[normhead]

One from last night and a few from today.... with a couple comments... if you're guy like me who likes to shoot every scene at different apertures, this camera poses a serious handicap, I'm missing two files I intended to post, thank you Sigma Photo Pro .app, I ran out of battery on this morning's walk, and I'm running about 50% missed focus... but when you do get a shot... it's sweet...







Probably one of the best brick wall shots I've ever taken, if you like that sort of thing, full size it looks 10 times better than the actual brick wall.

[scratchpaddy]

Welcome to the club, Norm! Maybe you can get Tess involved, too.

Now, as much as I hate Sigma PhotoPro, I've never lost a shot entirely due to the program. How did that happen to you, exactly?

I'm running about 50% missed focus

50%? Slow down, buddy! You gotta take your time here. It'll focus eventually. It's slow, but I've never had problems with it missing, except with a small subject in front of a busy background, or a moving subject. Even then, it's immediately obvious that it's missed.

But, like you said, it's really satisfying when it comes out right. You've got some great texture shots, and I love the one of your dogs! When I first took a picture of my dog with the DP2M, it didn't look anything like what I was expecting. I thought it looked horrible, at first, but it grew on me. It illustrates the fact that a dog's coat is made of many hairs, and it's not just an even field of color. Fur and hair looks far more contrasty on a Foveon than a Bayered sensor, and it shows even on a small websize sample.

That's a pretty handsome brick wall, too! You should try canyon walls.

[normhead]

You have to be really careful deleting images.... I've discovered, I may have to change my work flow.... things like not keeping your image highlighted when you change windows is really annoying, it loses your place in the order of things, if you don't delete the image you just worked on, and exported, you don't even know where you are in the order, when you have 5 shots taken at different apertures and you have to try and figure out which one is next... brutal, or to be less polite, Steve Jobs would have fired it's authors if they worked at Apple. It's so clunky, I don't know why they still have a job. Honestly, PP is a pain in the best, lousy programming just adds more pain to the previously existing pain. There is absolutely no excuse for the lousy interface that software employs. I definitely would not even consider a Sigma DSLR if it would mean I have to use this software day in day out. I often process 600-700 images in the space of a couple of days. With this software, that simply couldn't be done. It would add hours to the time spent in PP. End of rant.

[scratchpaddy]

Honestly, PP is a pain in the best, lousy programming just adds more pain to the previously existing pain.

You know what they say: no pain, no gain! Perhaps I should have named the thread "The Masochist Club."

I think most Sigma users bypass SPP by just batch exporting TIFFs and then working in the software of their choice. SPP just isn't practical for large volumes of images.

One weird thing I've discovered recently is that, despite using 16-bit TIFF for export, highlights still get clipped by about 1 stop. There's no data beyond what you can see. If an area is white in the preview, the information's gone.

I've started setting exposure in SPP to -1.2 stops when I export. That way, it preserves the highlight data, and I haven't noticed any increased noise when I boost the exposure back in Lightroom.

[normhead]

Note to self... -1.2 stops, batch export....

[scratchpaddy]

Note to self... -1.2 stops, batch export....

But wait, there's more!

-1.2 is an arbitrary value chosen by me. -1 should be enough, but I do -1.2 to be safe. Note that this won't help much if you use ISO 100. The native ISO is 200, so you lose one stop of highlight headroom at 100. For scenes with high dynamic range, use bracketing or ISO 200 or maybe both. Or, use the K-5, which is clearly superior in this department.

Set Sharpness to -2, all the way to the left, and handle your sharpening elsewhere. SPP's sharpening can be a little harsh, even at the default setting.

You may have noticed that you can save these settings, and you might think that doing so would save all of the things you've done to a particular photo. It doesn't. It only saves everything in the Tonal Adjustments section. Nothing else (noise reduction, color mode, white balance, etc.) can be saved and transferred between pictures.

I turn down SPP's noise reduction, too. I put color (chroma) noise at 25%, luminance at 0% (Lightroom handles that part better), and I leave banding at the default of 50%, since I don't believe Lightroom has a tool to handle it. To do this on all your photos, select all of them in the library view (ctrl + A), click the Edit menu, and select Noise Reduction, the second choice from the bottom. The settings you choose there will apply to all of the photos you have selected.

I don't know if anyone else has this problem, but SPP randomly eats my picture's EXIF data on export. If I do a batch, somewhere between a half and a quarter of the pictures come out without any metadata. I gotta figure out how to fix that, because it's a huge pain to delete all these misfires, export them again, and repeat the process until they all have EXIF data.

[scratchpaddy]

Coyote at the dog park!



Coyote/German shepherd mix, that is.


And my dog, trying to catch her. Skippy's fast, but coyotes are really fast.

[ivoire]

Norm... very nice images and good to see another sigma fan. I agree that the software is a kludge. Sigma stated their goal with foveon was to create the best images possible. Can't do that if you aren't able to get them out of the camera.

Stormy.... thanks for the processing tips. With 300+ images to go thru from yesterdays chicago boat rides it may make it more bearable. Nice catch on skippy working hard to get that coyote.

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[normhead]

I went out to day, with a lot more light, and a tripod... so I got everything in focus. Pentax shake reduction led me to believe I had a steady hand. It turns out, my hand shake works in such a way that Pentax SR masks it. Not so with the sigma.

I did the batch export, talk about slow, but it did enable me to return to my normal work flow.

I did the usual walk in the woods with the dogs, and repeated some of the shots I missed yesterday.















And two of my three companions...

[ivoire]

Norm... those are excellent. The lack of image stabilization is a handicap with the sigmas. Since i'm mostly a daytime, lots of light shooter, it hasn't presented too much of a problem, even from a rocking boat.

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[normhead]

Interesting..... from Chicago... I have to go back and do more than just drive through one of these days.... it's tough prying me out of the woods though...

[ivoire]

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[panoguy]

I went out to day, with a lot more light, and a tripod... so I got everything in focus. Pentax shake reduction led me to believe I had a steady hand. It turns out, my hand shake works in such a way that Pentax SR masks it. Not so with the sigma.

I did the batch export, talk about slow, but it did enable me to return to my normal work flow.

I think I warned you about the software...

Great shots in any case. I'd love to see them printed as 16x20's (or larger). This is where all that 100% pixel level zoom comes into it's own. And as others have said, don't use the sharpening in SPP, it's pretty excessive!

Interesting..... from Chicago... I have to go back and do more than just drive through one of these days.... it's tough prying me out of the woods though...

Har har... you know our city is a bit different these days? Of course, it's still a city, but living in Toronto makes me miss it more and more every day. Oh, to have a continuous border of green along the lakefront! Ivoire's shot of Lakepoint Tower shows the only condo sitting on the Chicago lakefront from Foster Ave. to 71st... otherwise it's 26 kilometers of lakefront park!

[ivoire]

During the summer Chicago reminds me of Miami. Lots of water, marinas, boats and beaches

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[barondla]

Nice images everyone. Enjoying the Chicago tour ivoire. Haven't been there since PMA 1987!

DP1Merrill tripod mounted, f5.6 4s with evaluative metering at ISO 100. Manual exposure and Raw. The 23rd shot taken with the Sigma.
Especially For scratchpaddy and ivoire.

thanks
barondla