Sigma SD14 - My first Foveon
I hinted at this on my YT channel, but I always like to spill the beans here on the forum first and leave people there guessing 😉
I recently picked up an excellent lot of gear that included a Sigma SD14 and several SA mount Sigma lenses. I don't think I'm unique in saying I had an interest in at least trying out a Foveon sensor camera. The idea (probably also the marketing, haha) is intriguing, and the results I see (probably just excellent photographers) look awesome.
Here's some first impressions:
Camera itself has a nice heft to it. Larger than my K10D, released the same year. (I realize now I have some obsession with 2007 era DSLRs... I've tried one from almost every brand released that year). Control system is a little different than any other camera I've used and I'm having trouble figuring some parts out but it's okay.
So far disappointed in the lenses. They are the older Sigma lenses released around that same time. The 50mm f1.4 EX lens is quite soft, the 15-30mm 3.5-4.5 is remarkably soft even stopped down. I am having trouble wrapping my mind around this - surely they can't be as bad as they look? Maybe I'm using the camera incorrectly? Or maybe I've just become accustomed to sharper glass... Still figuring that out. My next move here is to do some controlled test, and adapt some lenses. The SA mount is almost identical to the K mount, and can take M42 lenses. So we'll give that a go. If those don't look sharp on it, it's definitely how I'm using the camera.
The other interesting observation is the software. In order to get the most out of the .x3f files you have to use Sigma's proprietary photo editor, Sigma Photo Pro. It's pretty dated, the interface is confusing (icons on buttons but almost no text - what do the buttons do??) but once you get into actually editing a photo and figure that out the sliders and everything is normal.
There is a mode that looks just at the .x3f file as-is, and then an "Auto" edit mode. They look quite different, and I wonder what Sigma is doing with the auto edit mode. It's not a mode meant for exporting JPEGs, I don't think, because you can bake it into the RAW file and then still continue to edit the RAW file.
For some reason the built-in monochrome conversion isn't working on my files. Supposedly it has some advantages over just moving the Saturation slider because again, it's baking it into the RAW file and not just getting ready for a JPEG edit.
The thing about Foveon's over saturating reds is a real thing! I took a shot with my kids in a red wagon and it clipped the highlights. In fact, highlights seem to clip easily generally on this camera and that's not a ton of dynamic range to work with at all.
This is an on-going experiment and I'll keep updating as I learn it better. I'm sure I'm just not using it right, but I did want to throw this out there to let others interested in Foveon cameras know - it's not an easy go out and shoot first time camera, apparently! Maybe the newer ones are, but this old one isn't... For me at least..
I chose some example file from around the neighborhood that show different colors. All of these were on the 15-30.
Uploaded files:
I really like the way the golden colors look. Very rich. The highlights blow out, reminding me a bit of slightly overexposed slide Film.
Quote from Estelon_Agarwaen on January 30, 2022, 6:11 pmI really like the way the golden colors look. Very rich. The highlights blow out, reminding me a bit of slightly overexposed slide Film.
I was gonna say overexposed E100 or Velvia in similar looks as well!
WELCOME TO THE FOVEON CLUB! Weeeee.
Okay I'm hardly a foveon expert but I've been at this a little while.
Here are some facts:
- Yes, the sensory is extremely finicky. Forget the idea that it's a DSLR. Think of it like a large format camera. You have to be intentional about choosing your subjects, setting it up (on a tripod if it's not sunny), exposing it, then processing it. It's a pain but it's worth it. IF you…
- Don't try to use it for snapshots, you'll end up hating it/yourself. It's a special tool. Use it for landscapes, natural objects/still life, calm portraits.
- This is a 100 ISO camera in color.
- B&W it can go higher, and there's no B&W like foveon B&W.
- It has way less exposure latitude than you're used to… maybe early CCD levels, I think I read 8-9 stops? So it really is like slide film.
- You can open the SD14 RAW files in Adobe Camera Raw!! Skip SPP if you can. You can always use it for tricky issues. I've read the newer versions of SPP massively improved the red channel issue (I don't really have it).
- Foveon makes an otherwise ok lens look like CRAP. Because every color has its own layer, there's no interpolation, no interpolation means high detail acuity, high detail acuity shines a light on lens quality… The blurriness/interpolation of Bayer can hide a lot of sins.
- Yes, older Sigma lenses are nowhere near good enough. Only the newer ones and Art lenses are good enough for even the earlier sensor you've got.
- Great news: you don't need to use Sigma lenses! The models SD15 and below are friendly to adapters! You own better lenses already.
- The Sigma SA mount is basically a Pentax K mount! You can put a K lens directly on it, or buy an m42->K adapter (haven't tried this yet myself so ymmv). There are lots of examples of adapted lenses on the SD9/14/15 on Flickr, old blogs, etc.
- It's worth it. When you put in the effort, there's nothing like it.
Also hi, I just joined. Pardon the excess enthusiasm… I LOVE foveon and have been shopping for an SD14/15 myself to complement my Merrills because the SD1 absolutely will not take adapted glass.
I shoot Merrills as I mentioned, but I do have a dp1x which is a little fixed-lens camera with the same sensor your camera has. It has a lens designed for the sensor, and is a point & shoot (with an ISO of 100 and a latitude of slide film).
Here are a some of my first shots so you can see how foveon looks with the right optics… which I can't upload here because, despite being only 5mp, they're too big for your forum!
It let me upload this crop though:
Uploaded files:
Quote from ahoyhere on February 5, 2022, 6:11 amWELCOME TO THE FOVEON CLUB! Weeeee.
Okay I'm hardly a foveon expert but I've been at this a little while.
Here are some facts:
- Yes, the sensory is extremely finicky. Forget the idea that it's a DSLR. Think of it like a large format camera. You have to be intentional about choosing your subjects, setting it up (on a tripod if it's not sunny), exposing it, then processing it. It's a pain but it's worth it. IF you…
- Don't try to use it for snapshots, you'll end up hating it/yourself. It's a special tool. Use it for landscapes, natural objects/still life, calm portraits.
- This is a 100 ISO camera in color.
- B&W it can go higher, and there's no B&W like foveon B&W.
- It has way less exposure latitude than you're used to… maybe early CCD levels, I think I read 8-9 stops? So it really is like slide film.
- You can open the SD14 RAW files in Adobe Camera Raw!! Skip SPP if you can. You can always use it for tricky issues. I've read the newer versions of SPP massively improved the red channel issue (I don't really have it).
- Foveon makes an otherwise ok lens look like CRAP. Because every color has its own layer, there's no interpolation, no interpolation means high detail acuity, high detail acuity shines a light on lens quality… The blurriness/interpolation of Bayer can hide a lot of sins.
- Yes, older Sigma lenses are nowhere near good enough. Only the newer ones and Art lenses are good enough for even the earlier sensor you've got.
- Great news: you don't need to use Sigma lenses! The models SD15 and below are friendly to adapters! You own better lenses already.
- The Sigma SA mount is basically a Pentax K mount! You can put a K lens directly on it, or buy an m42->K adapter (haven't tried this yet myself so ymmv). There are lots of examples of adapted lenses on the SD9/14/15 on Flickr, old blogs, etc.
- It's worth it. When you put in the effort, there's nothing like it.
Also hi, I just joined. Pardon the excess enthusiasm… I LOVE foveon and have been shopping for an SD14/15 myself to complement my Merrills because the SD1 absolutely will not take adapted glass.
I shoot Merrills as I mentioned, but I do have a dp1x which is a little fixed-lens camera with the same sensor your camera has. It has a lens designed for the sensor, and is a point & shoot (with an ISO of 100 and a latitude of slide film).
Here are a some of my first shots so you can see how foveon looks with the right optics… which I can't upload here because, despite being only 5mp, they're too big for your forum!
It let me upload this crop though:
This is incredibly helpful information! Thank you for writing it all up!
I have already bumped into the realization that I need to treat this camera much differently than I do my other cameras to get the best results. I have a few questions based on your comments, if you don't mind helping me out a little more:
- Yes, the sensory is extremely finicky. Forget the idea that it's a DSLR. Think of it like a large format camera. You have to be intentional about choosing your subjects, setting it up (on a tripod if it's not sunny), exposing it, then processing it. It's a pain but it's worth it. IF you…
- This is a great way of thinking about it! It is tempting to use it like a normal DSLR given its size, but it really does take more time to get all set up properly and the ISO limitation often means I'm fighting shutter speed. I'll just think of it as a tripod camera and that will help 😉
- Don't try to use it for snapshots, you'll end up hating it/yourself. It's a special tool. Use it for landscapes, natural objects/still life, calm portraits.
- As above, great advice.
- This is a 100 ISO camera in color.
- There's a 50 ISO option on the camera. I was going to experiment between the two, but I'm curious if you know how they compare?
- B&W it can go higher, and there's no B&W like foveon B&W.
- There's an option in SPP to convert to monochrome, and this supposedly had an advantage over just dropping the saturation. I read that in the Sigma Photo Pro release notes. For some reason it's always disabled for me. Do you know anything about this and does it work just as well to drop the saturation or is there a different workflow for the best B+W shots?
- It has way less exposure latitude than you're used to… maybe early CCD levels, I think I read 8-9 stops? So it really is like slide film.
- I have noticed this already 🙂
- You can open the SD14 RAW files in Adobe Camera Raw!! Skip SPP if you can. You can always use it for tricky issues. I've read the newer versions of SPP massively improved the red channel issue (I don't really have it).
- Based on my really limited understanding, I thought the point of SPP was to skip the program trying to run a demosaicing process on the files. Does ACR allow you to skip this too? Or am I just totally off here, haha.
- Foveon makes an otherwise ok lens look like CRAP. Because every color has its own layer, there's no interpolation, no interpolation means high detail acuity, high detail acuity shines a light on lens quality… The blurriness/interpolation of Bayer can hide a lot of sins.
- This is really interesting. I have been disappointed in the lenses so far, though my 50mm and 105mm stopped down are both pretty good.
- Yes, older Sigma lenses are nowhere near good enough. Only the newer ones and Art lenses are good enough for even the earlier sensor you've got.
- Might have to look into that.
- Great news: you don't need to use Sigma lenses! The models SD15 and below are friendly to adapters! You own better lenses already.
- The Sigma SA mount is basically a Pentax K mount! You can put a K lens directly on it, or buy an m42->K adapter (haven't tried this yet myself so ymmv). There are lots of examples of adapted lenses on the SD9/14/15 on Flickr, old blogs, etc.
- I have seen the M42/SA adapter. Putting my K mount lenses directly on it results in a really loose fit, like it's going to fall off. Am I missing something here? I have seen some blogs where it appears they modified either the lens mount or body mount slightly to make accommodation. I would love to put my Pentax glass on it, or maybe just buy the m42 adapter (like $10 used right now) and used that.
Thanks again and wonderful photos! Glad to have you here on the forum if even just for my sake, haha! But I'm sure everyone will appreciate having you contribute here as well.
Quote from Snappy on February 5, 2022, 6:52 pmThis is incredibly helpful information! Thank you for writing it all up!
My pleasure, thank you for setting up a forum to talk about the good old stuff!
- There's a 50 ISO option on the camera. I was going to experiment between the two, but I'm curious if you know how they compare?
I don't think I've ever tried it! Going to have to now.
There's an option in SPP to convert to monochrome, and this supposedly had an advantage over just dropping the saturation. I read that in the Sigma Photo Pro release notes. For some reason it's always disabled for me. Do you know anything about this and does it work just as well to drop the saturation or is there a different workflow for the best B+W shots?
Ahh… there's so much more to black & white conversion than desaturate. I haven't tried SPP's yet — I get out of SPP as quickly as possible, and only use it when required (Merrills, sigh). To be clear: I haven't done much b&w with foveon yet. I do know the best way to squeak the best high ISO b&w's out of it is to use the blue channel only.
Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom (and I'm sure every other major tool) have a Black & White Color Mixer. You put in a color photo and then you can tweak the colors you ant to be light and dark, like using colored filters on B&W film. That's how I converted the B&W lake photo on my Flickr album.
Based on my really limited understanding, I thought the point of SPP was to skip the program trying to run a demosaicing process on the files. Does ACR allow you to skip this too? Or am I just totally off here, haha.
I haven't heard of that? I think if Adobe Camera Raw tried to demosaic a foveon image, it would be visibly wrecked. The 1st gen foveon photos I've converted in ACR have been sharp as tacks. ACR officially/natively supports the earliest Sigmas up to SD14. And newer files will only open in SPP.
BTW — speaking of sharp as tacks – I looked at my own photo album on the Flickr iPhone app and it made the images so fuzzy! It looks right on desktop.
I have seen the M42/SA adapter. Putting my K mount lenses directly on it results in a really loose fit, like it's going to fall off. Am I missing something here? I have seen some blogs where it appears they modified either the lens mount or body mount slightly to make accommodation. I would love to put my Pentax glass on it, or maybe just buy the m42 adapter (like $10 used right now) and used that.
Oh, hmm. I didn't know that, I don't have any Pentax glass. I only have a Nikon->PK adapter which mounted securely for me on my SD1. Guess that's a different situation!
Quote from ahoyhere on February 5, 2022, 11:38 pmBased on my really limited understanding, I thought the point of SPP was to skip the program trying to run a demosaicing process on the files. Does ACR allow you to skip this too? Or am I just totally off here, haha.
I haven't heard of that? I think if Adobe Camera Raw tried to demosaic a foveon image, it would be visibly wrecked. The 1st gen foveon photos I've converted in ACR have been sharp as tacks. ACR officially/natively supports the earliest Sigmas up to SD14. And newer files will only open in SPP.
BTW — speaking of sharp as tacks – I looked at my own photo album on the Flickr iPhone app and it made the images so fuzzy! It looks right on desktop.
Okay, I was getting confused with monochrome converted cameras which is a topic I've been studying alongside Foveon. You're right, it's not going to try to demosiac the x3f files.
Well this is great. I compared a default raw conversion from Adobe and from SPP, and they look ever so slightly different (very slightly, I had to zoom in close and peep an it's just a slightly different color), but not one worse than the other, so I feel confident just switching to Adobe and saving myself the hassle. A lot of people I have asked go through SPP, export as tiff and then edit wherever, but I don't see the need after testing it. I guess with unsupported cameras this would be the way to go.
Here's a couple from then backyard over the last few days experimenting. All on the Sigma 105mm f2.8 macro, which is sharp enough stopped down. Still want to try adapting lenses. I'll do that next.
Nature by Snappiness, on Flickr
Icicles on Sage Bush by Snappiness, on Flickr
Withered Leaves by Snappiness, on Flickr
Spot Light by Snappiness, on Flickr
Oh those are looking good!!
I still can’t believe that’s what you can get from a 5 megapixel camera. You can practically see the cells on the stem in the first picture.
