SD9 Firmware v2 Night Shots, compared to dpreview's Beta SD9

Taken using the just-released v2 firmware plus SPP v2 with 0.2 X3 Fill
Light...
http://www.pbase.com/image/23448675

The SD9's initial production firmware was fine at night too...
http://www.pbase.com/image/21306844

Dpreview.com's insistance upon leaving only Beta-firmware SD9 samples posted
is becoming increasingly ridiculous...
http://img.dpreview.com/reviews/SigmaSD9/Samples/Night/IMG01299.jpg

 

Good picture! I think the combo of Foveon and SPP v.2 makes very
nice images.

I do have to hand it to you, George, you put your money (put your
images up) where your mouth is -- despite the vomit of such lights
as George Smegma-Kirby, Ray Moron-Fischer, et al.

I'll reiterate what I said a week or so ago (after looking at lots
and lots of Foveon and Bayer images): The Sigma SD9/10, with however
many mega whatevers it has, produces better images than 6 meg
Bayers, and I think it's obvious.

 

Yeah - and pigs can fly.

 

Unfortunately I'm working on a laptop, so I can't check basic image quality
very well, until after the fact. A much better production of that same
picture is now linked below.

Thanks for the kind words. You are right it is obvious the SD9 produces
much better pictures than the Bayers. In a way it's a shame that Bayer
users here can no longer link full sized out of camera images here, for fear
of comparison, because it really makes things one-sided. I'm beside myself
that I didn't switch sooner, and suck up yesterdays higher pricetag. But I
didn't know at the time, the camera was so new and there weren't very many
SD9 images available then.

The few review samples that were posted, were actually hatchet pieces
written by a few who still don't want to ruin their livelyhood of welching
of the masses, for example dpreview.com's Beta-version SD9 hatchet piece,
which is, unbelievably, still posted. Compare the dpreview.com's SD9
"sample" to the production camera below. It is clear dpreview is doing
everything they can to protect their big money sponsors, but the word is
getting out, and when they can only post images like the one below, it makes
it all too obvious that they are a fundamentally incompetent review site ...

http://www.pbase.com/image/23448675
http://img.dpreview.com/reviews/SigmaSD9/Samples/Night/IMG01299.jpg

 

Interesting that so much processing is needed just to get a decent
image. Maybe the folks at Sigma will get it right soon.

 

That's called "the beauty of shooting RAW." Here is the latest version...
http://www.pbase.com/image/23448675

 

I had to delete and replace it for some reason, pbase broke for a little
while I guess, the non-laptop-monitor rendition is here now:
http://www.pbase.com/image/23467595

As for downsampling, in simple Bayer terms, yes, Foveon images are already
"downsampled" (no need to change them, since they are never up-sampled like
Bayers are, by default), they are presented using the exact number of full
color pixels supported by their RGB sensor count. So, yes, a 3.43MP Foevon
image has the same amount of RGB sensor data per output pixel as a 1.58MP
downsampled Canon 10D image. That amount being, 100%.

 

I particularly like the extremeley sharp 9 lines the SD9 resolves to 5 lines
in this image.
http://img.dpreview.com/reviews/SigmaSD9/Samples/Compared/4way/crop_sigma_sd
9.jpg


SD9/SD10 produces incorrect images full of jaggies. If you like that in a
camera, good luck to you enjoy your Sigma. I personally will wait for a
Foveon chip which actually produces good colour and has an anti alias filter
before I'll consider one. Preferably in a camera that will produce a
jpeg/tif.

 

All DSLRs can shoot RAW. The SD9/SD10 is the only one that absoultely has to
shoot in RAW.

 

Software can only go so far in fixing bad data.

 

Funny you should say that, it sounds a bit like Carver Mead's own account of
why he pioneered Foveon after inventing the CCD elements used in bastardized
Bayer mosiacs long ago...

"A slender, energetic man with a trim Vandyke beard, Mead has a disarming,
gentle speaking voice and a face that recalls both David Carradine in Kung
Fu and Richard Kiley in Man of La Mancha. He rarely raises his voice, but
when something gets under his skin, you'll know it. "The more I learned
about human vision," he says, "the more it was clear that what mosaic
sensors were doing was introducing artifacts into the image. It was one of
those things that becomes so massively annoying that after a while you think
you ought to go do something about it. It was clear that the way image
sensors worked was brain-dead. I talked to a lot of people, and nobody got
it. So I finally said: 'That's not a problem. That's an
portunity.'" --Discover Magazine, Dec 2002

 

I never said it was. I have said that a 10.3MP camera has better optical
color resolution than a 6MP camera (marginal implementation differences
aside), and that the SD9 is a 10.3MP camera by the Bayer standard of
counting 1/3rd color sensors and the only considering interpolated
resolutions.

Maybe you are referring to the pre-production samples still languishing on
dpreview's web site.

 

I don't know what he was referring to, but the pictures I found were from other
places.

As far as I can tell, the color is still 'off'.


Alan

 

The SD9 has 10M sensors and is a 3MP camera. A 6MP bayer has 6M sensors and
is a 6MP camera.
Not hard is it?

 

Sounds like the number of output pixels is your only criteria, right?
Doesn't matter that the pixels are only interpolated, right? Ok, you win...
the SD9 is 13.72 MP. That's the interpolated file size it outputs.

 

The color of every SD9 picture is set by the photographer, not the camera.

 

ha .. that's why you get those funny yellow people .. or did you slip
out of the lines while handcoloring those nice color artefacts ? ..
difficult to color with a steady hand when so excited ! LOL !!

 

Everyone with an image editing program can piss about with it afterwords.
But you do not seem able to produce a decent image from your SD9. Sure, they
look sharp, but they don't look detailed, "film-like" and they have
attrocious color. Maybe you shoul dbuy a camera that write JPEGS so you
can't mees thi pictures up.

 

Question: If I have 6MP worth of data locations each holding a number,
hoow many MP of data locations do I have? Should be easy, even for
you...