Sigma fp

Every camera has its right price in a given market. With a dubious AF, it's dubious for stills. With a dubious codec, it's dubious for video. It feels like a stop-gap piece by Sony, crippled in more ways than created.

If priced at about $2,000, it'd make some sense with an external LiDAR AF and manual lenses. A truly competitive $2,500 camera in 2021 would have had at least a 6K-into-4K (with variable aspect ratios), either a H264 or H265 10-bit internal codec and a lock-on auto focus. Crippling these features is a middle finger right in the face of a potential customer.

But that's how the industry works.
 
is it just me or is this not an improvement over the first one for video?

but did it get LOG recording?

they say it has hybrid AF, but they don't mention how many points... anyway, there's no way it can catch canon/sony functionality in a single leap. even if they wanted to.

i feel like the most exciting thing about this release is adding the EVF option to the original sigma fp. for anyone who really likes cinemaDNG, that would be a cool camera. Otherwise, the P6K Pro is really what this type of cameraman would want, no?
 
ahalpert said:
is it just me or is this not an improvement over the first one for video?

but did it get LOG recording?

they say it has hybrid AF, but they don't mention how many points... anyway, there's no way it can catch canon/sony functionality in a single leap. even if they wanted to.

i feel like the most exciting thing about this release is adding the EVF option to the original sigma fp. for anyone who really likes cinemaDNG, that would be a cool camera. Otherwise, the P6K Pro is really what this type of cameraman would want, no?
Click to expand...

Still no log recording. Autofocus is not great, I think I may have seen 49 AF points somewhere. But skip to 7:06 in the video below to see the autofocus tests.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zsz3wto6lNk

0:00​ - Intro & Disclosure
0:51​ - Pricing & Value
1:31​ - Photo Capabilities vs a7R IV
2:35​ - Video Overview
3:02​ - Build Quality
3:16​ - Crop Zoom & Oversampling
4:16​ - Rolling Shutter
4:24​ - Blackmagic RAW
5:13​ - Ergonomics
5:58​ - Display
6:14​ - Quirks
6:52​ - White Balance
7:06​ - Autofocus
7:39​ - Image Quality & Recording Modes
9:45​ - Final Thoughts
 
DUD. lol

Sometimes certain models do really well overseas...this is a cool, small photo camera which most likely will.
 
I guess that if the lack of autofocus is holding you back from buying a P6K Pro, then this could be the camera for you. But that's gotta be not a huge group of people. And the autofocus looks like crap.

cartel, you've done it again! enjoy resting on your laurels while you still can
 
It feels like a throwaway model between major announcements from the major players. Technically, of course, a firmware upgrade can improve the auto focus and the codecs but it's unlikely to ever come out.

Sigma management ought to be ashamed of this model. Foveon equipped stills cameras provide gorgeous images but have their quirks. In an unproven technology, it can be tolerated. But in case of FP L, all Sigma needed was to deliver technology that's been on the market a long time. Or they could have priced it much, much lower. Instead, they showed how to be a junior partner to the cartel bigwigs.
 
I watched Gerald review. He struggled to find anything good to say. The industry as a whole seems out of touch with the real world usage. It’s odd Sigma had the benefit of looking at all the existing cameras , their shortcomings and design a better camera. Instead their idea was to put a big sensor in a small body with terrible ergonomics .
 
The first model back in 2019 actually garnered a lot of interest from video people.

So logically you'd think a second tweak would fix some mistakes (LOG) or add new features (at the very least internal 10-bit 422 4K), but once again they glaringly couldn't.
 
I agree. Based on the first model, I was expecting much more from the second model, especially based on what we are beginning to see from the past few releases of competing cameras, but this second model seems particularly half-baked. Seems like they ignored all the things people wanted/requested as an evolution of the first one and simply added a 61 mp sensor and then crossed their arms.

Unless there is some real technical reason, the EVF-11 completely blocking the HDMI and not having a passthrough of some sort is very bizarre. Especially from a camera touting "3 forms of RAW recording," and then basically eliminating access to 2 out of the 3 forms of RAW.
 
Last edited:
There is prevalent arrogance at these Japanese camera companies that they’re the experts. It’s the user that needs to adapt to them. I don’t think they value criticism from users and reviewers. I imagine theses cameras are designed in a boardroom of marketing executives and engineers to carry out their wishes.
 
They value it but if they provided everyone what they wanted in one camera for $2500, sales cease and the camera business ends.
 
The cartel is approaching it as a cartel would (and should). The problem is that it has senior partners (Sony and Canon) and junior partners (everyone else) and senior partners have more pull and sway on who makes what in what range and with what features. Sony makes sensors for everyone but Canon and thus has the 900 pound gorilla role. Canon could have been more aggressive in its strategy over the last decade but chose to play along as long as it got the pick of the litter. But then it began seeing what ought to have been obvious to everyone several years earlier. The photo-video industry as a whole is tanking due to the smartphones taking over; its overall numbers are slumping and the cartel participants are in danger of being forced to shut down operations one by one. And they don't want to be either suffering along with everyone else nor yield the leading position to Sony as Canon still holds the largest market share in the industry on total units moved.

And so Canon came out with the super-specc'ed R5 but it didn't want to upset the apple cart too much and crippled it with the heating shutdowns and the glacial recovery periods. An avalanche of negative publicity ensued and Canon began to issue firmware updates, which made R5 into a palatable 8K camera. For under $4,000! While none of its competitors even had an 8K camera (Red's a small fry in the overall picture). At any price range. And that broke the ice because the advancements over the past decade have been very incremental but now Sony and Canon are actually competing against each other.

The problem with Sigma is that it makes its money off Sony licensed glass and it has no sensor production of its own. Nikon and Panasonic are likewise being boxed into a corner because they're getting Sony hand-me-downs and have to cripple the more marketable features to even have a release. Sony had to surrender something in return and that took form in A7SIII being delayed for several years and priced, at least, a grand higher* than it would have been on a more open market. But A7RIV could cripple its video features (8-bit + line-skipping + crop) and still remain a leading stills model.

And driving its partners out of business works to Sony's benefit because it keeps on gaining market share. And with partners like that ...

*Blackmagic Design cameras are a solid indicator of what can be made and at what price point. 6K Raw for $2,000, while the cartel (line) skips along.
 
PS. As I had briefly mentioned in the "Hollywood" thread, while cartel can control the supply, it can't control the demand. Its product map is put together in boardrooms but the public decides what sells and what doesn't. That promotes many an ill feeling, since different companies have different expectations about their products and are crushed when those expectations are not met.

In a oil cartel (OPEC + Russia), there's also a different cost structure. The Saudis have theirs at ~ $10/bbl while the Russian is around $25. And, if you add the corporate costs, the Saudis is ~ $15 while the Russian is ~ $35. On top of that, the national budgets depend on gross revenues too. In the photo-video world, Panasonic is diversified enough to ride its fairly small market share. Nikon, on the other hand, is having a lot of problems with its other branches to subsidize its camera losses, while Sony is raking it in with their sensors, using them as a foundation to climb on top of the photo-video realm.
 
Every few months I look for an opportunity to plop this in somewhere, lol.

Oh, what could have been...and I wish others (preferably millionaires) in many different countries would build cinema cameras.

Years ahead of its time! [At least the concept animation.]

 
everything about fp doesn't make sense. phones have taken away the low end and if you cant build a camera to satisfy high end customers where does that leave you. this camera seems poorly designed rather than crippled. sigma doesn't have higher end models to protect by crippling the fp. its like a Sigma executive went to a tech conference and heard that small full frame cameras are the new thing.
 
DLD just provided one of the many opinion pieces we circulate around here...Sigma's higher end models to protect are called a7SIII and R5.
 
NorBro said:
DLD just provided one of the many opinion pieces we circulate around here...Sigma's higher end models to protect are called a7SIII and R5.
Click to expand...
Thats too conspiracy theory for me to buy. Sigma wouldn't knowingly spend the money to develop a camera that was designed to fail to protect Sony and Canon. Sometimes incompetency is just incompetency and doesn't need to be dressed up as conspiracy. I view the cartel as a group of companies who don't directly collude but agree on a playing field ie its bad business to directly compete against each other so each company carves out small niches. I think Sigma is in the same boat as Panasonic, they were too short sighted to understand that full frame cameras without good auto focus are at a big disadvantage. Sony will happily sell them the sensors but not the auto focus technology.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top