Sigma SD Quattro H Longterm Review
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Sigma SD Quattro H Longterm Review

Possibly this will be a Love Letter 🙂

When the Sigma Quattro arrived on the market, i was really excited. A Mirrorless Camera who made the promise to be used like a Film Photo Camera. Absolutely tempting.

Most of us know Sigma as a 3rd Party Lens Manufacturer , sometimes notorius for quality issues on lenses and the lenses had the allure  of Joghurt Cups.

But in the 2010’s this slightly changed, cause Sigma kind of reinvented itself  with the new Art Lenses Lineup. Few years later came the Quattro Foveon Sensor.

After five years of using this camera,  i can surely tell you this is the camera i mostly like to use.

Don’t get me wrong this is not a Camera who is competing with any another brand… or competitive as a „Jack of all Trades“,   i don’t know any camera besides film, who has so many limits. But if you respect he limits and use the camera for what it was constructed,  it will give you a great reward.

This is not a professional Camera in terms of Web accessibility, Autofocus or  High Speed. You will not make pictures of your children playing in your garden.  Any MFT, APS-C , Compact Camera, or Mobile phone, will be superior for this kind of Use case. Better stick to th iPhone or Android Phone for those Use Cases.

Possibly i like this camera so much,  with all it shortcomings,  the camera is as quirky as i am. There are many things the camera can’t do very well, but in a few things like Stills for Landscapes, Cityscapes it’s a great tool an performs like a champ, it’s also possible to shoot infrared, you can remove the Sensor Protection there’s a latch inside the camera, with a tweezer you can pull the latch and you have a infrared camera, if you want to give it a try.

In terms of image Quality and reliability i’m highly impressed. Especially the monochrome Output is incredible. The Details you can see in the picture are impressive, the colors too.
We made several prints 90×60 and it looks friggin great..

Made me this camera a better Photographer? Ok i’d like the illussion… that it could bee… *Sigh* am i a good photographer? By no means, but the camera forced me to slow down, think more about what kind of picture i would like to shot, or what i could do with the given circumstances.

The Camera is a joy to use in manual mode.

The Body… 

the Body looks unusual.. but the Controls are great, the grip is deep and feels great, you have the impression the camera was built by photographers for photograpers, everything makes sense.

The Screen

Unfortunatley it’s not a Flip Screen but i can live with the screen how it is.

The Viewfinder is bright, and after the Firmware Updates it worked as you could expect from a good viewfinder. I have no idea about the resolution of the viewfinder but it’s good enought for me.

In Front Control Dial is a Button called Q .. this opens the Quick Menu..

The Quick menu is a real breeze!!!

On any Camera i haven’t found anything comparable. The most important Menu Points you need on one Button.

The Battery Shoe..
The Batteries itself are the same Panasonic uses for it’s MFT Lumix Cameras G9, GH5 but the Shoe itself is quite interesting..
There is a small metal plate who locks the battery shoe, i thought it was a good idea, and it works well, never had a problem with , i like those details, where youn can see someone thought about common problems with Battery shoes. 🙂

But there are other details i really enjoy.
The Spirit Level is wonderfuly implemented in the  viewfinder it looks literally same like on the screen.   🙂 

 

 

The Menu…

The Interface is great, it’s reduced, you dont have trillion of features… and its logical.

Something about reliablity… and real world Performance

The Quattro is a real workhorse, in 2019 the Quattro literally saved my ass when we were four weeks in Arizona and California for Vacation..

The Camera worked flawlessly in the Desert of Arizona when my Nikon Gear stopped working  in Monument Valley, and the mount on the Nikon broke in Monterey.  we only had the Sigma left, but The Results we achieved with this Camera were extraordinary as a landscape Camera it’s a pure Joy to use.

The System worked also in Winter and in Rain.. there was til now no real problem.

I never made use of a camera who brought me so much Joy to create Landscape Pictures. 
Nevertheless the Product has it’s limits. The Sigma Foveon Sensor is only usable between 100-400 ISO.   But as i learned in the last few years if you respect those limits you can get great results.   Use the camera at ISO 100 and you will be happy. Learn how to expose correctly, take your time. If you make use of the monochrome mode you can shoot at night too up to 800 ISO. If you want the RAW File colorized  make use fo Sigma Pro Photo

The Lenses i use:
For my particular Use case i make Use of
Sigma Art 24-70 F 2.8

Sigma Art 18-35 F 1.8

Both lenses are a very good match for this Body.. i cannot compare the Sigma 24-70 to Nikon or Canon Versions of the 24-70… cause i have no Nikon or Canon 24-70 Lenses. Maybe they are superior maybe not. What i get from the Sigma 24-70 2.8 is good enough for me.

The Lens is weather sealed.. i used the Lens at Lake Constance in heavy rain.
Also the Sigma 18-35 who is not weather sealed has been used in the Desert and the Rainy Weather. But it seems that the Lens is good enough to survive bad Weather. 🙂

The tradeoffs….

The EVF without Firmware Update was nearly unusable. After the Firmware Update it was a joy to use.

There are only nine Sensor fields to focus… but was never an issue for me so far.

This is not a run and gun Camera…. if you’re in shooting animals, birds, or people it’s not the tool you will be happy with.

The lenses are quite bulky,  heavy and expensive. No wonder those lenses, especially the 24-70 ist built for Full Frame Sensors. The 18-35 for APS-C

SIgma 24-70 2.8

the autofocus in it’s best is let’s say exotic.

You won’t take this camera on every tour, cause it’s heavy an bulky

Sigma Pro Photo is awkward slow and not really a joy to use but faster than Olympus Workspace. 😉

The Raw File size is a real factor with 50MB.

The DNG Files use up to 150 MB on the SD Card and have a magenta twinge… The Raw Files are superior to the DNG Files

The Processor is awfully slow.  The write Speed is awfully slow too. But it doesn’t matter to me… would i buy it again? Yes.. absoluteley, and if there will be a Foveon Succesor to the Quattro i would be very interested.

A last word about Sigma Photo Pro..

the Software is not what i would call Rock Stable, but if you can live with the Interface it offers great possibilities as a raw converter.

Sigma Photo Pro is absolutely necessary if you shoot in SPF Mode.. which is some kind of bracketing who creates a big RAW File. with Sigma Photo Pro you can open this Container File and add or remove files from this RAW Container File. It is a very powerful Raw Converter. But have to get used to it.. In General i work with Sigma Photo Pro on the RAW Files if i don’t use the JPEG’s or want to save wrongly exposed Picture. Unfortunately the Adobe Software like Ligthroom doesn’t Support the Sigma Raw Files. But that might have changed. For my workflow i export the RAW Files as TIFF and import them into Lightroom. For further processing.

Are there any more quirks? Yes…. the Battery Life is not as good as it should be.. i’ll take three batteries with me.. all the time if i have the Camera with me.

Conclusion….
would i recommend the camery to everybody?
No, not really… as i told it before it’s not a jack of all trades… in some way it’s the camera i waited for. 🙂

 

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