There is a “curious” petition over at Change.org (Click here). The goal is to convince Sigma to develop and launch a Foveon powered Micro Four Thirds camera. If you share the same “dream” you may sign it!
There is a “curious” petition over at Change.org (Click here). The goal is to convince Sigma to develop and launch a Foveon powered Micro Four Thirds camera. If you share the same “dream” you may sign it!
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61 Responses
I prefer that Sigma release more MFT lenses than bodies.
That sounds good to me, too.
Lenses and a Foveon body. Have you ever tried a Sigma camera… If not, put a DP2 Merrill to the test!
Sigma art lenses on a fuji x-trans sensor with a m43 mount please ! Fat chance.
If the dp2 Quattro is anything to go buy, please just sell the sensor to Panasonic and/or Olympus instead and let them design the camera.
The shape or the operation?
No. Let Sigma do it their way. Just encourage them to do it. You that’s you don’t have to buy it. But I bet it will outsell Sigma’s own system if done properly.
Keep in mind, so far Foveon makes for a magnificent IQ at low ISO’s…but doesn’t hold up very well at even moderate ISO’s. Also, because the Foveon sensor is capturing such detail, it makes for slower processing and chews up batteries.
Foveon is basically good for one thing: IQ at low ISO. That’s not insignificant, but it doesn’t make for a very well rounded camera experience.
I would add it with my Panasonic and Olympus. I love the Foveon sensor. 🙂
It would be better to have a FujiFilm X-Trans II sensor made for micro Four-Thirds camera bodies.
That’s the whole point of it, lots of people shoot only at base iso, m43 at base iso is not exactly stellar. Foveon quality + iso 100 would be awesome for landscape or studio photography with controlled lighting.
We have yet to see the real life performance of the newly developed Quattro series, it’s supposedly faster and has a more reasonable behavior at non-base ISO, if any of Sigma’s marketing holds true, a m4/3 foveon camera would be awesome for the system.
A Foveon M4/3 camera would be worthless-and-useless to me (and most other photographers, I suspect) until the time that Sigma comes to its senses and releases the data that enables Adobe to access Foveon RAW files. If I cannot readily access those files in Lightroom, then there’s no reason to buy the camera in the first place.
I could open my DP1 files in ACR without problem. but sigma photo pro gave better results in the end.
Good.
Because Foveon sensor is not children’s toy. It’s fine art tool for grown up photographers who know how to convert raw to tiff.
Sounds like a great reason to stop using adobe!
I would buy a Foveon m43rds camera as a studio body. Simply put, superb detail, no risk of moire on clothing and I get to use my current set of lenses.
The guy who wrote the petition sure needed to proofread and run spellcheck before posting it. It’s kind of embarrassing.
It would be great to see Sigma release a M4/3 body with a Foveon sensor!
That would be me. 🙂 I was surprised to see so many sigs on the the petition tonight then realized it was posted on 43Rumors.com. 🙂 I did a quick proofread tonight. Thanks for the heads up.
The more people to join the m43 world the better.
Absolutely.
How about fund raising campaign to Sigma rather than petition ?
I might be up for helping with something like that, if Sigma gets in touch with me!? 😉
Whatever for? Sigma can easily create a “DP-Pro” with interchangeable lens w/o a flange & mirror, on their existing APS-C sensors
What they need to do urgently, is their DSP & algo improvement
So people would buy it, huge choice of small lenses. Foveon mft is really interesting, sigma own aps-c mount not really.
Foveon and Micro Four Thirds! 🙂 The best of both worlds! 🙂 I’m okay
with shooting lower ISO. Foveon is superior as long as people know it’s
limits and that it is really a fine art tool for more experienced photographer. I owned both the DP1 and DP2. Loved them to death.
It could be good. As I noted to Marco above. Use the existing sensor size and update the electronics and mount (minimal cost). All m43 lenses would work correctly. All m43 mount lenses based on APSC lenses would be able to utilise the whole sensor and there are a lot of those including sigma 19 and 30mm. Speed boosters and legacy lenses would work like original design. Objective, very high quality and minimal cost to make and importantly to get into.
Video could be real widescreen.
What else does marketing need to sell it.
Want to believe this petition could change something, foveon sensor with small m43 lenses would be a dream come true. People who want superior base iso quality are totally forgotten by now.
How about those that appreciate low ISO, three layer sensor (Foveon) and wish to use with Rodenstock and Scheider lenses on a small field camera such as the Silvestri Flexicam ( a definite minority for sure) with rise , fall and lateral shift. In this case the ideal would the Rodenstock 23 mm Digitar lens , 33×44 Foveon sensor from a yet to be manufactured (MILC) camera. This would be a truly exquisite camera for those us enthusiasts that cannot afford high MF digital backs: it gives us the opportunity for around $15K the opportunuty to produce stunniing architecture,landscape or art images. (Yeah wrong forum…)
Wouldn’t it be better if fotodiox actually made a m4/3 rhinocam ? just add the T/S+bellows mechanism and you’re done. I wonder why they chose NEX instead of m4/3 which would seem more versatile and consolidated standard, sure, NEX has more MP and bigger sensor but then again, m4/3’s 16MP sensor on a rhinocam would be more than enough just by the nature of the device. Any advice on an affordable alternative to Silvestri’s or Cambo’s solutions ?
Thanks for alerting me to the Rhinocam: looks an interesting product. A quick read and viewing of Fotodiox’s instruction video suggests wide angle lens will not work. All of the available lens for the mounts will not have a wide enough lens in its own format let alone when used with the adapter. There could be workarounds e.g. helical mount on large format lens or other adapters for shift lens and so on.
Unfortunately there really aren’t any alternatives to those cameras you mention: the Silvestri is a little more expensive than the Cambo but a more elegant solution.
A critical issue for use of those cameras (MFT,APS-C/H or FF) with LF lens (and other lens) is the pixel pitch size and angle of incidence.
May be Leica will do something in this area as they have purchased Sinar…may be Photokina will be genuinely interesting this year (as always) but innovation in this area would be very exciting.
Yeah, LF Leica doesn’t sound like a viable solution, not even for some Saudi Prince. I’ve been thinking maybe a more direct and simpler solution would be a T/S adapter + speedbooster (say, a MF to nikon T/S adapter + an nikon to m4/3 SB), the MF lens should have a big enough image circle that the whole apparatus would create vigneting. Either that or just doing some sort of bellows DIY.
Maybe the Leica/Sinar product may be aimed not a Saudi Prince but at those with around $10 K to spend for such a system (yes $10K hurts , but for a complete system with rise, fall and lateral shift simultaneously on a FF or larger sensor is a fair and reasonable price – again with the Rodenstock 23 mm lens).
Leica’s CEO Kaufman is quoted on one of these rumour sites, a few years ago – maybe two years ago (forgot which) that these sensors are a commodity , in other words there is very little R&D capital to recoup and that they can be purchased relatively inexpensively (again I think approximately $250.00 pers sensor – in general). So there could be a LF?MF view camera system camera developed to attach to their current and future cameras, which means the view camera would work on other ILC system cameras.
Yes it’s stretch…but you never know.
Your solution is definitely simple and practical: the problem for me is the POV . With MF lens on a MFT body means a very narrow picture angle..I am accustomed to around 100 degree picture or 117mm with Canon 17mm TS lens on FF body. The Rodenstock 23 mm Digitar is 117 mm approx on 33×44 sensor size.
Ideal scenario: Sigma Foveon 33×44 mm sensor body (would settle for FF Foveon) , miniature Alpa SC camera or Silvestri Bicam 111 body and Rodenstock 23 mm Digitar Lens.
That’s why I mentioned the Speedbooster, it would effectively reach a
wider angle of view than just the T/S adapter by itself. m4/3 Camera
body+canon/nikon-to-m4/3 speedbooster+ a medium format-to-Nikon/canon
T/S adapter (they exist) = bliss ?
This is certainly viable, the
question is whether the added extension of the speedbooster would
interfere and create vignetting, then again, the speedbooster reduces
the image circle so maybe it could work perfectly.
If the SB (not really knowledgeable on these) but based on what you say the whole rig seems ,sorry to say but is try too hard; anyway with reduced image circle it’d increase the likely hood of vignetting as well as decrease movements. Not bliss …
Unfortunately my requirements are too small for any camera manufacturer to really care . After all they won’t be losing sales: one day i’ll cough up the dough and purchase a DB e.g. Mamiya Leaf.silvetri and Rodebstock 23 mm (BLISS) and be done with it.
I hope you enjoy your system.
I suggest you investigate more on the speedbooster adapters, they’ve achieved something that would’ve been called impossible just a few years ago, it’s quite simply magic. Either I don’t understand what you mean by a smaller IC creating vignette, or it seems you didn’t get the way the SB works. The SB works by taking the larger image circle of a FF lens and projecting that image onto a smaller image circle (i.e. m4/3) thus the final output is of a reduced FL (0,74x), sharper, with no vignetting and to top it off it speeds up your lens by 1 stop !
Since there are no native T/S lenses for m4/3 and only T/S adapters this would be, AFAIK , the only way to get a wide angle of view AND tilt-shift on this system. There are no wide (or cheap) enough legacy lenses available for the existing T/S adapter mounts on the market today, so you’ll have to settle for a normal-ish (35mm-50mm) output or improvise something like what I proposed.
But the good news is that Samyang just made all this unnecessary by announcing their new wide angle lenses, now we can rest easy ans simply adapt their widest APS-C/FF lens onto a m4/3 T/S adapter and be done.
Micro Four Thirds is the World’s #1 Mirrorless mount standard, and it would be awesome to see Sigma join it with their own camera!
Except Sigma can’t make a good camera. It would be much much better if they co-operate with Olympus instead and get a joint project to make a Foveon M43 camera. Or, just sell Foveon sensors to others who can make a decent camera (fast AF, responsive, reasonable colour balance, and hopefully with a good IS). If left to Sigma, I am afraid we will see another super expensive, quirky camera with occasional brilliant results when conditions just happen to be all favourable and that gets forgotten very quickly. Worse, Foveon will be given up by everyone and we will never see a Foveon camera’s true potential, if not already.
I’m curious to see how the new DP2 Quattro works. Having said so, let’s not forget that these cameras have lenses that are perfectly coupled with the sensor, as sony rx1, ricoh gr and fuji x100s, and that’s an advantage compared to an ICL camera.
Foveon limit is (was?) its use at mid ISOs, 400. Making the sensor smaller, m43, wouldn’t lower again its performance at those ISO levels? So I think it’s too early for Sigma to offer a m43 sensor Foveon. I hope they can go on with their DP series and improve them.
In the meanwhile they can go on offering sharp lenses. Perhaps with a native m43 mount..
A Foveon with M43 mount using their existing sensor would not be expensive and allow them to make existing (and new) lenses in m43 mount that could utilise the bigger sensor but be fully compatible with all the m43 lenses made. It would also give them a boost by letting speedboosters and legacy lenses be used at the highest efficiency. All in all, a sales potential that is not matched anywhere else.
With the performance and image quality of current Four Thirds sensors
from both Sony and Panasonic, plus the phase detection AF capability of
the E-M1 chip, I couldn’t care less for a Foveon powered Micro FT
camera. Rather, I’d like to see Sigma make more Micro FT lenses!
Given the image quality, high ISO capabilities and, in case of the E-M1, phase detection capabilities of existing Micro Four Thirds sensors, I couldn’t care less about a Foveon based Micro Four Thirds camera… I’d rather see Sigma invest in Micro Four Thirds lenses, seeing the excellent lenses they’ve been designing lately. There are still too many mediocre lenses in the current Micro Four Thirds lineup, especially when compared to what Fuji has accomplished in such a relatively short time.
i would sign a petition to add tethering to dp merrill line…working in studio without tethering is a pain in the ass….the dp 3 is a great camera and i dont get why they dont add tethering with cable for working with lightroom at least with jpg….sometimes i dont understand sigma marketing
Instead of insert some frustation into the ass to get pain, find some descend wifi sdcard and insert into merrill’s memory slot. Then go buying sony tethering station and have fun with wireless photography.
Signed!
Think it would be an excellent combo for me.
Sigma native m43 lenses would definitely be welcome, how about a constant f1.8 9-18mm?
Yes excellent idea stabilized too. F1.8 too optomistic though maybe F2.8?
I made a mistake on the FL, I was thinking about a native equivalent of the apsc 18-35 1.8 😉
I dont care about sigma Foveon but I would like to see them make some effort with lenses not just big slow unstabilized also ran 2.8 lenses. M43 needs fast glass. OK they are nice lenses but I want something that is not just duplication of other lenses; something special like I know Sigma can do. How about that big F1.8 zoom in M43 mount?
How about a 100-300 constant f4. Beat Panasonic to it and reap the rewards. Or faster…..
Someone should start a Petition asking Sigma to stop making shitty cameras!
More fast glass please!!
This (Sigma doing 43) will NOT happen. If anything, I would like to see a Foveon sensor in a Sony E mount camera (or make a digital back), preferably full frame.
Agreed , a Foveon FF sensor would be something to behold 😀
Do you consider Sigma releasing E-mount body a real possibility? Why?
Nah… It will happen. Micro Four Thirds is just too good for it not to happen. Micro four thirds is also an open standard and was the original idea. All the others that came after were the carbon copies and copy cats! 😉
I want a 50-500mm for mirrorless cameras. 🙂
sigma needs to ad EVF’s to their cams too (all of them) or make them compatible with other manu’s EVFs
instead of an existing sensor type to be included in your fav system, I would rather see a new sensor like a square one, ideal for certain genres like model photography.
I would love to have Foveon sensor!