On Deciding . . . Better 3.0

I’m back from my first business trip with the DP1 as my camera. It was a short trip, with only about 3 hours available for a walk around my destination, Geneva. It had been raining all day, but the sky moved to broken clouds during the afternoon. Later there was a thunderstorm, which led to some images as well.

Since I had left before the update to Sigma Photo Pro had been released with its improved treatment of Auto White Balance, I shot with WB set to cloudy. At this point I’ve downloaded it, but haven’t explored it’s improvements yet, so I’ve stuck with the old preset workflow for now.

As a photographic tool, the DP1 impresses with its results, but falls far short of any DSLR in use. I did eventually get into a rhythm for using it, but it inhibits my usual pace of working.

I can easily adapt to the focus mechanism on the camera. Like any point and shoot, autofocus takes a second with the image becoming perfected by contrast detection. A DSLR just snaps into focus with its phase detection mechanism. It’s a very long shutter lag if you try to simply point the camera at the scene and fully depress the shutter release. Most of the time, I’m choosing a focus point and can take the brief time to focus, recompose and release because the scene is static.

However, if there’s motion, the sophistication of a DSLR’s many focus modes and control makes many images harder to get. In these kinds of situations, typical when photographing on the street, I experimented with manual focus with the DP1. I haven’t had a chance to edit the images enough to understand how well this may have worked.

It’s the slowness of the storage on the camera that has much more impact on my shooting. Once the shutter is depressed, many seconds go by before any camera setting can be changed or another image captured. It’s actually the frozen setting controls that seemed to be the more frequent frustration. I might have shot with manual focus and wanted to try auto. Or try a different approach to exposure. On the D300, I’d change setting and shoot. Move to slightly different angle and shoot. With the DSLR it’s a seamless flow with the camera always ready for my next action, whether it’s metering, changing a setting or capturing an image. WIth the DP1, it was shoot and wait, making it impossible to establish a shooting rhythm of any kind.

The DP1 tended to drive me to single shots of a subject unless I felt the subject was really worthy or I had obviously made an error of some kind. Mostly, it wasn’t worth it to stand and wait for the camera. Better to keep on walking and looking while the camera did it’s own thing.

Of course, this all simply means that the electronics of the DP1 are those of a typical compact digital camera. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that most of the electronics are sourced from the same suppliers as other compact cameras. The DP1 has the sensor of a DSLR at it’s heart, but it still has compact camera electronics for brains.

The light continues it’s dismal spring absence. This is a late afternoon image taken during a short business trip last week, the area behind the hotel parking lot.

In the image you can see a fair amount of chromatic aberration in the small branches against the sky. Not as bad as my standard Nikon 24mm f/2.8 on the D80, but noticeable in a big enough print.

By the end of the week we’ll have an update to the DP1 and RAW processing software that is said to help the green vignette issue. It’s great to see Sigma responding quickly, but it remains odd to me that the camera shipped with such a glaring problem that was fixed a few weeks later.

As many compact camera owners find, a high percentage of total photographic output comes from the compact because it’s the camera that’s available most of the time. On my upcoming business trip to Europe it will be the DP1 that goes along, not the Leica / Film kit or, as last time the D300 DSLR with 24mm lens kiit.

A Nikon D300 DSLR Image. This is what the DP1 can’t do. A sharp handheld macro in doubtful light.

This morning, Sigma support suggested that I use a preset white balance rather than Auto as I have been using.

Since the time I started with the Olympus E-1 and now with the Nikon D300 I’ve always used Auto WB and corrected/manipulated later. This approach won’t work with the current algorithms in SPP for me and the presets seem to minimize the problem. The Oly had an external sensor that seemed to nail WB and NIkon does better than I could ever guess at.

It seems to be a complex interaction between colors in the image and brightness that leads to the software rendering the dimmer edges with a green bias. I’m more confident that Sigma will be able to improve this in SPP. Even if they never got it any better, this image once again shows the potential of this compact.

This image had the green corner syndrome. I repaired it in Photoshop, but it was troubling to have to fix what was one of the better photos I captured yesterday.

While I think the online community has been impressed with the DP1’s image quality, everyone remains interested in the camera’s operating speed. Despite it’s image quality, the electronics are those of a typical compact digital camera. Autofocus is typical, being fast enough in good light and slow when it’s dim, but without the quick “snick” of a DSLR. Once focus is locked or if set to manual, the shutter lag is not really noticeable.

I need to do a better job of watching ISO and shutter speed when I shoot aperture priority. With the D300, Auto ISO lets me set a maximum shutter speed and quickly ramps up. With the DP1, there’s no indication of the ISO that the camera has set and no way to control minimum shutter speed. The manual doesn’t provide any real detail on how auto ISO works, so for now, I’m trying to watch shutter speed. Choosing ISO may be a better way to go.

This afternoon the clouds cleared some and we had some nice light near sunset. Even though I’m in the process of learning the DP1, I used the D300 with my favorite lens, the 24mm f/2.8.

At this point, I can use the D300 without thinking much, shifting here to manual exposure and spot metering too place exposure values just where I wanted them to maximize the contrast of the light and shadow on the fence.

For me, the D300 images are transformational with the Capture NX conversions. The result is far from reality, but is still, as Versace says, believable. I don’t yet know how to get the Sigma DP1 to do this yet unless I shift to black and white.

With this image, I’m more willing to entertain the idea that this DP1 could replace my Leica with C41 process black and white film. ISO 800 seems to be as clean and sharp as the film scans which I tend to shoot at ISO 320 to control grain. I’m giving up two stops of aperture- f/2.0 for the Summicron and f/4.0 for the DP1, so it’s overall a wash.

I’m sold on the sensor now as it’s rendering of detail can be exquisite as it is here on these wet bricks. The lack of decent light continued today, so I decided to try this in black and white.

I still struggle with Vincent Versace’s channel based conversion method, so I decided to try something different. I used the monochrome conversion in Nik Color Efex filters to produce two versions that rendered selected areas with the best light and contrast. One was red, for the bricks, and one was greenish, for the plants to the left of the walk. I stacked the images, played with their opacity and selectively masked the layers to emphasize the two areas.

Adding some gaussian blur to the asphalt of the drive was another key to making the image work for me. The texture of the asphalt was competing with the bricks and I wanted the eye to stop at the end of the walk where the pot sits. I tried to create the pot and bright leaves at left as second and third areas of visual interest in this image which is, admittedly, devoid of any content of note.

With this image, I’m more willing to entertain the idea that this DP1 could replace my Leica with C41 process black and white film. ISO 800 seems to be as clean and sharp as the film scans which I tend to shoot at ISO 320 to control grain. I’m giving up two stops of aperture- f/2.0 for the Summicron and f/4.0 for the DP1, so it’s overall a wash.

I’m sold on the sensor now as it’s rendering of detail can be exquisite as it is here on these wet bricks. The lack of decent light continued today, so I decided to try this in black and white.

I still struggle with Vincent Versace’s channel based conversion method, so I decided to try something different. I used the monochrome conversion in Nik Color Efex filters to produce two versions that rendered selected areas with the best light and contrast. One was red, for the bricks, and one was greenish, for the plants to the left of the walk. I stacked the images, played with their opacity and selectively masked the layers to emphasize the two areas.

Adding some gaussian blur to the asphalt of the drive was another key to making the image work for me. The texture of the asphalt was competing with the bricks and I wanted the eye to stop at the end of the walk where the pot sits. I tried to create the pot and bright leaves at left as second and third areas of visual interest in this image which is, admittedly, devoid of any content of note.

There were a few hours of sun today, then back to the overcast. I stopped in at a parking lot that I’ve photographed a few times over the last few years and captured some Sigma DP1 images.

This image was run through most of my usual workflow. Clearly the image quality is good enough to fit with much of my other recent work. I knew that I would be unhappy about the workflow problem with Aperture not being able to display the DP1 RAW files. At this point, I think that my strategy will be to transfer the RAW files to disk, mass convert with default settings in Sigma Photo Pro, the move all images into the Aperture library.

I can easily round trip into Photoshop (or even, as in this case, Capture NX then Photoshop) and back into Aperture. If an image needs real exposure compensation at the RAW stage, I can take care of that by a special run through SPP with customized settings.