A while ago I was asked to take sample images for Sigma using their new 120-300 OS. So a month ago they sent me a working beta sample which was said to be alright optically but perhaps not perfectly refined in terms of AF and OS. As an owner of the older 120-300 2.8 and knowing it’s ability to really stun and also having heard that the new lens being among the very best that Sigma ever done – let’s just say I was eager to make it sing..

One of the very first things I noticed was that the stabilizing system (OS) that wasn’t optimized worked tremendously well.  Actually much better than any of my other OS lenses – No, wrong, the very first thing I noticed was that’s it was bigger and perhaps a tad heavier than it’ predecessor, and that the tripod mount came to better use when turned to the top – easier to carry the whole package that way and less intrusive while shooting handheld. And handheld is how this gun is supposed to be used.

Now you wonder, how is it? And I’ll tell you – It’s the very best! It’s so sharp, straight ahead from 2.8 – a good example is this shot of a goose (or whatever) that was sleeping in a lake – and I shot it at 269mm at 2.8. That’s wide open.

And if you’re a bokeh fanatic, then you’ll love this lens as the bokeh is truly awesome. It has it’s own life, especially the part of off focus going your way – but it’s really nice!

Or this seagull, taken at 300mm, 2.8 and using the Sigma SD14.

And I know what you’re thinking – this lens is like MADE for the SD1! And I think it’s the ultimate lens both in terms of sharpness and build quality – as it’s also weather protected as the new SD1 body.

I also did another thing – I bought some freash 123A batteries – and a new package of AA’s – this is something I wanted to do for quite some time! The 2002 Sigma SD9 body amazed me ones more and I’ll tell you, if you have it somewhere around or if you’re thinking about getting one – DO IT! It’s like starting to use a different type of film – a film that is just impossible to duplicate using any other camera. The SD9 is, the SD9.

And two more SD9 images.. I have plenty more but will save those for another post in a couple of days. I’m busy as we speak with a little something, the little something is partly the reason to why I haven’t posted anything in weeks. I’ll be back! And this is only the first post of at least two about the 120-300 OS.

I tried my best to make a shot that more or less looked the same and to my surprise I learned a thing along the way. The DP1x (and perhaps DP2 and SD15 too) is extremely sensitive to what WB you select. Make sure you pick the right one and your colors will look much better! I selected the wrong one first in the scene below and SD14 got it right using auto WB, but DP1x looked correct first after using “Shade” wb – all other options made orange look red! (This is a shade situation)..

All developments done using Sigma Photo Pro 4.2.

Dp1x – f11, 13s iso100. Full size. If I selected Incandescent WB then the greenish corner issue disappear but over all colors will be slightly less pleasing although some parts looks a bit more true. Like the green color. See that version here.

SD14 – f11, 8s, iso100. Full size. Strangely I had a short exposure time here, might be that light fell quickly at the time but .. hmm.. anyways, this SHOULD give the edge to SD14 so bare that in mind.

And some easier to view comparisons shots..
DP1x to the left. SD14 to the right.

Open up those shadows! What happens then? I added som e nasty X3 fill light so see what was behind the darker areas of the picture. How well does the DP1x hold up? The DP1x crop is from the second shot above, using the incandescent WB. Dont’ ask me why.

Another note. The Sigma 10-20 that I used on the SD14 performed very nice before I got the DP1 , but now, knowing how good the lens of the DP1 is everything else looks pretty pale in comparison. True with the DP1x as well. There might of course be a slight difference in focus as well, it’s easier to focus perfectly on the DP1x for sure. LIVE VIEW PLEASE!!! (SD1)

(Using ONLY SPP 4.2 the DP1x shot looks perfect developed!)

UPDATE: If you have many versions of SPP installed on the same machine it seams that they can use each others engines at times – Not all the time, but sometimes. So be aware! The DP1x still have problems like below – but nothing as severe as my examples from yesterday! Man I feel uncomfortable about yesterdays post!.. but the “real” clipping issue still remains but not as severe as mentioned yesterday. SD15 clipping is similar to the DP1x shot below..

The DP1x is far more sensitive to clip highlight than SD14 and the original DP1, although it has cleaner dark areas so maybe it just an exposure issue? There are two easy ways to fix:

First way: Switch over to Monochome WB! Now it looks MUCH better. :)

Second way. Be careful when exposing! Use bracketing! DP1x is fast enough to use it full time until Sigma figures out how to deal with “bright” colors.

Finally, the DP1x has the magic that I wanted from the DP1 – have a look at this portrait of – a friend. Shot at sunset at iSO100 and F4.

Original sized version. Developed using SPP 3.3 as it keeps skin a little bit more calm compared to SPP 4.2. As a SD and DP user you should have both 3.3 and 4.2 installed as some shots just look better using older algoritms and as a monochrome lover, then 4.2 sometimes is a big no no, especially with higher ISO shots. (You can find all of the important ones here!)

And yes, SD15 seams to have a little of the above issue as well, will Sigma be able to find and cure both cameras?! I certainly hope so!

From yesterday:
Hi All, I’m still working with the DP1x video review and during my work I’ve noticed some serious issues with how the DP1x handles highlights – and it sort of reminds me of the early days of DP2 (remember my early posts with clipped ISO50 shots?) the difference now is that it shows even at higher ISO’s which isn’t so nice – I’ve been worried about it as I think the DP1x takes AMAZING images (in situations where light is under control) and some of us have noticed an increase of sharpness using the SD15 and I’m happy to say that DP1x follows with very crisp images too, a bit SD9-ish.

Anyways today I noticed while looking at Linn’s China shots that the issue that I thought was more my mind related, is a real issue and that it’s likely to be fixable! Why? Because the embedded JPEG looks fine! Have a look:

Embedded JPEG (ISO400). Looks like all info is there. No problems.

Developed shot. Looks about the same using 4.2, 3.3 or even Lightroom .

And as a last control, switching on Monochrome WB we clearly see that all info is indeed there, it’s likely that some info is lost in translation. Question is how?! I think that it’s due to something in the RAW-file and not SPP – as all software translates the RAW-data wrong. So if we’re lucky then Sigma can fix with a firmware, and also with a special SPP to have these shots translated correctly.

You can also see some of it in my last shot of my room that highlights are clipped a little bit earlier than what we are used to with Sigma Cameras. Frustrating. A bit SD9-ish really. :)

I have lots of unedited video and still footage for the “real” video – but first, have a look at my very first UNPACKING VIDEO! :)

These shots has been taken with the actual SD1 by some Foveon folks and it’s really amazing how much depth is seen in these samples – even if all I’ve seen has beed printed samples – the last one in the video is the “pure” size of what a 46MP file prints like att uncropped 100% resolution and it has to be viewed in person to be understood. Also I’ve been told by persons with no name that the sensor has been dramatically improved over old sensor design – and what surprised me was that each pixel has 5µm compared to SD14′s 7.xµm. I thought the difference would be much greater.

Four years of developing seams to have paid off! :P

I will write some more about the camera itself tomorrow (I hope) but I’ve only looked at it for now and even if I had it close to me I didn’t touch it. Hopefully tomorrow.

[Update: There is a second test in the comments section in this article]

Alright, let me put it like this, today I was going to test how the Canon 100-400 4,5-5,6 IS compared to Sigma 50-500 4,5-6,3 OS and I was a bit afraid of testing these two cameras against each other because the 5D has 21MP and I got 4.6MP. There’s a slight difference. :)

First image has been shot using ISO200 on both cameras, Sigma at F7,1 and Canon at F6,3 .

I used Lightroom 3 beta 2 for Canon and Sigma Photo Pro 4 for the Sigma.

Original Canon 100-400 IS has a VERY sweet bokeh! Yummy! (right shot)

Original

Original (here I pushed sharpening on the Canon version, and some to the Sigma shot as well. +0.3) You can see how much more detail the Canon has – but my Sigma is not too afraid of the fight.. :)  Looking at this shot I get the feeling that Canon’s 100-400 has the edge in terms of sharpness but that said, it’s not easy to see without those extra pixels. mmm

Second shot: Sigma at ISo50, Canon at ISO100. I tried to make WB as similar as I could. Wasn’t that easy. Canons bigger sensor gives a nice blur to the background.

Original

Original I took quite a few shots and none of them from the Canon came out very sharp. I’ll redo this another day. Or is this how it’s supposed to be?

Original Difference here is quite small. In order to take the Sigma shot, I walked away 5-8m to make background blur more. Didn’t help much.

So, don’t make hasty conclusions about this test. Having better optics on both in controlled situations the 5D would probably win by a wider margin. I think.

Part 2 (before in the comment section but due to problems with WordPress I put it here so that you can see these pictures)
Next test! Now I switched lens to 120-300, left Sigma, right Canon. Sigma shot at f5,6 @ 120mm. Canon 100-400 IS shot at F9 @ 100mm. I will have to do a third test. :) And I found Canon 24-70 2.8L lens isn’t sharp enough for these tests.. I wonder if the 24mm TS is better? Anyhow, the 100-400 lens from Canon looks very good, all the way from 100-400mm – it degrades slightly at 400mm but the Sigma 50-500 degrades much more, especially at corners. Will come back to this.







This one shows how sharp the 50mm 1.4 Sigma is. I tried to use it for above comparison against 24-70mm 2.8 L but failed to frame it correctly.

I almost forgot that I had the 70-200, and I decided to take it for a spin with my students - equipped with both the new 50-500 and the 70-200 we had an outdoor, long zoom, reflector class. Sun was setting and because I didn’t have any yellow toned filter / gel for my Quadra I used a circular golden reflector instead.

Original size

I was really amazed with how snappy my old 70-200 was and how precise it hit the eye – shot after shot after shot! I did calibrate it more than half a year ago and didn’t really use it since then (dark winter) but now I realize how well I did, and how friendly it have become! I didn’t remember the bokeh to be this beautiful! It’s really awesome!

Original size. Above shot might have been taken by Niklas, I don’t remember this to be my framing.

The above girl is one of my students, her name is Elke Knorr and she took the picture below of me. I was also surpriced to find that all her shots were all in focus as well. I will definitely use this lens more!. :) Perhaps I should make a 120-300 vs 70-200 thingi..

Also notice the light. Sun comes in from the left and a golden reflector from the right.

Niklas, here enjoying the 50-500. No reflector.

And this one shot by Martina. Look at those colors!

Click me and see what happens! :D

Oh, and yes. This is me with the 50-500. Look at that sweet bokeh – and those colors all came out so nice. And this is the old 70-200 2.8EX, (not the oldest oldest) without any macro – so it’s a bit irritating to have to go back in order to focus. I think 1.5m is the closest.

No extra sharpening on these images. Some PS levels but that’s more or less it. All shots at f3.5. SPP4. You can find them all as full size, plus some more here!

1/160s, f6,3, ISO200, 413mm

Today a nice little packade arrived with something latest and greatest. The Sigma 50-500 with optical stabilizer! YES! I really never had any long zoom to talk about – nothing longer than 300mm and that really wasn’t enough when I did those cranes a week ago or when doing any animals on a distans. So, here’s a first preview.. (ask questions if you have any).

The first thing that strikes me is how clear the view is. Lots of Sigma lenses has a warm touch which for most users is fine, and sometimes even wanted (Sigma users tend to dislike that as we have enough of green/yellow as it is). And I think the clearness of the view is due to that new glass that they developed together with Hama or something. Was it?  (it’s too late now and I should be in bed, just wanna finish this alright?!)

So and but, All of the images below has been developed using SPP4. Two images has been “cleaned” using Dfine (a first timer) although only on background and very little. Almost all images has been sharpened some in photoshop – very slight. Only to get a little extra for flickr view here. Someone complained!!! (can you imagine!)

All images are not perfectly sharp – sometimes me, sometimes OS – but it worked pretty much as expected all the time. It was a terrible feeling to turn OS off – sooo hard suddenly!  All images has been taken handheld. All images except one has been taken wide open.

So, some images from today. (yes I know, a bit many of the same type of bird.. shhhh)

1/250, f6,3, ISO100, 500mm (not top notch sharp but beautiful anyways)

It was hard to catch them sometimes. This one is 1/30s.. :D  Still in focus. hehe

First birdshot. :)

Reminds me of the beautiful colorations made by the Dp1 – although I just saw this once, I think it’s beautiful. And it was there for only a millisecond or so. (didn’t count) f5, 1/30s, iso100

1/60s, f5.6, ISO50, 203mm

And the wife I assume. Behind fence and all. buhu. But look at that bokeh! It’s to DIE for!
1/60s, f6.3, ISO50, 332mm

The two above has same exposure and I think she walked a bit.. hmm.. sharp feet! :D Also, she has been both cropped and straightened some. So din’t be too picky on her.
f6,3, 1/400, ISO100, 500mm

1/400s, f6,3, ISO100, 450mm

And the last one is of my friend Conny, it was too sunny really and this is not really a shot to show but, hey – it shows some of the magic this lens is capabel of!

1/80s, f6,3, ISO100, 56mm I was surprised to see how close I could get! This lens will actually be useful in weddings too I think.. hmm.. maybe. I might scare them.

Link to all full size.

Other posts on the 50-500 OS
http://www.rytterfalk.com/category/lens/50-500os/

It fits perfectly to have a post about my Canon 5D experience after my article from yesterday don’t you think? :D Anyways. Every wednesday evening I have open photography classes in a near by high school and this time I brought the Canon 5D Mark 2 with me – much because it’s still dark at this time of the year and indoor light isn’t perfect for any of my current Sigmas. So I went coupled with a 24-70mm and my Elinchrom Quadra. (Quadra is only used when I say so, or you see it).

OBS. None of these images will hurt your eyes. I promise! :D

And we’re not the only ones on school at this late hour. ISO 3200 on photos above, below is ISO2500. Pretty impressive if you consider the really really bad light in that room. All images in this post are available in it’s full size, some cropped some not. All images has been developed using the latest version of Capture One.

What I really enjoyed was how well the Canon 24-70mm 2.8L lens worked. Focus was ok even in bad light – it failed from time to time but only in situations where I would understand. :)

Above is a shot taken with the 50mm 1.8 lens at 1.8 and ISO2000. (second image is a crop of the first one). Lens itself has a very cheap feel to it, made of cheap plastic and cost very little but its optical performance is nothing but cheap! So I took it for a ride into the rainy outdoors and created a nice little setup using my Quadra and an umbrella.

Canon 50mm 1.8 @ 2.5. The girl above is a heavy metal drummer. She’s really good too but it’s really hard to imagine her banging those drums when you talk to her. :)

It’s sooo easy to blow those highlights (see sky?!), I have a feeling that I got at least two stops more on any of my Sigmas. Also, so many colors has been lost, and most of these shots has been developed using more or less zero color noise reduction in order to get as far as possible away from that nutella look that we all hate so much.. (don’t we?!) – but, even with color noise reduction set at zero, lots of colors has been lost. Her zipper has this strong yellowish metallic color on one side, but lost on the other. I tried hard to make it visible but it just wouldn’t. (the raw file itself DO contain some  yellow information in the zipper but developer just wasn’t able to pull it through). The three layered Sigma would show everything, especially at this low ISO. (320)

But the 50mm 1.8 is really nice!

Above shot of me has been taken by Nils.

How about trying the Quadra indoor?

It’s always tricky to have such enormous difference between colors in a shot, and that makes it difficult to process. ISO640. I’m thinking about getting myself some gel’s or something and experiment with temperatures.

Now, over to really low ISO, 3200 to 25600. They don’t look really good in color so most of them has been processed as black and white. Some lit only by the flash on mobile phones. :)

Above is ISO25600, the rest has mostly been shot using ISO5000.

Above is a ISO3200 shot and as light my students helped me with their mobile phones! :D Jaij.

Alright, I guess this will be the first in at least two reviews of SPP4 and I want to concentrate on differences between this version and the old 3.3 image wise (will come back to selective noise reduction a bit more later on). Most things with this new version is good. It’s faster, has better colors and you can adjust amount of noise reduction. But, and there is a big but! Sigma forgot about all of us that loves BW conversions. :´(

Now you might wanna try out different WB´s instead of just fooling around with the color wheel. Each pre-white balance has been altered some and correct WB can sometimes make your day, more so with this version than with old 3.3.

If you have lots of ISO50 images around then you can go ahead and redevelop them because they will most likely look much better in this version, especially if some of that highlight was burnt. Higher ISO shots now has a much more vibrant look, greens are more green, reds are less yellow and less saturated at the same time but in this case this is all good. Also, you can now select white balance for a big bunch of images instead of having to select them one by one. Nice!

First, SPP manage to squeeze much more colors and life out of old high ISO images. Also, have a close look at that fire!!

SPP3.3 on the left and SPP4 on the right. ISO400. You can see how fire has lots more dynamic range and the reflection in his face looks much improved. Also notice how the green trees behind looks more saturated and less dull. Both images has been treated the same, same settings, same WB (shade) and white balance picked from eye.

SPP3.3 on the left and SPP4 on the right. ISO1600. Sigma worked hard to improve image quality in bad indoor light. Be careful with your WB selection as this one looked terrible with the wrong one selected. Also play around with that new noise reduction. Some images don’t need so much and you gain some nice saturation to leave it at lower levels.

SPP3.3 on the left and SPP4 on the right. ISO50. What’s really amazing is how they improved ISO50′s dynamic range!  Take a look at the sky, and remember this image has lots of fill light applied. I think 0.8 on both SPP3.3 and 4.  Colors, especially reds looks better too. Less orange.

At first I thought SPP4 did a bad job, there seams to be less information in the highlight.

But after I pulled the exposure compensation slider back -2.0 you clearly see how much more dynamic range you get in this new version. Looks like a full stop or perhaps even more! ISO50 will certainly be more useful in the future especially with all these OS lenses coming! :)

SPP3.3 on the left and SPP4 on the right. ISO200. Green has been more separated and it feels like you have more tones of green to play with. a very welcome addition! Not sure if Sigma beats Silkypix though, I think they’re still is ahead in the green departement. I know someone over at Dpreview complained about SPP4s green and I tried to find issues with it with many different shots from various cameras but without luck (or should I say, with luck?!) – and couldn’t really find any bad or flawed situations. Help me! :)

SPP3.3 on the left and SPP4 on the right. ISO400. Inside a shop, mixed light. And as you see red has been mighty improved! Now contains much less yellow and has a more realistic tone – also lots more tones and detail inside the red. Nice! (same settings on both images, DP2)

SPP3.3 on the left and SPP4 on the right. ISO1600. Now to the BAD. As you know I’m a monochrome junkie and I love how SPP deals with black and white high ISO images. But that’s now history and we now have something that looks terribly bad.

I’m sure Sigma will do something about this and I hope that they at the same time realize the need of monochrome white balance in RAW mode so that we can enjoy high ISO shooting for real!

SPP3.3 on the left and SPP4 on the right. ISO1600. The only good is that with lower ISO (below ISO400) this mess isn’t applied.

Please Sigma, have an option to turn this strange massacre off!

Alright.. This was a first look. Comments?

Alright, it looks like I’m more or less in panic mode here but that’s true. ;) I made so many edits, took scenes away and this and that – and after each time I processed the movie and was ready to upload – there was something that I wasn’t satisfied with. I have five different versions of the same movie with four different “pre talks” and finally I settled for this one. It has the worst beginning but hey, it’s me. :D – still it’s a bit long. It’s also supposed to be fun for my sister and her family to watch. :)

Download the original output from Final Cut – 1280×720 – less compressed than youtube version and more smooth in playback.

So how do I like the 5D Mark II compared to what I’m used too? Well, first of all – it’s a great tool! It’s easy to work with even if I’m missing some buttons – as a movie camera it’s great! After a day or two you feel that you have it all under more or less control and you can start to relax. It’s such a nice feeling to be able to go up to ISO6400 (or even higher) and still feel OK – and in really bad light too!

But, as a still camera even in good light I don’t like the output as much. I can’t get “that” from it – and I’m not that impressed with the 21mp resolution. Strange feeling zooming in to these large files and feel like like there should be more. Never feel perfectly satisfied. Oh well. The burden we three layer lovers have to bare.

But when light is bad, and ISO goes up then it leaves my Sigmas in the dust – you can take brilliant shots in ISO3200 (didn’t try much higher, only with video) and I always felt secure without extra light or the need of a flash. So would I like to own one myself? For sure! I can easily imagine myself doing weddings filming and taking pictures at the same time. At least try. :) Especially inside church where I today feel a bit bound by Sigmas bad light performance. But why is Canons shutter so loud?? aaaaa

Before

After

And how this is done and some more, watch this movie in HD and full screen. :)

What do you think? :)

Updated! Now including the RAW from Flyingrooster and Biggydogs english fix.

Movie is now OK. ;)

I also baked a nice little raw pack for you so that if you don’t currently have a Sigma, you can at least play around with some files. It’s a small collection of recent pictures taken with SD14, DP1 and DP2.

The above movie is recorded as HD (1280×720) so view full screen with HD turned on for best experience. It’s currently processed and might be done when you watch. :)

Download the Silkypix Raw Pack.. 109MB ZIP file.

Get the Silkypix beta software, go here for info.
Get flyingroosters test RAW file (used in his comments below). Download.
Get BiggyDogs English menu fix (read comment for install help). Download

Original, full quality.

Above shot is taken in a studio yesterday (the place I worked with jpegs only – this shot I took as RAW though).  The shot came out underexposed and has been adjusted solely inside Silkypix (except for the white border). Even the copyright text is inserted inside Silkypix. (Really good control over watermarks btw).

So what do I think about Silkypix? I have found both greatness and the other way in the way Silkypix does its processing. The good thing about silkypix is that you can go back to the start, take away all noise reduction, all sharpening, all whatever they applied when you first open the shot – and slowly adjust to you liking. You have very nice control over colors and contrast – better than Lightroom (at least better for SD / DP shots) and also parts of it is better than SPP.

I’m now putting together a video showing the good and the bad. With some comparisons with SPP and RD. Perhaps LR and Darkroom too? If my RAM is big enough. hehe. Poor iMac.

FlyingRooster has posted his findings as a comment in this thread. Including comparison images. Well worth reading.

Wanted to share how to use a Cokin filter with this little movie. I’m currently making my DP2 video review and I’m more or less testing my gear to make it possible. We’re experimenting with a new microphone from Röre.. And I think my voice is pretty clear.

Here’s photos used in above review. They’re pretty quick and dirty so I don’t want you to see them at 100%. That thing we stood on was moving some etc.. :D Btw, when I developed them they looked fine but right now I think they’re bit dark and too saturated. Oh well. :) (I place them under a “more” thing so you don’t find them easily.. haha)