F O V E I S T: August 2012

Anywhere you look online will refute everything I'm about to tell you. Just so you know this isn't what the experts are saying... They say the best camera is the best camera, and pixel peepers might rejoice but nobody else cares... I am showing you this because I know you shun fancy equipment and are more interested in the substance, subject and context of the project than you are the most sophisticated photography system, blah blah blah, and this camera's only benefit is being handy and the potential for producing 220dpi 40"X40" prints that feel like film. You know, don't get so wrapped up in the details for now. the 16bit Tiff produced by the sigma dp2m is 180dpi, but it is easy to flip up.

What I have attached to this email (Linky-doodle to Full-Sized FLICKR Image) is a 6270X9470 pixel (approximate) jpg, which is a picture of some bikes in front of the Meis Van Der Roe Building at 111 E Wacker.

The image was taken with my Sigma DP2m around noon while walking my dogs on Saturday... I can't believe how long things take me.

If you open this file with Mac Preview, once you've had a chance to look it over, you should choose to view it in actual size, under the view tab. There you should see my reflection with my dogs, which is why I took the picture. That central image of me and the dogs is about 1/200th of the entire image, which I also straightened and cropped, losing some of the entire image (probably more pixels than the central image itself - I am always 4 or more degrees wonky).

I don't know which picture i sent him seeing as the one shown above looks wonky as all hell... ooh... I found it, nevermind...

See below.

This Text here links to the full sized Flickr image

To keep things brief, a 39mp camera produces a 7216 × 5412 pixel image. @ 180 ppi 7216 X 5412 starts to look kinda sorta like my image in the middle there, high contrast, some evident pixelation, etc.

Now bear in mind that you are looking at the JPG produced from the raw X3F file that is only 3135X4745 pixels... because each pixel retains all the color data per pixel, you can easily double the size. I can also create an 8 or 16bit TIFF that is 45-50MP, approximately, and fine tune it in Lightroom.

There are many cons to this camera but I think the Pro (singular) outweighs the cons... From a 1000 dollar point-and-shoot camera, you can produce giant, beautiful prints, larger than the 5D MII, 5D MIII, Nikon D800 and possibly even the D800E ( I haven't checked yet, although the price difference and form factor makes the DSLR dealio a whole other kettle of fish).

Honestly, and again I must emphasize that I am possibly the only person on earth who will say this, but the post processed images from the DP2M resolution-wise are neck in neck with the Pentax D645, the cheapest medium format camera available @ $8000 with no lens.

Considering your process, and your love of a carry-able camera, I think the DP2M would be a tremendous boon to your work, and cosequently to the world in general, being able to enjoy your work. You would have a camera you could take everywhere, take more pictures, and from those pictures find a few that worked and print them at a nice size. I know that size is irrelevant, but it is nice to have the ability to go there if you want to.

Okay... CONS (plural)

The cons are that you have to use Sigma's software to process the raw file, which sucks because Sigma Photo Pro isn't as good as ANY other software, meaning you still have to use lightroom, and LR 2.0 cannot process 16 bit Tiffs... The camera itself also kinda chunky, 80's cellular phone style, not nearly as wee and sleek as my rx100, which I can't compare here because it's raw file program doesn't work with mountain lion and no other programs support it's ARW files.

Also, it takes a while to figure out how best to use the DP2M's limited feature set to you advantage. The auto focus is "meh" and the manual focus is "Wha?" I can't figure it out, but mostly because my penny sculptures are still in storage, and for dogwork the out of focus shots look great to me anyways. Some more cons...The movie function on the DP2M SUCKS! A fisher pixelvision from 1992 is 5 times as good. So you'll still need your 5d mII! The DP2M has no zoom, it is a fixed lens camera with a 30mm f2.8 lens... forcing you to take the pictures that fit within the frame... not a terrible thing, but it isn't as handy or versatile as a Kodak Shareymatronic, or whatever they are called.

You don't have to buy one, I just wanted you to see why I find it so exciting.

Okay.

cheers!