Customer Reviews

Sigma DP1s 14MP Sensor Digital Camera

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I guess you probably read the technical reviews and now are wondering what insanity would compel you to buy a DP1? If you're reading this review, you're seduced by the idea of great photos from a small package. Period.
If you like sharp, stunning results and come from the learn-the-camera school, you'll forget how much you paid for it long before you forget the joyous photographs you took with it. It's slow all right, but to me it's just part of the way the camera handles. I can handle that.
I researched cameras for weeks before I settled for a DP1s via Amazon for an amazingly reasonable price. I read many reviews panning the camera. My favorite critique was "on-off button in a bad place". Geez. If Sigma put it where this reviewer wanted it, someone else wouldn't like that location, either.
The bottom line is this: If a camera is capable of producing stunning photographs (which it does), then buy it and LEARN TO USE IT. I love my Nikon D80 and lenses, but I don't always want to carry it with me. I've had two small Canon point-n-shoots and they were tough and reliable, but the small size consistently gave me distorted, average grade photos. It disappointed me greatly when I compared them to the Nikon's quality.
So I searched for the holy grail of gear: a smallish camera with a sharp edge-to-edge lense and big pixel resolution. I think I've found it.
I purchased the optional lense barrel and hood including a Hoya UV filter. The lense barrel actually makes it easier to handle. And best of all, no one pays any attention to me because I put that little Sigma around my neck with the OEM strap and I blend in with the crowd. Folks stiffen up when you poke around with your big DSLR with pro-sized glass; however, few know that I'm packing DSLR resolution in the little camera.
I heartily recommend it to the serious photographer who wants a powerful and small package.

I have had this camera for only a few days, but I'd like to give my initial impressions.

I am absolutely blown away by the image quality of this little camera. The photos that come out of here are just stunning. The images have an almost otherworldly psychedelic color; extraordinary crispness and clarity; and deep, almost 3-dimensional layering. Go to the Sigma website or to flickr and you will see exactly what I'm writing about.

The simplicity of the camera's interface is refreshing. There are few exotic features to learn about and then not use. The camera is super-simple to operate, and with a rudimentary knowledge of the relationship between aperture, shutter speed, and depth of field, it's quite simple to use the camera in manual mode.

The construction is atypical of a contemporary camera in that it has a solid heavy feel. The body is aluminium, not plastic. It feels like a little tank. I love the minimalist aesthetic.

This camera has many idiosyncrasies, quirks, and design flaws:

Because the LCD on the DP1/1s/2 is so small and of such poor quality, you get no sense of how good the photos are until they are loaded into the computer. This may bother some people who want to know before-hand if they've truly captured the shot with correct focus, etc. I find this quality oddly endearing because it means that I have to wait to experience the photos. It is a bit like dropping off the roll of film and having to wait for the prints to come back.

The DP1s is slow. Every review will mention that. Quite true. Slow as molasses. It is slow to focus, slow to take the photo and very very slow to write to the data card. JPEG takes a few seconds to write, RAW takes much longer. I ordered a Speed Class 10 SDHC to see if it would speed things up a bit. Using my ipod touch stopwatch, I recorded the time required to take the photo and write to two different cards. I pre-focused each image and used the same shot and lighting for each test. There was no appreciable difference between JPEG fine, norm, and basic write times.

1) Kingston SD 2GB - RAW 13 sec., Fine JPEG 5 sec.
2) Transcend SDHC Speed Class 10 16GB - RAW 11 sec., Fine JPEG 5 sec.

As mentioned above, to improve speed performance it is best to focus in advance or use manual focus. So far, I've found the manual focus to be difficult to accomplish accurately and quickly using the manual control. Spot focusing in advance has proven to work quite well. I am able to stop live action moving subjects using this method with no problem.

The battery discharges somewhat quickly, so some strategy may be needed to overcome this problem. Some reviewers have suggested turning off the lcd and using the viewfinder available here on Amazon for nearly $150. Don't waste your money. The external viewfinder is an infuriating piece of junk. It's overpriced, it has huge parallax error, it's too small, and it still requires that you focus using the lcd or that you focus by estimating the distance to subject and setting the numerical value on the thumb scroll. A better strategy is to buy an extra battery or two which are only around $30 each. For the same price as the viewfinder you could buy five batteries. Another strategy to save battery life is to not use auto focus. Again, the low quality lcd makes this difficult. Once again, spare batteries are a better bet.

The lens is a bit wide for most versatility. It is easily compensated by the high quality image, making cropping (without too much degradation of image) easy once the photos are in the computer. The DP2's narrower lens is probably a better bet for amateurs if you can afford it. The price of the DP1s is so ridiculously low right now, it was hard to justify spending so much more for the DP2.

I'm an amateur, so I don't have any real need or desire to shoot in RAW. I have been recording in JPEG and using iPhoto with outstanding results. I've experimented with shooting in RAW on this camera, but it makes the camera quite slow, processing the images on the computer is more involved, and I have to use Sigma's software to process the images rather than (more amateur-friendly) iPhoto. I only mention this so that other amateurs who do not use RAW will know that it is not essential. I still get shockingly good photos out of this camera using JPEG/iPhoto.

How many cameras would have a such a cult following with these glitches and design flaws? The willingness of professional and amateur photographers to work around these problems is testament to the extraordinary quality of the images. I am seriously blown away every time I load up images. I can't stop taking pictures with this camera. At the current price of less than $300, this dynamite little gadget is a steal. If the DP2 would drop to the same price, I would get one of those too.

According to Sigma, there are three main upgrades for the DP1s over the DP1, and they are the quickset function assigned to the digital zoom controls, RAW+JPEG writing, and an improvement to the metering for backlit subjects. The quickset is seen on the Sigma DP2 and Sigma SD14 cameras and it is a very nice shorthand. It speeds and improves common settings for my use. I couldn't evaluate the difference in backlit performance, but will trust Sigma on that one. Simultaneously writing RAW and JPEG files can be a great help to those who want the quick jpeg preview but edit the RAW files (in Aperture for example). Not sure how many people have been clamoring for that, but it is a feature.

Recommendations: Get the DP1s if you are looking at it as a new camera. If you have a DP1, don't feel badly, these updates are useful but not huge. It appears that the DP1s will be the DP1 replacement, so there might be a good price on a DP1 at some point soon... (Oh, and there's a firmware update for the original DP1, you should get it if you have one.)

I bought a Sigma DP1s from Amazon last week for the firesale price of $284.64. I briefly owned a DP1 early in 2009, but returned it due to some color problems apparently inherent with the DP1--a strong green cast that appears toward the margins of images.

Everything good about the DP1 is repeated in the DP1s I got yesterday. Image quality is excellent--though burdened by THE QUIRK. The large sensor at 50 to 200 ASA produces images with no apparent grain at all. The 16.6mm (28mm equvalent) lens is sharp across the field with little CA or distortion, the auto-focus works fine and auto-exposures are good enough to recover an excellent tonal range from RAW files. The AEL button actually locks, allowing exposures to the brightest portion of an image be set and held for multiple shots before either pressing the AEL button again or turning off the camera. This lock feature is not present on Sigma's SD14 DSLR (the AEL button has to be held down), so the DP1s makes it easier to shoot 50 ASA images--which require exposing for the brighter highlights, akin to shooting slide film.

But then there is the quirk--the DP1s also shares the DP1's green color cast at image margins. The degree and area of the color shift is somewhat irregular, appearing more on one side of an image than the other. No camera settings or care alters its presence in images. The color shift can be moderated with Photoshop tools by a combination of adjusting for modest vignetting and subtracting greens and adding reds in increments across a portion of the image borders. A carefully made Photoshop layer could probably be crafted from a photo of a uniform white surface and added to images during processing to fix the green cast in some uniform way, maybe.

The green cast or any artifact of it goes entirely away when shooting B&W or converting color to monochrome. With careful sharpening and tonal development, the B&W results can be surprising from such a small camera and should print well to large print sizes.

The dynamic range of the DP1s is remarkable and the Foveon sensor produces images that hark back to Kodachrome. That said, and for just $284.64, I've decided to live with the quirks.

Addition 9/17/10: There has been some discussion on Sigma forums about some DP1's failing after a year or so of use, usually attributed to flexing of some internal wire tape attached to the telescoping lens when the camera is turned on and off. So I keep this possible problem in mind, ration the use of the camera but for places were I especially want to take it and keep the camera turned on for periods rather than often turning it on and off.

I debated buying another brand of small camera--a Panasonic GF-1 or the Olympus E-PL1. But I have Olympus 4/3 gear already and know the dynamic range can't match Sigma's Foveon sensor. I looked at the price of m4/3 cameras, thought back to the simply stunning rendering of cloud tonal detail in one DP1s photo shot recently and decided the best deal was to just buy another DP1s at these continued fire sale prices. The soon to arrive newer model DP1x is probably never going to be priced as low as Amazon's DP1s deals, which will end eventually.

ADDITION 9/23/10: The second DP1s arrived a few days ago and after a very few test shots, saw a consistent, odd, strong magenta color casts in all the image corners and margins. Always something new with a Sigma. I returned this second camera.

I already own a DSLR with multiple lenses and a handful of nice Canon and Sony digital point and shoot cameras. The thing that drew me to this camera the was what was echoed in almost every review: "slow, too basic, horrible focus lag, bad screen, etc.," yet eventually most of them loved the camera. Every negative you read about it is pretty much true. If you look at it as a great lens permanently attached to an AMAZING sensor with good RAW software, it is a really unique toy. I say toy because this is not the right camera for everything. I tried to take pictures at my kid's soccer game, and the lag time made it impossible to know what I was shooting, plus the lens makes any people more than 20ft away very small. The experience is similar to the old days when you didn't know what you would get until you processed the film. But when I loaded them on my Mac with the Sigma software, I was thrilled with the results. The sky, the trees, the grass became almost surreal. The detail I could pull out of the shadows was unlike any RAW files I had used before (for the record, jpeg images are about as good as any other quality POS digital camera). As for action shots, when I set the shutter speed to 1/400, the motion was frozen nicely, just too far away. So I wouldn't take this camera to an event where I needed to "record time." For general portraits, the DP2s is bound to be a better choice (and now I really want one of those, too but too much $$$). I have taken some outdoor people shots, which turned out really nice with unbelievable detail in things like fabric, hair and beard stubble. For the most part, though, you really need to carefully compose your shots to make them a bit more interesting than your average wide angle, fixed-lens photo. Somehow this lack of lens flexibility leads to better images for me.
As for build quality, this thing is very solid. Mostly metal and MADE IN JAPAN, so it feels like an old Nikon or Pentax. It garners plenty of oohs and aahs from my photo-hobbyist friends, but I'll bet the average person thinks it's just a cheap black camera. I'd call it the Poor Man's Leica, but it's too expensive for that. It is heavy, and definitely not pocketable. The fact that the lens cap is unattached really is a boneheaded design flaw. I am strongly considering the optional viewfinder, but that would make the total price almost unacceptable for me. I ordered an old school custom fitted case from China that does a nice enough job of protecting the camera body at hundreds less that the Sigma case.
If you're looking for a fun, expensive toy (no offense, Sigma) this camera is a neat way to go. Like a turntable or a tube guitar amp, just accept it for what it is: good old fashioned basic quality that allows you to slow down and appreciate something done right.

I was wondering why there is only one review posted here and it was obviously posted prior to the commercial production of DP1s. Now I have confirmed that one of the information provided was incorrect.

I have a DP1 and love it very much. The only drawback to me is that it cannot record both RAW and jpeg formats at the same time. This somewhat discourages me from using it since I have to post process the RAW format files and RAW is the only mode that you can get the most from this camera.

When I heard that DP1s has the RAW+jpeg recording feature, I wanted to have one. I finally bought it at the bargain price and expected to use it with the RAW+jpeg mode.

After I received the item, I was surprized to find out that there is no such mode. It is exactly like DP1: you can either select the RAW or the jpeg but not both at the same time. I actually tried to use every mode with no luck. The supplied "ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTION MANUAL FOR DP1s" explains what features have been added on DP1s over DP1, however, the RAW+jpeg feature is not mentioned.

So, here is my reminder to anyone who are interested in the feature I mentioned above (which does not exist): there is NO RAW+jpeg writting mode on DP1S. You need to use the supplied software to "extract" (or say, convert or process) to get the jpeg. Other than this, I believe that it is as good as DP1 is. To my eyes, the color rendition by DP1 seems more intense and closer to the real scene under sunlight condition, though (at auto white balance setting).

I have used mostly DSLR, from Canon 40D, 1000D, Nikon D40, Pentax K-x and their picture quality always seem like lag of something, I dont know what that "something" that i keeps looking for ? (Some review/user say that it's output are more film-like, for me i never used film before, therefore , i dont know how it near to film.)
Until i tried this Sigma DP1s, the "something" finally appeared!
I think it is a mixture of quality that most entry to mid range DSLR lagging : Dynamic range + Clearity in an image!
Before i go on commenting on this review, i would like to warn all of you, that i am not good in English langguage, if you found that my review hard to understand , pls forgive me .

Let make this review short and simply, :-

Good :

1)This Sigma DP1s can produce very very good image photo in RAW ( Forget about the jpeg, yak )!
This is the Main Benefit it can offer !
2)Very High Dynamic Range !
3)Small Body easy to carry somewhere!
4)Very Cheap, only $299, go get one now !

Bad :

1)Very very slow in terms of shot to shot time.
2)Photos output Always 100% need to edit in the supplied software,original output unsaturated,
undynamics range & unsharp!
3)It come with a Prime Lens, no zooming.
4)Aparture is F4 make it not good for indoor.

Conclusion :

For me , i just dont care any of the Bad points, all i wanted is the good pictures.

The reason is simply :
1)i enjoy taking photo, therefore , i can wait.
2) I like editing photo, therefore i dont mind second time editing.
3) Prime is Good for Landscape and i like Landscape.
4)If i need do indoor shot, especially my 5 year old daugther, i go for my Pentax K-x with 50mm f1.4 Prime .

If i knew for sure that i am going for a landcaping , sure , i will bring this wanderful Sigma DP1s! Thanks.

When I first started in photography, I used a Pentax K1000, which is an incredibly basic, no frills film camera. I loved it. The Sigma DP1s is the digital equivalent of that camera - zero bells and whistles, only the absolute minimum necessary to make an image, and the case of this camera, the image is outstanding. Sure, you have to learn to use it, work around its quirks, and it's only good in a very narrow realm (landscapes, still lifes, etc. and only in good light). I'm enjoying mine tremendously. I have other, more fancy cameras but I truly enjoy the DP1s spareness - don't have a million menu items and 76 dials to play with. DO NOT buy this camera unless you're prepared to use it as intended - as a maximum image quality, but pain in the butt operationally - picture making device.
If you want to make snapshots go buy a Canon IS1100 or something; if you want maximum image quality and want to interact closely with a pocket sized camera, get this one.

Superb image quality. Nothing else I care about.

For me, it is just what I need.

...and here's why:

1. Sensor
Inside this little box is a large sensor that does not use mathematical tricks for guessing colour, but actually records what it sees. For me, this means I can imagine more easily what is going on inside the camera and thus better relate to what I'm doing when pressing the shutter release (good luck with imagining what happens with a Bayer sensor if you're not a mathematical genius:). Furthermore, the resolution of the sensor/lens combo is so high, you can upscale your files to about twice the size without loosing too much detail for large prints (so in effect, you have a 28-56 eq. zoom cam ;). Every file contains tons and tons of visual information to play around with.

2. fixed lens
The high quality lens is fixed at a focal length. So instead of just zoomin in on a given subject and waiting for the right composition to appear, you'll think before you compose an image (you can think with a zoom too, but it's easy not to...). The lens is not stabilized and has a max. aperture of f4. This is no big problem as the camera is heavy enough to keep stable by hand for about 1/10 of a second, ISO 800 gives good quality pics and the output of the flash is adjustable.

3. simple operation
Using the DP1s is nice and simple. You can leave it in Programm mode and use the left and right directional buttons for program shift while using the playback-zoom buttons for direct control of ISO, exposure compensation or another of about a dozen programable functions. Best leave them in ISO selection mode as there is a dedicated button for exposure compensation. The upward directional button controls focus mode (auto far, auto near or manual focus for use with the excellent manual focus dial). You actually get two autofocus modes, but apart from the fact that the "landscape" mode is unable to focus "close" (i.e. 30cm+) I haven't found any significant differences (both modes are not very fast and almost useless in low light situations). Luckily, image magnification for manual focus (which would work even better on a higher resolution LCD...) is but a touch of a button away :)

4. image quality
Looking at images from the DP1s is akin to eating your favourite ice cream.

On the bottom line, this camera let's you record visual information of great quality that you can use to create wonderful pictures in post processing. It is not suited for every kind of photography though (I would not try close-ups of hunting lions by night).