AT OR NEAR BROADSTONE I USED A SEVEN YEAR OLD DP3 MERRILL CAMERA
AT AND NEAR THE BROADSTONE TRAM STOP [TODAY I USED A 7 YEAR OLD SIGMA DP3 MERRILL CAMERA]
The colours are very different to what I get with my Sony A7R cameras and there was an annoying green tint which was easy enough to remove.
As already mentioned I purchased A Sigma DP3 Merrill camera, about seven years ago, because it was very compact and because it was supposed to produce beautiful images because they used an unusual sensor. Before the the arrival of the DP3 I had used Sigma DP1 and DP 2 cameras [not Merrill] and did like the results but in general the cameras had major issues that I was willing to overlook until I fully switched to using Sony mirrorless bodies.
When the DP2 Merrill arrived in May 2013 I discovered that there was no suitable software to process the RAW images but I was not worried as I had believed that a future update of Lightroom or Photoshop would accept Sigma .XF3 files but unfortunately I was wrong and as I was not interested in using .JPG or Sigma's buggy software I lost interest in the camera within weeks. There were other problems such as battery life [about 100 images per fully charged battery] and noise above ISO 200 and very slow write times to even the highest quality card. I could not believe how slow autofocusing could be. Today I tested two Sigma branded batteries and I got fewer that 80 from either. Note: Sigma claimed 200 images per charge and they actually supplied two batteries with the camera.
Yesterday I came across the DP3 in a box and was a bit surprised that it still works so I decided to investigate if I could find a solution to the RAW file processing problem. I forgot to mention that Sigma did actually supply software with the camera but it failed most of the time and it no longer works at all with the more recent versions of Mac OSX.
Yesterday the good news was that I was able to process the .XF3 files using a Photoshop plugin available from Sigma, I do not know when it became available but I can confirm that it works. I was also surprised by the fact by the fact that Affinity Photo could read and process the files but the results were not as good as the PS Plugin solution.
Today I decided that the Photoshop Plugin was too slow to be practical and neither was the Affinity Photo software however I discovered that I could bulk process the .XF3 files using Topaz Sharpen AI but I only have a trial version and I am not sure if I am willing to pay the asking price. Also, the process is slow.
The colours are very different to what I get with my Sony A7R cameras and there was an annoying green tint which was easy enough to remove.
As already mentioned I purchased A Sigma DP3 Merrill camera, about seven years ago, because it was very compact and because it was supposed to produce beautiful images because they used an unusual sensor. Before the the arrival of the DP3 I had used Sigma DP1 and DP 2 cameras [not Merrill] and did like the results but in general the cameras had major issues that I was willing to overlook until I fully switched to using Sony mirrorless bodies.
When the DP2 Merrill arrived in May 2013 I discovered that there was no suitable software to process the RAW images but I was not worried as I had believed that a future update of Lightroom or Photoshop would accept Sigma .XF3 files but unfortunately I was wrong and as I was not interested in using .JPG or Sigma's buggy software I lost interest in the camera within weeks. There were other problems such as battery life [about 100 images per fully charged battery] and noise above ISO 200 and very slow write times to even the highest quality card. I could not believe how slow autofocusing could be. Today I tested two Sigma branded batteries and I got fewer that 80 from either. Note: Sigma claimed 200 images per charge and they actually supplied two batteries with the camera.
Yesterday I came across the DP3 in a box and was a bit surprised that it still works so I decided to investigate if I could find a solution to the RAW file processing problem. I forgot to mention that Sigma did actually supply software with the camera but it failed most of the time and it no longer works at all with the more recent versions of Mac OSX.
Yesterday the good news was that I was able to process the .XF3 files using a Photoshop plugin available from Sigma, I do not know when it became available but I can confirm that it works. I was also surprised by the fact by the fact that Affinity Photo could read and process the files but the results were not as good as the PS Plugin solution.
Today I decided that the Photoshop Plugin was too slow to be practical and neither was the Affinity Photo software however I discovered that I could bulk process the .XF3 files using Topaz Sharpen AI but I only have a trial version and I am not sure if I am willing to pay the asking price. Also, the process is slow.
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