Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Introduction

Hi, my name is Chris, I commute between Mumbai, India, Totnes, Devon (UK) and St Alban-Auriolles, a small village in the Ardeche in Southern France. I love nature and photography and have amassed a collection of cameras in my quest for picture making nirvana.

I have just placed an order for a Sigma DP2M, a compact camera that is said to approach medium format quality in terms of resolution and sharpness. How did I arrive at this point?

I grew up with film, used a Pentax MX and later a Nikon FE2, developed my own film and printed in black and white, I was an early adopter with digital, buying a Toshiba 2MP fixed lens model back in 2001 and then graduated slowly to DSLRs with a Canon EOS 30D then 40D, then 1D2n, then 7D then 1Ds2 and finally a 5D3. I have a reasonable selection of lenses, flashes and tripods as well and I have been told that I can take a reasonable photograph.

However, carting all this stuff around the world, or even simply on a walk in the country has become a bit of a drag and so I bought a Ricoh GRD, a lovely little camera but crippled by the size of it's sensor. When the Canon G1X appeared I got one and remain amazed at the quality of the CR2 RAW's that it  produces. It have a reasonable zoom range and sufficient portability for it to be a general purpose alternative to my DSLRs. It, like all cameras in my experience, has some flaws: It will not do macro, it takes a while to acquire focus and has an unbelievably awful optical viewfinder. For landscapes its great, but for street, forget it.

So I got myself a black Fuji X100. An absolutely gorgeous little thing which, with firmware 1.3 is responsive enough for street and makes nice macro's. Its also got a certain indefinable 'something'. I have taken some of  my best photographs with it, I think I will be using it for a long time to come, definitely a keeper.

I have been reading and following comment on various forums about the Sigma DPXM's and have been intrigued, looking closely at the files that have been posted on Flickr and elsewhere and sitting on the fence regarding a possible purchase. I see some amazing landscapes in my travels and the G1X and X100 just dont quite have the resolution that I'd like and there is something unique about the rendering of the files from the DP2M's Foveon sensor, and so, a couple of days ago I got off the fence and placed an order for a DP2M. I'm currently in the South of France and by the time I reach home in Devon in a couple of days ( snow permitting) I hope to find it waiting for me.

I started this blog because even though there is interest and discussion concerning this camera on the net, there are a lot of unanswered questions which I hope to be able to address. For me, specifically I want to know if I can leave my big and heavy DSLR kit at home and travel with a G1X, an X100 and a DP2M plus lightweight tripod and still get the shots I want in the quality I'm after.

My next entry should be a first report on my initial impressions. Both the G1X and the X100 initially disappointed and I know that in many respects the DP2M will as well ( battery life blah blah) but my opinion of both of these cameras soon changed once I had got to know them.

Lets see, is this 'three compact' kit my ultimate portable photographic nirvana?  Watch this space....

My Flickr site is at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeaunse23/

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