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PERFORMANCE: ISO
PERFORMANCE: VIDEO
to switch between Cine and Still mode. These sit flush to the body and are stiff enough not to be accidentally knocked when the camera is in your pocket or bag. On the right side is a dedicated movie record button, the shutter button and, surrounding that, the primary control dial, which is well weighted and knurled to provide lots of grip. On the rear, from the top down, there’s a customisable Auto Exposure Lock (AEL) button, followed by a Quick Set (QS) button that brings up a shooting menu with ISO, metering, drive, white- balance, image quality, aspect ratio (including a neat ‘A’ for A4/A3 type ratios, which is novel) and Fill Light controls (for more on the latter, see ‘Image quality’ on the next spread). The QS menu works with the rear command dial, which I found a little light, but moving through settings was quick and easy enough. Outside of the QS menu, the dial, which has click functions like a D-pad can shortcut to focus mode and area by pressing up or down, respectively. I couldn’t find a way of adding commands to left or right on the wheel though, which would have been useful. Under the rear dial is the main Menu button. The fp’s unusual design continues with a several buttons below its 3.15- inch touchscreen. There are inputs for playback, display and Mode, which offers As a true hybrid camera, the Sigma fp’s video functions are very impressive. There’s 4K UHD video at 24p and this can be saved in 12-bit format to an external drive. If you drop to 8-bit, you get 24, 25 or 30p. In that mode, Raw video footage can be written directly to the fp’s SD card, which is unique at this time. The Cinema Raw DNG footage can’t yet be played back in-camera though, and that option is expected to come via a firmware update in due course. The fp has lots of handy features specifically aimed at filmmaking, such as waveforms and easy access to picture profiles, and if you’re an L-Mount user who’s
PASM and three programmable custom settings, but also Tone and Color inputs. Tone allows a preset level of contrast to be applied to shots, with settings for Mild, Strong and a manual tone curve where highlights and shadows can be pushed or pulled by +/-5. Color gives access to 12 colour effects, all of which can be adapted to your liking, as well as adding contrast and sharpening. Of course, none of these affect the Raw files, but if you like to apply effects in-camera, they work well. The touchscreen is bright and clear, but only has limited touch control. You can use gestures to navigate through images in playback, and select an AF point while shooting, but not much else, as far as I could see. The menus, for instance, can’t be controlled by touch, which feels like an omission, and the gesture controls are a bit sluggish and clunky compared to a phone. The screen doesn’t articulate either, so if you’re used to shooting in that way, you may feel restricted. The menus themselves are clear and nicely laid out, though, with nothing being difficult to read or locate. What’s more, menus for stills and video are kept completely separate and only appear when the particular mode is activated, so there’s no chance of ending up in the wrong settings. Other handling features of note are way that the strap lugs come separate from the camera and need to be ABOVE Designed as much, if not more, for filmmaking than stills, the Sigma fp offers a unique feature in full-frame cameras. It can record Raw video internally to the SD card, rather than using an external drive invested in the Panasonic or Leica systems, having a super-compact camera that takes your lenses, can be squeezed into small places and records Raw for the ultimate quality make it a no-brainer, especially with its clean Raw files and low-noise performance. There’s no headphone port on the camera, but if you plug in an external monitor, you can listen to your recordings from there.
ISO 100
ISO 800
ISO 1600
ISO 3200
ISO 6400
ISO 12,800
IS0 25,600
IS0 51,200
ISO 102,400
The fp put in a strong performance when it came to ISO performance. Images were shot in the fp’s Raw mode, and then converted without noise reduction. Viewed with a 100% view, noise only became apparent at ISO 1600, and from there up to 6400 was not particularly disturbing to detail. Colour was retained, too. Even at 12,800, images were very usable, and only at the maximum 25,600
ABOVE We found that the Sigma fp’s full-frame 24.6-megapixel chip produces excellent results throughout the ISO range, so it’s very much at home with low-light work
did we see the first signs of break up with pronounced, but not unpleasant, grain. As you’d expect, at the extended 51,200 and 102,400, it gets a lot rougher, but 51,200 is usable at a push. At the low end of the extended range, settings like 50, 25, 12 and 6 gave excellent colour.
Issue 72 | Photography News 61
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