Sigma DP1

Another drudge of a day at the desk with out fresh air so really stuck for a decent out door shot but I always thought about doing this blip at some stage.

This is my Sigma DP1 compact camera. It is the original 2008 model, not the DP1S or later DP1x or the yet to be released DP1m. I remember reading a review about the original model here in a PC comic in 2008. The conclusion was that it was for rich eccentrics. Given that I bought mine recently at about half price on ebay you will conclude I'm not rich and the jury is still out on the other label.

So what's wrong with it? It has a fixed focal length wide-ish angle lens, no zoom and no vibration reduction. The autofocus is so slow that in real world use you need to set it manually if you want to snap something fast. The most basic of adjustments are buried deep in scroll down menus and when you actually take a shot it takes about 15 seconds to store it to the card before you can either take another photo, or even simply switch it off.
However I really, really like it. It has a 4.7mp sensor which seems utterly miserable these days but uniquely each dot detects all colours and it doesn't employ a thing called an anti aliasing filter inside which other devices have; and apparently causes a slight drop in clarity. (The new £2800 Nikon D800E for ultimate sharpness doesn't have an AA filter either but it can lead to problems for it in some situations.) The Sigma is light compared with an SLR but from internet reports can be prone to dust ingress if not kept carefully bagged. The lens is not very bright at F4 so you are often looking for a make shift tripod to hold the thing steady but I have found it to be sharp at every aperture. And that's the other thing I like, complete manual control. Like most big cameras the Sigma can shoot in raw or JPG but not raw and jpg at the same time, so for the best quality raw you lose the ability to have a photo straight out of the camera. I have found that it over exposes bright sky. It is better to underexpose slightly as it is nearly always possible to rescue detail in shadow but not the other way round.

At a low ISO 50, tripod (or fence post perched more likely) and a small aperture I think it can take a lovely sharp faithful photo that can compete with the big boys and for that alone all the other gremlins fade away. I can't help thinking if Nikon or Canon made a camera with a Foeveon sensor -that's what it is called- it would be the best thing since the machine that makes the bread slicer.

For now it remains the preserve of the eccentric and people like me who aren't.