Weird camera and lens combinations involving weird cameras and weird lenses.... Or what we do when it's too hot to play outdoors.

Photographed with the charming and highly capable Panasonic Gh5ii

and the Olympus 12-45mm Pro lens. Surprised at how much I liked the

technical quality of the image.....

 I love being out taking photographs far more than I like talking about cameras but the weather is actively campaigning against me spending much time tromping around in the nasty heat jungle that seems to have settled over Texas. Perhaps it's a karmic punishment for our political transgressions. Maybe it's just a rogue weather pattern that won't let go. But right now we've got an actual temperature of 105° and when you combine that with 30% humidity you wind up with a lusty 112° of heat index; or what it feels like to your body. We're exceeding our "Wet Bulb" threshold by a good margin. 

As of July 19th Summer we have had 78 days over 90° (actual temps) and now 41 days in a row over 100°. We're all getting just a little tired of the relentlessness of it all. Can't wait to see the electric bills....sigh.

I've been getting up earlier in order to water the plants and trees that I consider "mission critical" to my long term lifestyle/mental health. The Japanese maples are getting special treatment these days. I've even rigged up a few scrims to block the direct sun on a few branches that were showing signs of heat stress. It's hard work but it would be harder on me to lose the trees. They are quite beautiful. 

After I take care of my horticultural chores I make myself a cup of (these days....) decaffeinated coffee, eat a piece of toast and head over to the pool for our coached workout. The water temperature is as cold as we can make it with evaporative coolers but with our daytime highs and nighttime non-lows we're struggling to keep the water temperature under 84°. That's a hot swim and it sucks the moisture right out of your body when you are swimming hard. We each keep a cold, re-usable bottle of water at the end of our lanes and in between sets our coaches encourage ample re-hydration. I didn't used to take it very seriously but this year I'm zealous. Sixteen ounces an hour.

Sadly, or happily, I took a break on Monday from swimming with the team and went to the Deep Eddy Pool which is Spring fed and just freaking marvelous. The spring water is refilled every couple of days and it comes out of the wells at something like 68°. Plunging in on Monday morning was a little bit of heaven. The laps were better than free money. But now I feel that the memory of the perfect water colors my appreciation of our team workouts in the warmer pool. Deep Eddy is a public pool and I'm pretty sure the City of Austin isn't going to invite our whole team over to monopolize all the lap lanes any time soon. 

Since the "mercury" has been hitting 100° or higher by noon each day I try to get errand running done as quickly as possible. Our house uses a septic system for wastewater and our septic guy, Bob, recommends we drop a gallon of a special live, beneficial bacteria solution ($48 per gallon !!!) into the main tank at least twice a year. The stuff in the gallon bottle smells really bad but I can tell you that the grass is much greener over the septic field --- and we haven't had any major problems with the system in years. Occasionally a pump fails. It gets replaced. And yes, I do have a septic guy. I hope he never retires...

Except for a few assignments inside chilly high rise office buildings we're dead in the water here, business-wise. And that's okay. Nearly everyone in Austin who can swing it is working from home, nestled in their air conditioned refuges. Few are venturing out in the heat of the day. I'm no different. 

If you've read the blog for a while you know I'm usually a big adherent of getting out in the afternoons and walking no matter what the weather. But not in this. If people won't come to work and there's little traffic on the roads it's probably a message from the hive that we should all just slow down and be more careful than usual. So, since I got home with the septic stuff I've been chilling in the house, just reading a novel on the couch. But I got bored so I ventured out the twelve feet from the front door of the house and into the studio. I've been keeping the A/C in there at 85° when I'm not present --- that's what our power company recommends --- so I turned the thermostat down to 78° and got comfortable. 

On the floor by my desk I found a camera and lens that I'd put together for some project that never happened but I'm more and more attracted to the potential of the actual "system". The lens is an ancient Carl Zeiss zoom lens made originally for the Contax Y/C system but rejuvenated by the mirrorless revolution and the availability of a huge range of cheap lens mount adapters. Yes. Even for the L mount cameras. 

I've shot with it before and posted about it here. The lens is big and bumbly. It's a 35-135mm and I have to say that this must be the absolutely perfect focal range for me. I don't miss the wider angles at all and I love being able to zoom out to 135mm. It's slow by today's standards in several ways. First the variable aperture is from f3.3 to f4.5. Certainly not a problem on a camera like the Panasonic S5 or the Sigma fp. Those two cameras can pretty much see in the dark. The lens is also "slow" because it's a manual focusing lens with a long throw focusing ring and that makes for sloooow focusing. Finally, it's a one touch zoom in that the zoom ring and the focusing ring are one and the same. The whole front of the lens trombones out as you zoom to 135mm. It takes practice to make this combination of focusing and zooming efficient. 

When I use the lens on a non- image stabilized body focusing gets progressively harder as the focal length gets longer. Why? because the finder image shakes. We're spoiled by new tech. 

I mounted this slow, plodding lens on the front of the weirdest camera I have in the studio. That's the Sigma fp. It's an eccentric little genius of a camera and when you get everything just right the files are wonderful. They just exude "art." But it's a demonic looking system when put all together, as above. 

I'm only comfortable using it on a tripod and for this particular lens I really have to have the big Sigma loupe attached to shade and magnify the rear LCD. I'm pretty sure I'll never run into anyone out in the field who has exactly the same set up. The odds are long. 

But when it's hot outside and you're playing with your toys in the miracle that is air conditioning it's all good. Can't wait till we get some cooler days so I can get out and shoot with this beast of a system. Stay cool.

https://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2022/06/testing-old-lens-thats-new-to-me-and.html

An interesting day back at work. And two interesting camera announcements.

Reykjavik, Iceland

I packed up my bags last night and left them in a small pile next to my cart, just inside the door to my studio/office. This morning I loaded the bags and the cart into the back of my little Subaru Forester and pointed the car toward the downtown business district. I haven't accepted many jobs since the lockdowns began but the one I did today and the other that I did a week ago both felt safe. Both were for high-end law firms and in both cases the only people in the sprawling offices were the partners who were there to be photographed, along with a skeleton crew of staffers who answer phones and keep the engines of jurisprudence turning. I won't go into details but both offices were in buildings with tighter security than I would have ever imagined and the safety measures were Herculean. I can't recall a time in my life when I've had my temperature measured more often. Or, when I've had to attest to health questions with such seriousness. 

I'll just say I went into today's shoot double-masked and ready. But what I really wanted to write about today was gear. What gear and why gear.

The portraits I was making this morning were a continuation of a series I started for this company nearly five years ago. The architecture at the firm's office is light and airy, and nestled high up on the 28th floor of a recently constructed high rise. There are walls made of frosted glass, which have color tints to them, and are beautifully lit by morning sun. The long halls with the frosted glass, framed by warm woods, are perfect portrait backgrounds; especially when I drop the hallways mostly out of focus. 

In the past I would have chosen a camera with the highest resolution and the easiest operation to work with on such a location but in the five years I've been delivering these portraits they have never been used for much more than website content. A very nicely designed website but still, just web use. I've photographed with a bunch of different cameras and lenses on successive shoots but I've found that longer than normal lenses work best and also, cameras with low noise at high ISOs are preferable. That opens up each engagement, in my mind, as an opportunity to experiment and to work with cameras that I like just because of their special charms (think: eccentricities). 

Today I was inspired to work with the Sigma fp (with rear LCD loupe attached) paired with an ancient, wonderful, Contax/ Carl Zeiss 135mm f2.8 lens. The whole set-up looked bizarre since there's no pentaprism hump, the camera is small and the loupe sticks out behind almost as much as the lens stick out in front. It's visually as if the camera, lens and loupe are balanced at the centerpoint of the whole construction.

Of course, if you are going to use the Sigma fp for portrait work it's probably a foregone conclusion that you aren't going to be using flash. I think it would be pretty difficult to get the ambient light balance right with a sync speed of something like 1/30th of a second for the flash. You'd waste a lot of time worrying about subject movement as well. 

I've come to grips with the fact that digital cameras have vastly improved as far as high ISO noise is concerned so I have no hesitation at all in using the current 24 megapixel, full frame cameras at ISOs of 800 or 1600 or even 3200 for pristine portraits. At ISO 800, using a couple of Godox SL150 ii LED lights in soft boxes, and matching the ambient light intensity I was able to shoot at f4.0 with shutter speeds around 1/320th of a second; which is just right for me. 

I knew that the lights look best when my white balance is set to 5100 K so I just went there and let the background fall where it was going to fall. Most of the translucent walls are lit by exterior sunlight so I knew I wouldn't be too far off. 

The 135mm lens was as good as any zoom lens I've used in the past ten years. And being MF, once I really punched in and fine focused I was happy to re-remember that people don't move so much when you are doing a classic portrait. With focus peaking engaged one soon learns to interpret the intensity of the peaking colors to know where you are in the focusing range. It's a good re-check methodology and seems just as good as waiting for cameras and lenses to lock on automatically.

The files were just exactly what I had in mind; beautiful and filled with detail. Different than other cameras but only in tonality, not color.

New Stuff. When I got back to the office, with a cup of coffee in hand, I checked into the camera news sphere while I waited for the files I'd shot to upload to Lightroom. I was amazed to see that Fuji has just now released a 100 megapixel, medium format camera in their GFX series for a bit more than half the price of their previous, $10,000 ultra resolution, 100 Megapixel camera. At $6000 for a 100 megapixel, quasi-medium format camera they seem to have just jumped over and check-mated yesterday's Sony Alpha One camera. At least from the perspective of non-sports, non-video production users. A camera like the GFX 100S makes buckets and buckets more sense for corporate shooters, portrait photographers, landscape photographers, still life specialist, lifestyle experts, advertising photographers etc. than a camera whose basic claim to fame is: "We can autofocus and shoot faster." Or "We deliver more nearly identical, huge files per second than anyone else."

Dollar for dollar I'd always choose the larger format GFX 100S over the hummingbird speed Sony any day. But then, I don't shoot field sports, car racing or full contact bungee jumping so I'm not in the target market. 

But that brings me back in a circle to why I picked the camera and lens I did for the portrait shoots today: Because I like the look and quality of the files I can get from that specific camera. If the quality is there I can figure out how to get things in focus by myself.

I mentioned two new cameras and I've already covered the Sony (as much as I think I needed) yesterday. So what other camera did I see today? It's the opposite end of the Fuji interchangeable lens camera line-up. They've "improved" the Fuji Xe-3 and made it into a smaller, lighter Xe-4. The big upgrade is the sensor. It's the same great sensor that sits in the X100V, the XPro-3 and the XT-4. And the new camera comes packed with 16 film simulations to play with. It's small, compact and lightweight. Add a 23mm f2.0 to it and you have, in some ways, an interchangeable lens X100V. It looks cute and minimalist and doesn't cost a fortune. Maybe just right for all those people for whom practicality at any cost is a religion. 

It felt nice to get out and shoot today. I find that I still remember how to make portraits. What a relief. 

Tomorrow, maybe I'll write about a new lens. Yeah. That sounds good. Something unique and special. Nothing else like it. Even down to the magnetic lens cap.......

Red House.

 

A palette cleanser; just a series of examples from an old, legacy lens that was much, much better than I expected it to be on a digital camera.

mirror-photo-therapy. A Carl Zeiss Y/C 28mm Distagon f2.8 on a

Sigma fp with accessory loupe.

It's no secret that in the film days Carl Zeiss teamed up with Japanese camera maker, Yashica, to bring out a line of cameras under the Contax brand. Zeiss designed, and for a time actually built a number of the lenses in the line-up in Germany. Most of the later lenses, still designed by Zeiss, were built under license in Japan. 

The cameras were very nice but the lenses, according to reviewers of the day, were aimed to be competitors not for Canon and Nikon but for Leica. I shot with Contax cameras for a while in the late 1980's and early 1990's before moving on to a different system. I can't remember ever being displeased with any of the Carl Zeiss lenses and there are a few that made a big impact on me at the time. 

Even though I rarely reach for wider angle lenses I recall being suitably impressed every time I worked with the 28mm f2.8 lens so when one came on the market recently, at a very comfortable price, I took a break from my heedless pursuit of status signaling cameras and lenses to buy it. If you plan to use a Contax Y/C on a current mirrorless camera you'll need a lens adapter. I planned to use the lens with an L-mount body and as luck would have it I already had the required adapter attached to a Carl Zeiss Y/C 50mm f1.7 Planar; also a very pleasant lens. Since I seem to be attracting more and more of the Carl Zeiss Y/C (Yashica/Contax) lenses I went ahead and ordered a second adapter from a company called Fotasy. The adapter was a bargain at $14.95.

Keep in mind that these are "dumb" adapters that don't transmit any information between lens and camera. You'll either be working manually or in aperture priority mode, and since the lenses were originally built as manual focusing lenses you'll find that no miracles have happened in the ensuing 30 years; they remain manual focusing lenses. 

These lenses were built to a very high standard, mechanically, so you'll find the focusing rings to be smooth and not-too-easy-not-too-hard to turn and focus. The external aperture rings also have a "just right" feeling to them. The 28mm, 50mm and 135mm lenses all have the same 55mm filter diameter and yes, the filter mount is metal. 

Austin has been blanketed by fog all day long and when I woke up and looked out the window my first thought was, "Oh Boy! Everything looks cool on foggy days. Let's get out there."  It seems like any excuse for a good, long walk is a good excuse.

After my long, introspective article on Friday I felt the need just to kick back and not make any big waves today. I just wanted to do basic photo stuff and have fun out there. With that in mind I attached the 28mm lens+adapter to a Sigma fp, put the rear finder loupe onto the fp and headed toward my favorite downtown route. I had two goals in mind: I wanted to get some exercise and I wanted to see how different everything looked in the fog. Another side goal was to see how well I get along with the 28mm focal length. It's been a while since I owned a 28mm prime.

The camera was set to fine Jpeg and aperture preferred exposure. I engaged the auto ISO and set the WB to the cute little icon that means "cloudy." What I quickly re-discovered with the 28mm focal length is that the depth of field is big and wide. Unlike most modern lenses this one includes a depth of field scale actually engraved on the lens barrel. A bit of trial and error showed me that I could depend on a combination of the d-o-f scale and focus peaking for everything but the closest object focusing. 

Since I wanted to see what the lens was capable of through its most used aperture range I shot some images at f2.8, more at f5.6 and a good number at f8.0. Mostly because those are the f-stops I find myself using with wide angle lenses most often. If I were constrained to use just one aperture setting it would be f5.6.

What did I learn? Well, I'll start by saying the lens is more than adequately sharp for the way I used it today. The camera was set for a 7:6 aspect ratio so I wasn't giving the corners any hard lifting. Within the boundaries the camera and I set the lens was pretty much perfect and had very low vignetting. I'm almost certain the corners would not have been as pretty had I been shooting across a whole 3:2 frame. But the other part of that question is: would it even matter/

The color rendering of the lens is accurate and neutral and the contrast of the lens is a bit higher than most of its contemporaries. All in all it's a great lens to shoot with. I also found that the 28mm focal length felt more natural to me than the 35mm focal length. Certainly just a personal opinion but it did feel easier to compose with the 28mm. Of course, you could argue that with the reduced aspect ratio of the frame I probably was shooting the equivalent of a 35mm lens but there we are. I've attached a caption to a few of the images but not to all of them. Remember to click on them if you want to see them bigger. I uploaded them at 3298 pixels on the long side but God only knows what Blogger will do to them in the upload process.

I also bought a used 135mm f2.8 Carl Zeiss Y/C Sonnar but I haven't played with that one yet. I owned a copy back in 1994 which I took with me to make photos at a Paris fashion show. It certainly seemed good enough back then. I guess we'll see in the next few days how this one acquisition stands up in the digital age. 

There is a group of volunteers who maintain raised gardens of flowering plants 

along the sides of the Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge. Even in the dead of winter

the flowers are there to make walking across even more pleasant. 

The main focus is on the rose just to the left of center frame. 

Please remember that I was shooting in dense fog...

This giant, communal picnic table is a permanent fixture on the east end of the dog park

just North of Lady Bird Lake, adjacent to the Seaholm Center. 

People often have birthday parties and other celebrations here. 

f8 and be there. The 28mm does a good job with details.

The view across the Butterfly Bridge. Looking into downtown.

Different every time I pass by. 

curved mirror/parking garage studio #8.

Reviewers often mentioned that this lens was not as sharp or contrasty when 

used for close ups. This image was taken about a foot or 13 inches from the closer 

doll. I find it nicely sharp. When I look at 100 percent the doll's eyelashes are

rendered with exquisite sharpness. Maybe reviewers back in the last century 

were much tougher. 

It's so strange. I could have sworn I walked this route within the last week

and the mural just above (and below) did not exist. There had been a big, yellow wall there 

for about a year. Now, all of a sudden, a new mural. The people you see in the frame 

were not added for scale they are actually some of the people who did the painting.

They've come by to see what more needs to be done. 

As you know, I am a fan of mural art and art in public places. 

another ultra close shot with the lens set to f4.0. 

 I learned to shoot reflections in puddles by watching Chris Nichols when 

he and Jordon Drake were doing equipment review videos for The Camera Store.

Everywhere I looked in downtown this morning people were either coming to or 

going home from yoga classes. It's a full on mania.

 I should note that I really like the way files come out of the Sigma fp. Even if they are just Jpegs. 

Staying on message is important. For readers and for writers. Here we write about photography. Let me know if you need me to start a swim blog...

Sigma fp in video snapshot mode.

Equally proficient at taking photographs.

Confession. I was going to go a bit off topic today and write about grandmother Tuck's incredible method for making ham salad. I was going to reminisce about visiting my grandparents in the small town in central Pennsylvania where they lived, and go into detail about their house; even sharing details of their big television set in the living room, with the ceramic sculpture of a black panther sitting on top. The panther had a dial midway down its torso and one used that to change the orientation of the rooftop antenna mounted three stories up on the roof of the house. Using the panther belly mounted control you could fine tune broadcast reception! That one feature made such an impression on me...

Before getting into the secrets of grandmother's ham sandwich I was going to regale readers with fragmented stories about my father and his father sitting in the living room of the house, listening to the radio for the live broadcasts of the Pittsburgh Pirate's baseball games. And then maybe segue into a delightful and nuanced story about my sister sitting at the oh so expansive dining room table making toothpick sculptures, which would lead, of course, into a story about my older brother sitting in a nicely upholstered chair in his bedroom (while visiting) on the third floor of the house, reading the earliest issues of the Marvel Spiderman comic books... 

But instead I'll hew to my new resolve and try to stay, at least obliquely, on the subject of photography ---and by extension --- a bit of video production thrown in for good measure. 

But I don't want to leave you hanging so I'll give you the TL:DR for the ham salad. The secret was peanuts. She added peanuts to her ham salad and that savory addition made for the best ham salad sandwiches I've ever had during my full and happy life. End of story. Oh, and the toothpick sculpture turned out well, the Pirates lost (as usual, which generated salty language) and my brother lost his copy of Spiderman #1 long before they started trading for upwards of $100,000 (in mint condition). 

Which brings us to the Sigma fp, once again. I was happy to find a weird review of the Sigma fp as a cinema camera in an interview with an award-winning cinematographer and underwater camera engineering expert with deep experience in media such as IMAX. The guy is a member of the Australian Cinematographers Society and an inveterate camera and lens tester. The actual interviewer is goofy but Pawel is pretty rock solid and has some amazing things to say about the video capabilities of the tiny camera. See it here. And here is the take-away quote from the cinematographer:  "When I say I like this camera, it's as if it cost $60k, I would have still bought it."

Added: Here's a review by a very smart and talented photographer who I've known since our college days in Austin: Ellis reviews the FP.

I think those of us who took a chance on the Sigma fp have ripped through a lot of words to try and explain what it is about the camera that endears it to us. It's obviously got less gingerbread and comfort features than cameras like the Sony A7iii and the Panasonic Lumix S1, and as far as photography goes there are some drawbacks to use, but across both video and still imaging there are several consistent features that make the camera well worth the "paltry" $1800 price tag for those who appreciate those features in spite of not having the  cupholders, automatic transmissions and heated seats of most current higher end cameras. 

The first is something that can be measured objectively. The Sigma fp has some of the very highest color accuracy of any production camera on the market. In Pawel Achtel's tests the Sigma fp seems to slightly outperform the Sony Venice cine camera ($42,000, body only) in this regard, as well as the Red Ranger Monstro 8K  ($59,950 body only). 

The second point that Mr. Achtel makes in the camera's favor (and here he is making the statement about video output) is that the camera's high ISO is amazingly noise free. He suggests that it is nearly noise free to 10,000 ISO and usable at 25,000, with a bit of noise reduction tossed in.

I'm maybe a bit more conservative when it comes to noise but I'd use the camera at ISO 6400 without much worry for stills; as long as I was careful to get the exposure just right. As for color accuracy, I don't have a way to accurately measure it but I have to say that the files that come out of the camera, both as photographs and also cinema DNG video, are some of the best I've ever seen. 

So, No. It's not a good, all around snapshot camera. It's a horrible, just horrible sports camera. It's not a good camera for shooting active dress rehearsals in the theater (I tried once with lots of sweat and gritted teeth). But when it comes to shooting as one would with a movie camera or with an old Hasselblad it delivers amazing files and a similar workflow. 

Yesterday I put on a wireless mike set-up and gave the camera a video spin as a "snapshot video camera" using 8 bit .Mov files with the camera set to 4K UHD All-I at 29.97 fps. It was great. The audio is fine as long as I pay attention to the meters and never let them clip. (It's one of the few cameras I think I'd prefer to use in a dual sound video set up just because the meters are small and the control interface a bit buried...).  It's a small package and since it doesn't have mechanical image stabilization built in I cheated by using the fluid head on a monopod. 

While there are a lot of great photography and video camera out on the market this Sigma fp really speaks to people who love to tinker with their files and are willing to sacrifice ease of use for more visual perfection. More cowbell...

This morning I saw a video posted on DP Review that showed some footage shot in .Mov with the Sigma fp camera. The "cinematographer" listed as a shortcoming of the fp that there was no flat profile. But that's because it features uncompressed raw files which are much, much, much more color gradable and contrast adjustable than Log profiles (which can be added downstream from a raw file import, in post). The camera just needed to be set up to use the raw DNG files and to write them to an external SSD. (added:) In fairness the writer did say that he missed having the Log profile in the .Mov mode.  I contend that you would know whether or not the camera has a Log profile when you do your research before buying.   He also suggested that the color settings (might be called profiles...) such as 'cinema' 'orange and teal' etc. were too intense or overdone. And I would agree with him if each profile was not widely adjustable. You can decrease the effect of the color settings all the way from a plus 5 to minus 5 with the use of a menu item, for each color setting. You can also adjust the contrast, sharpness and saturation of each look in +/- five steps as well. That makes it perfectly adjustable for just about anything you'd want to do. You can even make .Mov files as flat as a pancake, if you want to by also using the "Tone" control in conjunction with the "Color" control.  The article seemed to short change the fp when much of the problem was a lack of experience with the camera...

So, we're still staying at home but that doesn't mean we can't test, shoot, evaluate and vet our results. 

Sorry, no chat about swimming. It just didn't come up.  

Added note: Richard Butler got in touch with me and we e-mailed back and forth. He directed my attention to the line where he (correctly) went into the color profile sub-menu to change the strength of the profile but was still not able to set a low enough contrast for his uses. I missed that. I apologize. 

I do agree with him to his point that a nice, flat profile like Fuji's Eterna would be a welcome addition for shooting in .Mov.

Signed, The Imperfect Blogger.  KT

My leisurely, Saturday review of the little Sigma fp camera. TLDR? = Eccentric but brilliant. Not for everyone. Very much for me.

What is the Sigma fp? 

The Sigma fp is a small camera that looks like it was designed by an industrial engineering firm rather than a camera company (see plentiful images below). The design disregards most camera body traditions and moves away from the rounded corners and vestigial finder humps that grace a huge range of DSLR and mirrorless cameras. It's designed as a boxy little cog that's not really meant to be anything more than the centralized attachment point for lenses and accessories. No one agonized over the feel of the body beyond rounding the corners and edges so they don't poke into an operator's hand. It's the most minimalist expression of camera-ness on the market that I can think of. And, in terms of operation it's equally rudimentary. No custom function buttons anywhere. Hallelujah. 

Essentially your $1,800 USD buys you a very well fabricated "brain" of a camera and then invites you to outfit it to suit your purposes. The body feels very well made and all the controls are built from good, solid materials and are...adequate. There are only three reasons I can think of to own and use a Sigma fp. One is the very good sensor with its commensurate, wonderful color science. Sigma have delivered a sensor and processing package that makes beautiful raw and Jpeg files. The sensor is a full frame (24 by 36mm) device that is among the current state of the art 24 megapixel sensors in any camera brand. I have no idea whether it's Sony chip under the filter or a TowerJazz but whatever it is it's sharp and relatively noise free; I'd go out on a limb and say that the files it produces are currently my favorite of all the cameras I've tried. If all you care about it really great color, and you can do without fast and flexible autofocus, don't need in-body image stabilization, can adapt to using the rear screen for exposure evaluation and composing, and love small packages, then this might be the right camera for you. 

If you need great continuous auto focus, high frame rates with great AF, and an excellent eye level finder then this is profoundly NOT the camera for you. I can't imagine handholding with camera with a 70-200mm f2.8 on the front. Not for more than five or ten minutes at a time...

And, while I'm mentioning weak points of the camera for general photographers, I have to say that this is definitely not the camera for you if you often shoot with flash in the studio or EVER shoot with flash outdoors. This is because the camera uses an electronic shutter with a very, very slow maximum sync speed. Think about the fact that while using this camera with flash you'll be syncing at 1/30th of a second, or slower. If you want to shoot flash while using the .DNG raw setting at 14 bits you'll be looking at a sync speed of 1/15th of second. Pretty limiting for nearly every flash scenario of which I can think. You certainly would NOT want to use this camera, along with a flash, for events or weddings!

While we're on the subject of the electronic shutter you should also be aware that, like most other electronic shutters, you'll definitely see banding if you shoot under fluorescent lights or most non-professional LED light sources. The banding will get progressively worse the higher you set your shutter speed. So, not a great camera for catching available light shots in a corporate cube farm or a call center. 

If you are still reading and haven't thrown your hands up in the air and yelled "deal killer" at least once then I have one more negative thing to add to the mix: the battery life is mediocre when shooting photographs. Mediocre as in....maybe 250 shots if you've implemented the battery saving settings offered and don't "chimp" too much.

So, who in their right mind would consider this camera? I conjecture that it's made for very advanced users who already use a different and more fully featured system in their day-to-day work. I'll get to why I think it's a useful addition for someone who is already shooting in the L-mount system but I'll preface all the rest of the review by saying that this is not even really a photography camera but a very targeted video camera that, in a nice but limited envelope of capabilities, can also provide stunning photos. But you have to use it in appropriate settings. Only in continuous light and only with small and manageable lenses. But for video it's a whole different equation. 

Summing up what the fp is: it's a small brick with very few features and very limited photographic capabilities but blessed with a sensor that can deliver beautiful files over and over again --- if the use case is just right. No eye level finder, no super fast focusing, no in-body (mechanical) image stabilization. No real flash capabilities. And a body you won't want to hand hold with long lenses for very long because of its "primitive" haptics and small size. 

Who is the Sigma fp really for?

I'm pretty sure Sigma designed and outfitted the fp to be the leading edge in the L-mount system for high end video. Really high end video. That's where the camera shines. But you have to understand what kind of video production this camera is really aimed at. 

Video production has two forks. On one hand you have what we used to call electronic news gathering or ENG cameras. These cameras are meant to be used in the field by TV camera men and documentary film makers who need a solution that can handle lots of scenarios quickly and easily. The average news gathering camera used today is basically a very nice camcorder with a fixed lens that offers a fairly fast maximum aperture and a nice zoom range. It uses a smaller sensor so it's easier to keep everything a cameraman needs to keep in focus in focus. (That also helps when it comes to making fast, long range zoom lenses). These cameras have every bell and whistle you might need to get the shot including professional microphone inputs (XLR) and built-in neutral density filters to handle outdoor lighting scenarios. Most of the current cameras used for this type of work offer autofocusing and good image stabilization. 

But those kinds of all in one, ENG video cameras not made for what is generally called narrative film making. This is a totally different animal with a different set of artists' preferences. High end digital video cameras for film making (TV shows and movies) are almost never equipped with smaller sensors, in fact, over the last few years film makers have moved from using super 35 (basically APS-C) formats to full frame and even larger formats. When these cameras are used for making movies and commercials the directors of photography are selecting very specific lenses for their projects with a current preference for extremely well corrected, very fast aperture prime lenses, although there are a number of cinema zoom lenses that are also superb. The average prime lens for the interchangeable movie cameras is generally two or three times the price of an entire ENG camera set up and can frequently cost more than a nice car.

What these film makers want from their cameras is a beautiful, full frame (or larger) image that doesn't use a consumer, low data rate, compressed video codec. Red Digital Cinema created a stir in the movie production community a little over ten years ago by introducing cameras that output huge raw video files. Just as in still photography the raw files offer a much broader range of color correction capability as well as the possibility of rescuing either over or under exposed files. The cameras also shoot at very high bit depths like 14 and 16 bit which means they don't suffer from banding in skies or weird artifacts in shadows to mid-range transition tones. But the very few cinema cameras that shoot raw mostly come just like the little Sigma fp; they are little more than a box full of processors and an imaging sensor to which any number of accessories can be attached. 

The downside of raw cinema files is that they require very fast processors and very fast memory to recorder and process  the data gushing off the sensor. While a typical ENG camera writes to an SD card and delivers .MP4 or .Mov files that are between 50 and 100 megabits per second of data, the cameras that can do cinema raw deliver files that can be as big as 2700 megabits per second; some even more. The end result is files with amazing color detail and amazing color discrimination. The video from raw files also offers pretty tremendous dynamic range too. The cameras are essentially writing 4 or 5k raw files in the DNG format 24 times a second, or more. Each frame is a fully encapsulated, stand alone raw file. 

A current, middle of the road, Red Digital Cinema camera (with no lens, no finder and no battery or memory) runs about $25,000 and up. The top of the line Red Digital Cinema camera is currently around $80,000. It's fan cooled and weighs a ton. There are other brands, like Arriflex, that offer similar solutions at even higher prices. 

I write all of this by way of trying to clarify the value proposition of the Sigma fp. It's one of the very few cameras under five or ten thousand dollars that offers a cinema .DNG raw file and which can be highly configured for cinematic/narrative projects. With fast Leica L-mount lenses on the front, an outboard digital monitor for composition and exposure evaluation, and an attached, fast SSD drive attached to the USB 3.1 port the Sigma fp can rock cinematic, raw video at 12 bits @23.98 or 29.97 fps, outputting data at up to 2500 megabits per second. And it can do all of this without overheating. 

The weak point of the camera for video production is audio. The input is a standard 3.5mm jack and the controls for gain are pretty rudimentary but certainly adequate for "scratch" audio. Most high end production crews are recording audio to digital audio recorders like the ones from Sound Devices which offer great limiters and a lot more control and redundancy than the ones you will find in just about any standalone camera. But in narrative work and movies you have specialists on the crew to handle each shooting and recording parameter. They would use the scratch files to sync the externally recorded audio to the video clips.

So, if you look at the fp from that perspective then it starts to make a lot of sense to production companies that require the right "brain" or bare camera,  but will plan on supporting the camera with all the peripherals that they already use. At $1800 per camera the fp costs about what a professional compendium lens shade for a cinema lens retails for. The need for small, inexpensive but gloriously file capable cameras like this on motion picture sets is endless. While you might still use a very expensive Red or Arri camera as the primary camera you could use multiples of Sigma fp's shooting raw as b-cameras to capture different angles simultaneous with the primary camera. But there's no reason you could not use the Sigma fp as a primary camera either. Most narrative project crews won't be flustered at its lack of scene modes or face detect AF as they prefer to manually focus their cameras and lenses, want to shoot raw, and are used to working with SSDs as camera storage. 

But why would I buy one? 

I'll admit that I get a lot more use out of a more generic camera like a Lumix S1 but there are things about the Sigma fp that intrigue me. And I've come to realize that many of my camera preferences are eccentric (to say the least). 

First of all the size, for a full frame camera, is wonderful. When you couple the fp with a Sigma 45mm lens it's a great package to walk around solo and shoot with. It's fairly light (though dense) and I've yet to hit an exterior situation in which the camera and lens together didn't excel. 

If you are looking for ultimate image quality in a scene and you can use a tripod and long exposures you can put the camera in the raw DNG still mode and set ISOs as low as 6. Yes. 6. At all the ISOs below 100 the camera takes multiple frames and builds the file by a form of file stacking. This was a feature in the Kodak SRL/n that I loved but it wasn't as nicely implemented as it is in the Sigma. When you shoot this way the camera is assessing the noise in each frame (and electronic noise is essentially random) and comparing with with the other files generated in the stack which allow the processor to separate the noise from real data and kick the noise out of the resulting, final file. 

While Panasonic, Olympus and other's use multiple framing with movement between shots to create files with more resolution Sigma is opting to use multiple frames with no movement between shots to create noiseless very color accurate files. A trade off I personally like. Of course, this feature is not usable with flash. 

It's these wonderfully eccentric additions that make the camera so interesting to me. 

I also notice (from cases where the camera has obviously failed) that the digital image stabilization is also a combination of separate frames which are analyzed and combined for correction. If I'm moving too much I can see overlaps in some parts of the files which the camera is unable to correct. That's okay because the camera does interface perfectly with the Pro lenses from Panasonic's L-mount inventory, and both the 24-105mm f4.0 and the 70-200mm f4.0 offer really good, optical image stabilization. 

The fp also provides me with a different color and tonal look than my other cameras and I like being able to select those "looks" when I want them. A lot of the presets, like "teal and orange" or "cinema" are too strong or over the top but each color profile can be blended back with a control slider in the menu that will mostly get me into the ballpark I want to be in. 

The biggest argument for my owning the fp is that it's control interface and operational controls are all very minimalist and very logical. It took me all of two days to master the camera and compared to other cameras that's a highly compressed time frame. There were still one to two operational things that threw me but I've figured them out and now the camera seems wholly transparent to me, which I love. 

I've tried the raw video files (with the help of video guru, Frank) but to really use them to their best potential I'd have to be much better colorist/color grader than I am. Abject laziness had me ending up shooting some of the lower data rate files in video (1080 10 bit All-I @ 200 Mbs) and converting them in DaVinci Resolve to a more workable file format. But when that huge art project comes rolling around and needs to be shot in the ultimate codec at least I'll be ready. 

I will also say that I like a number of the lower data rate files in the .Mov space. They're fine for most of my current projects but for on camera interviews I would use this camera as a "B" camera since the Lumix S1 with the V-Log update is a more complete solution for that kind of video. 

To end my review I would say that most people who are interested only in photography will (and probably should) reject the Sigma fp out of hand. For around the same outlay of cash there are cameras that offer a much more complete feature and capability set. And for someone who shoots photos with a Lumix S1 or S1R it makes more sense to shoot day-to-day video projects with one of those cameras. For everything but raw files they'll yield the same quality (but with a different overall look) as the Sigma fp. 

It's a camera that requires you to have some nostalgia (as a photographer) for a time when camera controls were simple and straight forward and didn't require massive "customization." Unless you shoot only art for yourself you'll want to have a back-up system for professional work or for those times when someone begs you to shoot graduation photographs of a kid from kindergarten in a big, fluorescent lit auditorium. 

If you are making a film though, a couple of these and a little basket of great lenses would get you into the same technical arena as the big players. You'll need to know your stuff for fully manual film work, and you'll grimace at the micro HDMI port every time you plug in your monitor, but you'll get great files to work with and your editor will be happy with you. 

Or, you can be like me and buy one because it's.....intriguing... and you hope it will be the magic bullet that will make all your work look better (but my rational brain is NOT counting on it in my case). I've already gotten ten or fifteen images from the camera that I really like. I might not have gotten them or even shot them with a different camera --- so there is that. I'd love a second one. And when/if I ever retire it would be fun to see how long I could stand just using this camera and a 45mm lens. Maybe I'll try it.

This is the unadorned camera with the 45mm Sigma lens on it. The whole package is small and light for a full frame camera with a great 24 megapixel sensor. It's extremely likable too. One point I forgot to mention above is that now three of my favorite cameras all take the same Sigma/Panasonic battery. The Sigma fp, the Lumix GX8 and the Lumix fz2500. Nice that they are all interchangeable.

The 45mm is long enough to put backgrounds well out of focus. The white balance is superb.

If you look at the space between the back of the camera and the rear screen you'll see a little grating. The entire back of the camera, under the screen, is a huge heat sink that allows this camera to blaze away at amazingly high data rates without overheating. No overheating means no noise. But the downside is that the sensor needed to be anchored to the heat sync for the best efficiency and that ruled out in body image stabilization.... Also, the camera is weatherproof, splash and dust resistant.

The anchor points for the camera strap are engineered as standard quarter inch screw sockets so you can actually use the socket on each side or the bottom of the camera to attach it to a tripod. This view shows the camera with a small hand grip attached. It works well and the grip provides socket so you can still attached a strap lug. While the grip isn't big and chunky it provides a good hold and has a nice thumb pad to rest your right hand thumb on. 

Close up of attachment point for strap. The company makes a number of useful accessories. Allegedly they make a magnifier hood for the rear screen but I've had one on order from B&H Photo since last year and have yet to see one. I think it's a unicorn product that will only come once I've moved on to the next model.....so sad when production lags demand. But, at the moment it's saving me three hundred dollars... so there is a silver lining.

The rear screen is great and easily viewable in every situation except when full sun is striking the screen directly. A magnifier hood would come in handy. Or you can use your hand to shade the screen. But that seems so "old school." Okay Boomers. Use your hands.....

The menus are logical, straightforward and well laid out. In fact, the menus are one of my favorite things about the camera.

When you switch between the "cine" setting and the "still" setting on top of the camera the camera brings up the right menu. Notice just above that it's showing me time code (top left), a waveform meter on the bottom right and along the bottom of the screen it's showing me shutter angle and fps. You can hit the second button on the bottom row to change the display for more or less detail and clutter. 

Finally, an easy to operate camera with no infernal nest of custom function buttons to confuse or distract a real photographer. Notice the grill at the bottom which gives a better illustration of the heat sinks. That's about as calm a camera top as I could wish for. Ah....

Two of the compelling reasons for me to own this camera are the really, really good 24 megapixel sensor and the L-mount lens mount. I'm saving up so I can put some outrageous Leica SL lens on this camera. Just because it's possible. Works with all my Sigma Art lenses and my Panasonic S Pro lenses. 

This is about as discreet and unobtrusive as I think a full frame camera can be. And, of course, the shutter can be absolutely silent. If you are composing on the rear screen everyone will assume it's just an old point-and-shoot camera and not pay any attention to you at all...

this is the noble 45mm lens hood that broke the fall of a brand new S1 when it tumbled off

a picnic bench and hit the concrete. The tape is covering a shiny spot where the 

concrete shaved off some black paint. The lens still works perfectly.

Come to think of it, so does the camera body.

During the current crisis I am becoming my most popular (but not most favorite) model.

I took all of the photos of the Sigma fp with this Lumix fz2500. It's pretty sharp and easy to do close ups with. Getting reacquainted with its video menus this week. 

So far we're safe and sound over here and doing all sorts of domestic stuff like painting and sword fighting. I've been walking with the Sigma fp and that inspired me to write about it again. It's a fun camera if you have a particular bent toward odd but simple tools. Keep an extra battery in your pocket. One less thing to worry about.

Added next day: Here's a nice video review that does a really good overview of the Sigma fp's strengths and weaknesses: https://www.l-rumors.com/sigma-fp-photographer-review-by-richard-wong/

Added a day later: Here's a nice review from a photographer in Chennai, India: https://medium.com/@hornbill/an-honest-review-of-sigma-fp-cd4e40579212