: Euyoung’s Soliloquy..  

We have a Ricoh GR fan site that have tested the DP1 against the Ricoh’s – it’s in Chinese but interesting. Especially the part where they compare out door, real life images between GRD2 and DP1. Go, check it out.  (The good and bad thing about visiting a Ricoh fan site is that they’re really not trying to hide any flaws. :)

Ricoh GRD2: (copyright Euyoung’s Soliloquy)

Sigma DP1: (Copyright: Euyoung’s Soliloquy)

More to come..

Download 111mb dp1rawpack.zip!

Just saw that I didn’t have a shot of the dp1 in any of my articles. Here’s one. :)

RAW Developer 1.7.2 is now available here:
http://www.iridientdigital.com/products/rawdeveloper_download.html

Full release notes for the update are here:
http://www.iridientdigital.com/products/rawdeveloper_history.html

Many improvements and fixes in this release specific to Sigma X3F files. Including:
- Fix for hangs when rapidly switching from image to image.
- Fix for crashes due to TIFF files converted from X3F being loaded along with X3F files stored in same folder.
- Fix for sporadic crashes or error messages on some systems due to the default ICC input profile previously used for Sigma Sd9, SD10 and SD14 models. This input profile has been replaced. Note that if you have previously saved image settings that use the “RDv152 RIMM RGB Linear” input profile this profile is still likely to cause issues with RAW Developer 1.7.2.
- Improved handling of camera auto and custom white balance.
- Improved rendering of highly saturated colors, particularly reds and yellows.
- Improved highlight recovery algorithm for X3F format images.
- Support for medium resolution X3F files.
- The hot and dead pixel filters on the SharpNR tab pane are now active for X3F format images.
- The “Pattern noise filter” checkbox on the SharpNR tab pane is now active for X3F format images. This isn’t really a pattern filter with the Sigma’s as that is more a noise issue specific to Bayer sensor cameras, but for Sigma it now enables a fairly aggressive median type noise reduction filter. Not really intended for general use, but in extreme cases of long exposure or desire for a very smooth look (though it can get “painterly”).

Enjoy,
Brian Griffith
Iridient Digital

The RAW Developer 1.7.1 update was released today and features completely new image processing algorithms for the Sigma SD model cameras. Hopefully, these changes resolve all crashing issues with the X3F file format as well. The release is available for download here.

Color rendering for the Sigma cameras should show major improvements and special noise reduction processing has now been implemented to better handle higher ISO images from these cameras as well. A couple items of note related to the new Sigma specific changes:

1) Color processing for the Sigma models is entirely new and should be very much improved for X3F files.

2) The “Early Stage Noise Reduction” algorithm has been entirely re-designed specifically for the Foveon sensor used in these models.

This slider found on the “SharpNR” tab pane should be the primary adjustment used for noise reduction with these cameras. Results even at ISO 1600 should now be much improved. The noise reduction is also automatically fine tuned on a per image ISO basis. The sensor used in these cameras gets very noisy at higher ISO settings so “zero” noise reduction at higher ISO values is just completely unusable and it doesn’t really make sense to allow noise reduction to be entirely disabled.

3) There are now 2 additional specific Sigma options under the Input Profile menu, one provides a slightly wider color gamut than the RIMM (aka ProPhotoRGB) based default and the other provides a Foveon sensor specific monochrome rendering.

4) The white balance presets now take advantage of camera specific preset data however note that the Color Temp is just an estimate for the camera presets so for example if “Daylight” shows a temp of 5500 the preset may not exactly match an actual color temperature slider setting of 5500 as the camera presets and the color temp sliders implement white balance slightly differently.

5) The color rendering has been completely re-worked with this release so previous RAW Developer settings files are likely no longer applicable to this release. Any old “rdsf” settings files should probably be archived or deleted. I have tried to remain compatible with the older settings files, but I highly recommend making new settings adjustments with this release.

Let me know if you continue to see any issues with the new X3F file handling.

Thanks,
Brian Griffith
Iridient Digital

Also continue to read the thread over at dpreview about this software also including some example images.

http://www.whisperingcat.co.uk/scans/sd14vs14nx.htm
Words and scans by David Millier, images shot by and © Erik Muehlberger

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1027&message=23941482

Go to josef.webbiton.se

Please feel free to give me a call! If I’m not at the computer you will be redirected to my mobile phone (you don’t pay anything). If you’re in Sweden you can use this local number: 031-360 7486 and still get to China. Download skype at www.skype.com

EDIT: If you’re a skype user, my user name is “rytterfalk” – add me and we could have a chat some day.

It’s not often I link to other photographers works, but this is just a must see for all you photo interested guys and girls out there. What camera does he use?.  Go to his hompage and find out.