The new SD1 Merrill is basically the same camera as the original SD1 only with a new name AND perhaps more importantly, a new price tag. Street price will likely land around $2.200 which makes it extremely affordable compared to just a few days ago. It’s also, thanks to firmware upgrades a much better camera today compared to the day it was released last summer.

The DP1 and DP2 Merrill now share the same, bigger sensor as the SD1 and they also received new optics including FLD glass (which is a as awesome as it gets type of glass).

But Sigma didn’t stop there! For those that already bought an SD1 Sigma will have a program in place that gives those buyers lenses for the extra amount payed. It’s not in place just yet but will likely be around the time the new Merrills are released in March of 2012. (Although I can’t find a specific release date for the two compacts)

This is good news. And according to my mailbox, lots of people like Sigmas new move! Now go save some money and let Sigma know how much we love this! :D

Btw, the PhotoScala wooden shell for the SD1 isn’t my cup of tea. Perhaps if they made something that fits truly tight and made out of beautiful leather. :D That would be super awesome.

Another note, these shots are all hand held using the super great 120-300 OS and luminance is turned to the lowest setting in SPP so that no detail would be left out. Some has been slightly sharpened after and some has not. I’m not sure how the new SPP 5.1 does sharpening so I feel a bit unsure about it yet.

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Linn took about a thousand full RAW’s on her trip to Paris (which by the way went perfectly fine!) but dealing with those raw’s and with others has been painful. Both because of speed but also because of how colors and noise are handled by SPP. But Speed being my biggest concern. SPP as it is, gives me RLS.

Anyways. I’ll be back when things changes.
Btw, SD1 isn’t bad. SPP is.

My wife has a dear friend visiting from China and they decided to go to Paris as a small vacation in the vacation – and they will stay at hostels but if anyone out there lives in or close to Paris and can host my wife and her friend that would be awesome! They don’t need anything fancy, just a sofa or the like.

Please email her at liudongyun@gmail.com or call her at +46 734-015124

Person wrote:
NEW FIRMWARE AND NEW SPP are here!!!!
The SD1 color problems have FINALLY been fixed.
You can even work in Pro Photo and save as Pro Photo with no issues. The whole thing looks and works like a normal camera now!

Rodzyn wrote:
New soft SD1 :

http://www.sigma-sd.com/SD1/firmware.html

new wersion SPP5:

http://www.sigma-sd.com/SD1/jp/photopro.html

So, as I’m too busy for the moment I can’t fully test everything but I do have a shot from yesterday using the new SD1 firmware and the new SPP. 12-24 used.

I might add that the SD1 takes a longer time to calculate / process the shot than saving it.. I think 3-4s for each save.

Alright, over and out.
From TC/G Nordica in Kunming on my iPad

Download SD1 RAW Pack nr 4 255MB
You need Sigma Photo Pro 5 (or any other SD1 compatible aw converter).

The above shots all have a huge dynamic range (perhaps not the water shot) for you to play with – and in order to achieve good results you will have to either use X3 Fill light a lot – or save the image two or three times with different exposures and make a “fake HDR” in PS or whatever software you fancy. You can also dodge and burn if you save as 16bit tiff.

As I’m on the road and I do think above shots has been problematic – but interesting –  I’d LOVE to see what you guys can do! Anyone up for the task with any of these shots?

For those that follow my blog also knows that I sometimes use my little sisters music – and her song Autumn depression was a theme song on one of my videos (can’t reach youtube from China so I can’t find it nor link to it) but I just noticed when playing it to my parents in law that Kerstin updated the song and it’s now super great! :D

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To the song I give you my first Pixelmator edited photo, it’s tough to work in a new software and it was frustrating but I think result is OK. It doesn’t have any advanced sharpening – and RawTherapee that I relied on so much lately doesn’t work in OS X Lion – So I’m stuck with what I got. Not much. :)

Hopefully Pixelmator 2.0 will have everything that I lack right now, but then it’s too late as I’ll be back home to my safe PS. :D

If anyone has any other suggestions for great sharpening softwares outside PS and on a Mac – and free or not very expensive then feel free to shout!

Jeff Sickels, the creater of Sigma X3F quicklook plugin has once more shown his skill and released a new update with OS X Lion support! He writes:

An updated build of the X3F Spotlight Importer and Quicklook generator is now released for Lion. See version 1.5.1 on the software link.

Here’s a movie I made a couple of years ago about the plugin.

Another shot from my trip up north and this time it’s a Yak bull (At least I think so).. :) It’s a shot taken at ISO200 – You may want to open the shot in PS in order to fully see what I see, it’s still the strange profile bug making my shots look weird online. :(

Now, maybe you would like to know what the shot looks like in it’s none edited state?

I started with the last shot (almost) and saved at 16bit tiff, and worked with the dodge brush in Aperture to get where I wanted. I’m getting better with Aperture with everyday that passes. It’s good to be forced sometimes. :) I’m even thinking of installing Pixelmator and work with that instead of Photoshop.. At least while in China. :)

For the last four days I’ve been on vacation on my vacation to the north of Yunnan province, to a place named Shangeri-la.. I used ISO200 in order to get the entire scene without having to bracket (take three or more shots with different exposures). So in order to get sky and foreground in one shot I used x3 fill light which works remarkably well with SD1 images, very different from my past experience.

Now, the colorbug within SPP5 isn’t yet fixed and I have to fight the magenta touch in Aperture and I feel/fear that I loose density because of this fight. Anyways. Don’t forget to click the boy shot and the water shot as they’re both incredibly detailed.

Some additional info can be found in my Dpreview Sigma forum thread.

 Original Fill light used and cropped as well. Have a look at the original as it’s super-detailed. 18-50 macro at it’s best!

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 Original Driving at Tiger Leaping Gorge

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And last a shot from when I passed a waterfall just beside the road, Linn opened the window to touch the water. :P

There will be more!

A bit later I saw her again, now her dad had collected some more of what he was collecting.. I tried to make her smile, but she wouldn’t. :(

I love ev-bikes! I had one many years ago when I lived in Kunming and the other day we tried a few to see if perhaps it would be time to get another one.. They’re really awesome!! This one can do about 45km before running out of juice and cost around 2000rmb (€200) – And it’s foldable and battery is easily removable. Cool stuff!!

Good that I have Linn, she makes my photos look so much better! :D

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None of these are taken in HI mode, but in mixed MED and LOW mode.

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