( 5 reviews )
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( 4 of 4 found this review helpful ) Posted: 01-02-2005
I'm a bit late in writing this review since I've had my SD9 for one year. The image quality of photos using the SD9 can be quite stunning. The level of sharpness achieved by the Foveon sensor is amazing - it can resolve detail that Bayer sensor cameras (all other digital cameras fall into this group) simply cannot. Couple this camera with one of Sigma's "EX" lenses, particularly the super-sharp 50mm EX macro lens, and you'll love the results. I enjoy macro photography and this camera is excellent at macro photography. I'm certainly not in the league of a real photographer as I'm just a casual type who enjoys taking pictures. As they say, the proof is in the picture and I've seen the proof! Forget about the megapixel rating and the fact that the Sigma is "only" 3.4 MP. The Foveon sensor has 3.4 million photosensors for each primary color - that's 10.2 total MP - while a 6 MP Bayer sensor has 6 MP for all three primary colors. Why a four star rating rather than five? This camera is not without it's issues, like all cameras. The SD9 is not a very good low-light performer. If you need ISO speeds faster than 100 then the SD9 may not be for you. High ISO shots are noisy although you can get very usable high ISO photos if the conditions are ideal. The SD10 addressed this issue. The SD9 does not have a built-in flash but those units are not suitable for serious flash work anyway. This camera can only use Sigma SA mount lense so the choice in lenses is not as wide as for a Canon, Nikon, or Minolta user but Sigma makes some very, very good lenses and they certainly offer more choices than I can avail myself of. If you want in-camera jpg files, look elsehwere. The SD9 shoots only in RAW format and you have to process the photos. This is actually the best way to shoot, there is so much that can be done with a RAW file that one cannot do with a TIFF or jpg. The Sigma Photo Pro software is a gem of an application that is extremely powerful and easy to use. Again, look at the results and you'll see that this camera is an extremely capable performer.
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( 3 of 3 found this review helpful ) Posted: 12-24-2004
i have had this camera for almost 2 years now and am still in love with it. i use the EX series 15-30mm lens and there isn't a situation i have found where this camera doesn't kick the [...] of any other digital camera (except for maybe the new SD10). i have a friend with a Canon that cost a ridiculous $9,000 and her pictures look like junk in comparison. i recently took a photo i took with my SD9 at a canyon in new mexico and had it blown up to over 3 feet wide. of course, the file size is absolutely huge, but the print out is stunning. you cannot even see the pixels. i love this camera. it is amazingy easy to use and the pictures come out wonderfully.
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( 12 of 15 found this review helpful ) Posted: 12-07-2003
Well, this camera is something special and I have been compelled write this review because of couple of reasons. For the first, here the reasons. I read many bad , negative reviews of this camera and in the same time all those people who actually used it told how much they have being amazed by the picture quality it produces. So I've decided to try. The camera's images are not amazed they are stunned. The image quality is so high that it left me speechless for the first.I'm just wandering about those who left negative reviews about it? The CNET review, that named it "mediocre SLR camera" is just a plain lie. In my opinion they giving point for those who gives more money, it's it. Another interesting "review", I read from Ken Rockwell (really gifted photo artist!, no questions!), who reviewed this camera without even try it! So let start. First of all, it is NOT 3.5M camera. It is AT LEAST 10M camera, but megapixels in the traditional meaning just are not applicable here. This camera produces NEGATIVES. This negative is result of 10M photo elements. In the same time any of 6M cameras has HALF OF THEM GREEN and ONLY 25% red and another 25% blue. If we speak about "image quality" using this kind of "resolution" , this camera produces 14M images. In the same time the "real" resolution of those "6M" cameras stand about 1.5M, the everything else is a pure deceiving interpolation. I see that Cannon and NIkon, aren't happy to see this Sigma on the market, since it MUCH SUPERIOR to any camera they make they started to discredit it.I do not say it is an ideal, but it close. Much closer than everything else that feels like SLR. This Sigma produces PHOTOGRAPHIC IMAGES. I mean it. There's full range of amazing continuos beautiful halftones as you can see on the best reversible films. The pictures are spectacular. Since it is real photographic tool, you come back to the true that photography and it is about light. Your raw pictures will normally produce 3000 by 4500 huge images that is not interpolating, they just "enlargements" from digital negative. It reviles as many details that ANY other camera can't produce. There are 14M cameras on the market, but they DO NOT MUCH this SIgma in the meaning of photography. I can blow my raw image 4 times more and it still looking better than those from 14M Canon. By the way, those image from Cannon show horrible color reproduction, especially in the red. For example two closely colored redish colors coming out the same! This Sigma saves colors! It saves the real colors, not the estimations, not the interpolations but the real thing. Camera has just the everything that it has to have, including the high speed synchronization up to 1/6000 !!! The lens from Sigma just as good(or better) as any other lenses from Nikon , Cannon or Minolta. Even cheap $100 tag slow glass is of very good optical quality. Yes/ for $100 you're getting slow lenses, but it almost distortion free and high contrast! But fro $300 you can get perfectly fast, noticeably bright zoom that at least as good as any lens from "leading companies". Camera is very well constructed, it handles as it should be, the focusing system is fast, the screen is bright and clear, all controls location are very clever and logical. I like this camera and you're going to like it too. No boundaries anymore. You can print image as large as you need, no questions. In two, three years Foveon will overcome. I
