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All posts tagged "sigma"


Monday, May 23, 2011

Sigma SD1: Rationalizing The Irrational

Posted by Lee Yuan Sheng in "Digital Home Hardware & Accessories" @ 05:30 PM

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/e...rrational.shtml

"This means that the SD1 can command a modest pricing premium. Conjecture, fueled by comments by some Sigma executives at trade shows and meetings during months prior to launch, hinted at $1,600 – $2,300 as the likely price point. Fine. But then on May 20 the Manufacturer’s Retail Price was announced at US $9,700."

Back when I mentioned the SDI annoucement I listed a short history and problems of the Foveon sensor (and the associated Sigma DSLRs). It appeared that despite the limitation of being able to use only Sigma lenses, the rest of the SD1 at least had competitive features that gave it a chance of making an impact in the current market. Well, Sigma just killed it all by announcing a retail price of US$9,700. At that price, there are so many other cameras to choose from, including Nikon's D3X, which can use Sigma lenses too (along with Nikkors, Tokinas, Tamrons, Zeiss, you got the idea), and Canon's 1DS Mark III. I am not the only one thinking if Sigma made a mistake, and Luminous Landscape has an opinion piece that analyses Sigma's decision. Personally, I think this will signal the end of the Foveon sensor, unless Sigma is stubborn enough to give it another go.


Thursday, January 20, 2011

More Glass for Less: A Simple Guide to Inexpensive Lenses

Posted by Lee Yuan Sheng in "Digital Home Hardware & Accessories" @ 08:00 AM

As more people get into photography as a hobby, a common refrain heard is that it is an expensive hobby. It is not without some truth, as hobbies by their nature can involve spending large outlays of money since it is human nature to delve deeper into our interests, and hobbies that involve any kind of gear will have many opportunities for the hobbyist to spend their hard-earned money on. Not helping is today's world of marketing departments' promises of being better at what you do if you buy their companies' products or services.

Even if you ignore the messages from marketing, you still need some basic gear to take a photo, like a lens, and lenses can be very very expensive. Lenses can range from the popular f/2.8 zooms (as much as US$2,000+) to the super telephoto lenses (too much). Thankfully, there are cheap options out there, some good, some downright awful. So what does a budget (and budding) photographer buy? Well, here's a short roundup of some lenses that can be considered to be not too expensive.

Read more...


Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Gizmodo's List of "Budget" Lenses

Posted by Lee Yuan Sheng in "Digital Home Hardware & Accessories" @ 11:38 AM

http://gizmodo.com/5707140/the-best...t-camera-lenses

"If you're shopping for a new lens of some sort, you've come to just the right place. Here's ThePhoblographer's list of the best lenses you can get your hands on without breaking the bank."

Defnitely a budget lens: Nikkor DX AF-S 35mm f/1.8G

Alright, I know it's hard to write articles (else I'd do some more myself), but I wish some writers would write more for their target audience than for themselves. While some of the lenses in the list are indeed budget (normal lenses are usually not expensive), they're all prime lenses. I'm thinking a general techblog on this topic should include some budget but quality zooms in the list (Tamron's 17-50 comes to mind). Also, when going through the list, note that there's no distinction between the use of the lens on APS-C-sized and 35mm-sized sensors for Nikon and Canon systems. There's no mention of other systems, but hey, I guess they don't count in today's market.

And really, the Nikkor AF 28mm f/2.8D? The neutered version from the manual focus version that drops two elements and CRC (Close Range Correction System) is hardly what I call legendary. Budget certainly, but not my favourite wide angle Nikkor, which is hardly wide once you mount it on a DX camera; see my point on not making distinctions on sensor sizes when discussing lenses.


Thursday, September 23, 2010

Sigma Announces SD1 DSLR with Foveon Sensor

Posted by Lee Yuan Sheng in "Digital Home Hardware & Accessories" @ 06:00 AM

http://www.dpreview.com/news/1009/1...129sigmasd1.asp

Right, does anyone still remember Foveon? The group (now bought over by Sigma) came up with the X3 sensor, which mimicked film by having an individual layer for each colour channel, thereby doing away with the Bayer filter which needed interpolation to generate a full colour image. Long story short, the X3 sensor promised better resolution. The problem was that no one other than Sigma took up the sensor seriously, and the first few cameras were terribly flawed; high ISO was a problem, and red channel sensitivity was an issue (the red channel is the last layer). Top it off the sensors had less pixel output compared to the ever-increasing densities of Bayer sensors, which diminished Foveon's advantage (resorting to the silly PR stunt of tripling the megapixel count in the advertising).

Hopefully the SD1 resolves all that; the camera features a 15 megapixel sensor (45 if you use Foveon's reckoning) and the sensor itself is now a proper APS-C size. Of course, the final deal breaker is this: It's still based on a Sigma camera, which, in best of times, is a poor Canon copy, and restricting oneself to just Sigma lenses is not an appealing limitation, even though Sigma has tried to update the camera with modern features like an 11 point AF system and a 3" VGA LCD. So like many photographers, I'll just sit on the sidelines and wish Foveon luck. No word on pricing and availability.


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