this is the only image in this post that was not made with a Sigma fp camera and
a Voigtlander 40mm lens. it was done with a Leica M240 and a 35mm VM lens.
It was 80° yesterday afternoon but only 50° today.....
I was on the fence last month. I thought I'd accumulated too many cameras. Thought it was time to slash into the inventory and reduce the camera-fat a bit. I looked around the studio and my eyes settled on the Sigma fp camera. It's a small box. It takes L mount lenses. It's tiny for a full frame camera. It doesn't come with an EVF but you can buy one for it. It's slow to focus. Slow to start up. And has square corners. Definitely not from the "Jelly Bean" school of industrial design...
But damn. It sure is better than the sum of its parts. I wouldn't recommend it if you want to use a bevy of manual focus lenses and you are too cheap to buy the EVF. You will struggle in bright sunlight. But speaking from nearly four years of experience and well over 10K images from it I can say that the dynamic range, the color from the "flat" uncompressed raw file and many other things about the quality of the files will endear the camera to all except those who have desecrated their copy by dicking around with the sensor.
As I wrote, I was on the fence about getting rid of the camera. Selling it. But I hate to part with a camera if I can look back and see a nice little pile of photographs that were made by it and which I can see values that I can't easily recreate with another camera. So, if I'm considering an exit I like to take the camera for a spin just to make sure.
I thought that a sunny day would be a "worst case scenario" for a rear-screen-only camera like the fp so I compounded the degree of difficulty by adding a manual focusing, adapted M lens with no electronic communication whatsoever. My lens of choice was a Voigtlander 40mm f1.4 Nokton Classic. A fun lens and a good focal length for general shooting out in the streets.
I made use of the punch-in magnification (center button on the four way pad on the back of the camera) and also focus peaking. I more or less stayed in the f5.6-f8.0 region so depth of field was, in this case, my friend. As a final nod to the idea of torture testing I took off all the grips and even the neck strap and used a small Domke bag as a drop bag. I'd carry the camera around, shoot stuff that interested me and then drop the camera into the bag.
The results? I love this little camera although I will probably use it mostly with a system, AF lens when I'm not shooting under controlled lighting in the studio. It just makes more sense since I whiffed on a couple closer portrait shots when it came to accurate focus. It's a small, light and discrete package with no accoutrements and no wind-flapping neck strap. Perfect for looking like "a tourist in my own town."
The sensor in the camera is fabulous and I love being able to shoot with all color profiles and emulations turned off. Just a nice, flat, information rich file that's ready for tweaking in post.
See the images below on a large monitor and make your own assessments. If you do decide you need to get a Sigma fp immediately then don't scrimp on batteries. If you are out for a day of continuous shooting with an accompanying "chimping" you'll need three or four fresh batteries to make it all the way to the end.
Here's the visual stuff. I shoot stuff before I write about it. Seems only fair....
Look! we have foliage that turns colors!! Just like in the great northern wastelands!!!
Judging by the "sale" rack at a 2nd St. shop denim cut-offs are no longer in style.
Trying to imagine the correct venue at which to wear a bright red, leather dress...
Not so sure I'll ever solve that puzzle.
A virant pink paint job on a groovy Porsche.
Merry Christmas. Hmmmmm.
loving that sassy looking tree.
reflections on the concrete walls of a parking garage.
More reflections. Looking like aliens with sunglasses, or knee joints.
tree shadows on concrete.
Camera operator grappling with focus. Dirty baby-diaper camera hold.
New technique = set camera at 1/500th of a second. Set aperture at f5.6-f8.0.
Set Auto-ISO from 100 to 26500. Mode setting= M.
focus and then blaze away with abandon.
5 comments:
You show once again what a fine picture-taking device the Sigma fp is. Why get rid of it? Keep it for times when you are bored with using one of your other cameras and want to shake things up a bit. I cannot think of a camera that could do that better than that fp.
I must say, as someone for whom the fp has lived rent free inside their head for a few years, I really didn't appreciate you publishing this 🙃.
> As a final nod to the idea of torture testing I took off all the grips
Oh... oh dear. Now *that's* commitment.
Funny coincidence that a few days ago I used my fp-l for a day of tabletop still lifes. Instead of my customary Pentax macro lenses on the front, I left on the Lumix 24-105 zoom to take advantage of its flexibility. I have to say that the quality of the combination is really impressive, even at much closer distances than I thought the lens could focus at. Now I wonder why I have all these other cameras...
I see you gave up on your Apple watch. What are you sporting on your wrist these days?
Eric
Hi Eric, I still have that Apple Watch and I wear it to Saturday morning swim practice to get basic metrics about the in-water performance. But as a day to day wearable? Aesthetically it sucks. I prefer a nice, clean dive watch. A nice Casio. An Orient Kamatsu or equivalent. If I'm going to meetings, dinners, etc. I have an older Eterna and an even older Fortis, both on black leather straps, that are suitable dress watches. I prefer automatics.
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