Sigma shoots self in foot…
Filed in Sigma - June 18, 2007Interested in the DP-1 or SD14? Hold up a second and consider the raw conversions.
Although the DP-1 isn’t quite real yet, the SD14 has been in the shops for a while. At the moment, the only third party raw converter that supports it is the latest version of Adobe Camera Raw. Some users are reporting that the Camera Raw conversions aren’t that great, but that’s not my point here. ‘Latest version’ means that you have to be running Photoshop CS3 to use it.
Hmm, never mind. Sigma ships a raw converter with their cameras. That’ll do until the market catches up. Except that the converter that Sigma ships isn’t colour managed. That means you are editing blind, because what you see on the screen in the raw converter isn’t what you get when you open the file in your editing or printing application.
This falls somewhere south of ‘mindlessly stupid’ on my scale of jolly japes that camera companies get up to.
Doing raw conversions in a non-colour managed application severely limits the point of shooting raw in the first place. Oh, and as far as I can see, the white balance tool sucks as well.
Anybody buying either of these cameras is taking quite a risk about raw support from one of the major applications.
PopPhoto notes that the Sigma raw converter is basic:
While it’s not the most sophisticated RAW utility — lacking high-level controls such as curve, chromatic aberration, and lens distortion adjustments — it does a far better job processing the SD14’s RAW files than the current version of Adobe’s Camera RAW.
But despite proudly boasting a new testing regime based on raw, rather than jpeg, results, they don’t mention the colour management issue. I haven’t seen it mentioned in other tests either, but it is well understood on the Sigma forums that I’ve wandered into.
I’ve not been following this at all. It’s a surprising omission on Sigma’s part.
I would have thought one could use the newest version of Adobe’s DNG converter. One could then process in CS2 (ie Camera Raw v3), or perhaps another program since I expect anybody who would not have been satisfied with the processing via ACR4 isn’t going to be satisfied with the processing via ACR3 either.
This would address the colour management problem without needing CS3.
June 19, 2007 @ 12:56 am
I think that taken as a package, Sigma’s offerings generally miss ’something’. Maybe we can chalk it down to inexperience or perhaps a too-forgiving user community.
Dunno.
June 19, 2007 @ 2:13 am
Adobe are a bit naughty about requiring one to upgrade in order to use the latest RAW downloads. That said, it seems to be a failing of nearly all the camera companies that they don’t pay nearly enough attention to their own RAW development product or understand that they need to work with the major software companies dealing with RAW. Let’s hope that Sigma dig themselves out of this hole.
June 19, 2007 @ 6:39 am
David,
I wondered about the DNG option as well, given that I routinely use it to get Leica M8 files into Aperture. The user community doesn’t seem wowed by this option, probably because the DNG converter is expecting a file with Bayer type information.
I’ve talked to Brian at Iridient Digital (Raw Developer) and he has confirmed that the SD14 will be supported on their next release.
June 19, 2007 @ 7:20 am
John,
I worked out after typing the post that the latest Camera Raw will run in Photoshop Elements, so that would be a much cheaper way of buying the product just as a raw converter.
Reading the forums more closely though suggests that Camera Raw conversions of the SD14 show problematic noise and detail loss.
June 19, 2007 @ 7:22 am
Allen,
Inexperience is my guess. A newer version of their raw converter is officially delayed (and announced as such on their website). I’m guessing that it has gone back for a fundamental rewrite to deal with the colour issue.
June 19, 2007 @ 7:25 am
Well, I would like Sigma to get it right. We had to use Elements for Jana’s E-400 until Capture One coughed up (against their own prediction) but it is not a user-friendly application (compared with C1, although the results are fine).
June 19, 2007 @ 9:58 am
In light of this maybe the DP1 delay is a good sign. I would bet they’re working out all of the little hiccups that the SD14 release revealed.
The optimist in me wants to believe that Sigma will get it right in the end.
June 19, 2007 @ 2:12 pm
Chris,
Me too.
In some ways the DP-1 is the more significant camera for them. The SD14 will mainly sell to people with an earlier Sigma dSLR, whereas the DP-1 might open up new markets. But markets also that are very experienced at raw conversions and high quality output.
June 19, 2007 @ 3:41 pm