Sigma SD10 SLR Review

The Sigma SD10 stores its images in a proprietary lossless compressed RAW file format, there is no in-camera JPEG or TIFF options.  These X3F images must be processed with the included Sigma Photo Pro application before they can be edited or viewed outside of the camera.

I'm sure that many will see this as a problem or at the very least, an inconvenience. Here's my thoughts ... The RAW image format gives you the ability to post-capture manipulate all of the data gathered at the time of exposure. RAW files become your digital "negatives" as the software does not allow for re-saving modified images in the X3F format. Your original exposures will never be lost (if you're smart enough to permanently archive them on CD disc.) As long as the conversion and manipulation software is supplied, effective, robust, user-friendly and can operate in a fairly automatic mode for novice users -- I don't see any drawbacks to having only RAW image data.

Updated Sigma Photo Pro 2.1 Software Available

Sigma Japan has posted an update to their software used with the SD-9 and SD-10 digital SLR cameras. The new Photo Pro 2.1 software feature improvements are as follows:

New Edit/White-Balance Options
1. Auto WB always available as an option in Edit White Balance.
2. Monochrome processing as a WB option, which allows tinting via Color Adjust.
3. "Original" WB sets WB back to as-shot.

   Info Enhancements

4. Show focal-length range in Info Window's focal length field, e.g. as "28mm (15-30)"
5. Info Window improvements (smaller layout, original white balance, long pathnames).
6. Info Line improvements (added WB to Review Window info line, and metering mode with bias to both windows' info lines)

   Image Processing Improvements

7. Improved Auto White Balance calculation, especially for long exposures.
8. SD9-specific highlights color problem fixed.
9. SD10-specific purple-fringe problem fixed.

The main Photo Pro window is a thumbnail browser type interface. Photo Pro can open a folder of images on your hard drive anytime you need to view, manipulate or convert the RAW files.

The thumbnails can be displayed in a variety of sizes and you can also show the exposure data along with each thumbnail as shown above. Along the bottom are four buttons that let you quickly change the thumbnail display mode. You can also do this from the View drop-down menu.

The buttons along the top (left to right):   Information, Rotate 90°CCW, Rotate 90° CW, Flag, Protect and Delete.

The file Information window displays all of the camera and exposure data that is embedded in the RAW file. This can be displayed at any time by pressing the "i" button on the toolbar.

Photo Pro can be set to launch automatically whenever the camera is connected via the USB or FireWire interface. When the camera is connected the Photo Pro software will build thumbnails for all the images in the camera. This can be painfully slow if using the USB 1.1 interface, the FireWire interface is easily ten times faster and highly prefered.

The dialogue box during image transfer from camera to host computer. You can individually tag any number of images in the camera for transfer or simply transfer them all. During transfer the images may be converted to TIFF or JPEG format.

The real POWER of the Photo Pro program is its ability to manipulate the RAW image data before conversion to TIFF or JPEG format. Shown here is the Review Image window with a 200% magnified cursor view option enabled. It shows the exact color in RGB values for the current cursor position.

To go into the active editing mode press the "Adjustment Controls" button in the upper right corner.

Before you begin any on-screen editing and color adjusting you should click on the Tools menu and bring up this Monitor Verification window to make sure that your monitor is properly adjusted. Note that this will only verify a proper gamma and resolution setting, it does not confirm color calibration.

Image Adjustment Tools - You operate in Default, Auto or Custom mode. Default will instantly let you see the image as it is in the original exposure. Auto lets the software use what adjustment values it "thinks" will be optimum but often fails like Photoshop's Auto Levels due to a lack of a proper white or black point in the image. The Custom mode lets you load and apply a pre-saved set of correction parameters or manually adjust (+/- 2.0 in 0.1 steps) the exposure, contrast, shadow, highlight, saturation, sharpness and X3 Fill Light values.

The X3 Fill Light is a new adjustment in Photo Pro v2.0 software. By increasing the Fill light slider, the brightness and contrast of the shadow or darker regions are increased to add visibility. In the highlight region, the contrast is increased and the brightness is adjusted to avoid over-saturation.

The 3D color wheel lets you manually adjust the color balance or you can select a known reference point with a "gray" eyedropper and a histogram with settable low and high warnings that will display in the image as colored areas. Any changes you make are instantly visible in the Review Image window just like any graphic editing program.

One of the most useful tools when manipulating RAW images lets you select a different white balance value after capture. I don't think that anyone has escaped the "Oops, I used the wrong white balance setting" scenario. And you usually don't discover it until later when you can't possibly re-shoot the picture. With RAW image data this is -not- a problem, just select the proper white balance before converting the image.

You can use the "Save image as..." button at any time to convert the current or tagged images to TIFF or JPEG format. Format options include: Resolution (Same Size, Half Size, Double Size), Color Space (sRGB, Apple RGB, Adobe RGB, Color Match RGB) and Output File Type (JPEG/EXIF, JPEG/JFIF, TIFF 8-bit, TIFF 16-bit)

New to Photo Pro v2.0 is the ability to save the correction info back to the X3F source file.