photohiker wrote:Sure, there are not a lot of (any?) eminent photographers singing the DP1's praises, but on the other hand, it has only been available for a few weeks, so I'd hazard a guess that it's early days yet.
"hazard" is probably entirely and appropriately accurate.
One could have similarly said that about the D3 or D300 in November of last year, and as of today it also remains "early days yet" to a large extent.
I certainly am unable to recall any significant body of praise for the DP1.
As to a 'list', I don't have one, and when I said 'continues to impress' I was talking about
me.
So we're agreed that it's a very short list.
Fanboy sites I can do without, thanx all the same.
There are others if you go looking.
I'll readily admit that I've not gone looking.
I will also readily admit that I also didn't look for sites relating the to the D3, D300, or the various good Canons, Pentaxes and Olympii that are in the marketplace. I will however point out that for those lattermost makers, sites that road tested and evaluated their
models somehow seemed to have a habit of seeking me out, rather than the reverse.
I suspect that there's a message somewhere within that factoid, but I'm damned if I can figure it out.
It's a camera that is easily dismissed
yes.
in the context of the massive sales of both P&S and DSLRs by the Nikon/Canon camp, but that is not the point, nor the reason for my own interest - it represents a departure from the market driven mentality of incremental megapixel increases, tiny sensors and associated reducing pixel pitch with every revision. Foveon or Bayer? who really cares if the image quality is up to scratch?
A couple of points here.
First of all, there's no departure from the market drivel mentality. Please check through the history of posts made in the 3 plus years that this site has existed; you might observe that there's a greater understanding of the megapixel myth amongst our membership that's been here ... since about day 1.
Foveon or Bayer? Theoretically, it does make a very big difference. Even today, a good film image will still seem better than a good digital image, and that's the big disappointment in the Foveon technology: it promises something closer to a film experience, but it fails to deliver. Let's look a little deeper than just the surface though: look at the advances in the sensor techonology that we have seen from the Nikon/Sony and Canon camps.
It's not merely megapixels; I would even argue that megapixels are the least of the advancements made: look at the quality of the images from the D3 sensor - a mere 14 MP sensor. They are the juiciest megapixels that I've seen from any camera!
Now, let's put that into some context: look at the 300D or the D70 - both regarded - correctly - as revolutionary cameras upon their respective releases. As revolutionary, perhaps, as the Canon A1 was upon its release. I would respectfully suggest that in those three cameras we have three worthy additions to any photographic museum.
Consider though the advancements that we have seen in sensor technology since the release of the 300D, and consider that we have seen barely a ripple in the development of the Foveon based technology over a similar timeframe.
Sigma is a tiny company with miniscule sales, as you have so eloquently pointed out, but if they are seen to take the lead in the quality stakes
Perhaps my response can be even more eloquently expressed in just one word?
Betamax!