The Sigma SD15 is perhaps the most unique interchangeable lens camera in my collection. A camera that while it has a number of shortcomings is not something I'd ever get rid of; and unlike the Canon 1D Mark IIn that I did pass onto a Friend, I don't find it ergonomically challenging or difficult to shoot.
Yes you heard right, the camera itself is a Sigma. It is the one time that Sigma Lenses could be called first party. Sigma once made DSLR, Mirrorless and Fixed Prime bridge cameras (the latter of the three with really funky ergonomic designs).
Recently Sigma developed their first Full Frame sensor MICL camera but the reception to them so far has been luke-warm at best which is not too dissimilar from their foevon cameras.
Sigma's new Full-Frame camera is also marketed as a Cinema video-camera vs a stills camera as well, so the photography-centric division of Sigma cameras died with the SD1 Merill and Quattro series cameras, and the end of the Sigma SA lens mount.
I own one of the older models, the third DSLR Sigma released the Sigma SD15. So let's take a look at this unique camera and the reasons I bought it to add to my collection when I started really collecting digicams in 2018:
Released in 2010 this camera was a very minor upgrade to the SD14 using the same 1.7x APS-C (the smallest sensor to still be considered APS-C) Foevon 3 layer CMOS non-bayer pattern 4 megapixel sensor. I covered one other multi-layered sensor earlier this year, the Fuji SuperCCD in the S2 Pro.
At 4 megapixels this is the lowest resolution Interchangeable lens camera sensor camera I own, and when shooting this camera much like an early digicam you want to avoid cropping if at all possible. The sharpness of this sensor at full resolution does however mean that it can still take some pleasing shots for sharing at a social media output as long as you really don't crop the photos.
The Foevon sensor was Sigma's signature into the world of Digital photography; but they ended up just making a cult following rather then becoming popular and widely used. This sensor trades both resolution and ISO capability for increased color and contrast even beyond what a CCD sensor could manage; but at a steep price which is why these never took off.
In 2010 very few people wanted a 4mp DSLR with no video capabilities that couldn't make useable photos above ISO 400; yet Sigma released one to try and appeal to a very specific niche of photographers.
Other then the color output this camera is not too far off in capabilities from some early DSLRs in the terms of ISO capability and resolution like the Canon D30 released 11 years earlier in 1999.
Just like the Fuji S2 Pro you can process the image as an interlaced "high resolution" image to expand the resolution from 4mp to 14mp, which is what most marketing for the camera list this camera as; a 14mp sensor rather then a 4mp one.
Unlike Fuji however you needed to download Sigma's software to create this high resolution file. You could not unstack it in the camera (though later SD and Quattro cameras offered this ability). So at the end of the day its really stuck at only 4mp, which is suitable for un-cropped web posting but not much else.
This sensor is extremely tact sharp at full resolution and this was what these sensors were known for. The later Quattros and the SD1 Merril had a more reasonable native resolution but still suffered from the terrible noise patterns at High ISO.
Released in the era where video was starting to become a major feature on DSLR cameras, the SD15 also took a step away from this as well. It can't shoot video (nor does it have liveview). It is perhaps the closest thing I have to a Film Camera in a Digital format in operation outside of the Fuji S2 Pro and at times it's actually kinda refreshing not to have all those extra features. So the lack of features on the SD15 in this case actually adds to its charm for me.
With that said, the reason I bought this camera and the one feature that really makes this camera unique is that it has a user-replaceable IR pass filter. You can pop this off and have a Full Spectrum Infrared camera without risking damaging the sensor.
The first two years I owned the camera I shot it with the IR pass filter off as my IR modded full spectrum camera before I purchased my two modified IR bodies. With the IR filter removed and some POST corrections you would get images like this:
During the review week I shot it with the IR pass filter on so it shot as normal. I also had to shoot it in JPEG mode which gave me less to work with and forces me to make more adjustments to the image on the camera itself as the .x3f RAW format of this camera is not fully supported by Adobe.
Adobe gives the ability to open and edit the RAW files; but strips out all the extra color information that makes the Foevon sensors unique and sets it to the absolute flattest profile it can. So getting a RAW from this camera to look "good" requires a lot more work in POST then I wanted to deal with.
Overall this camera has a lot of unique properties and things I like about it. Ergonomically it feels nice, and has nice tactile buttons and controls. It does have a short 2 second or so startup delay from power-on/sleep which is a lot slower then other DSLRs on par with the original Canon Rebel, but it does not make it unusable unlike some other point and shoot cameras which have much longer startup times. While it has a slow FPS drive it has an adequate buffer to take several photos in quick succession without having to wait for it to write between shots.
Ergonomically this camera has a very solid feel to it, and the "kit" lens is fully weathersealed with an internal zoom and does not feel cheap as other kit lenses tend to do. The layout is different but not hard to get used to (unlike something like the 1D Mark IIn).
The SD15 also has one thing (or lack of) from any other DSLR I own: It's basic. There are no "Fireworks/Baby/Sports etc" modes that are useless to 99% of photographers on it. You have PASM, the 4 modes you need on the Mode Select dial. That's it. This is something I wish more camera manufacturers would do on anything enthusiast level or above.
Because of the poor low-light performance, low resolution and lack of support for the RAW files from Adobe the Sigma SD15 is not a camera I would have around as a daily shooter. However like the Pentax Q10 it is unique enough that I would never get rid of it.
The weather this week was not ideal, so I had a lot less photo ops to take advantage of. I only had one day of good weather (Sunday) which I mostly took photos of the last of the Fall Colors and some mushrooms I found in a public forest near my house. The rest of the week was rainy, cold and very dark/overcast so I only got a few snapshots during the week otherwise. So enjoy a few photos from what I did manage to get this week from this strange and unusual DSLR camera:
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