As you probably know I'm a Sony a7r II shooter. But I didn't sell my soul to Sony so I always check out new tech-stuff available. There are two cams I want to check out this year. One of them is the Sigma SD Quattro with Foveon Sensor (the 2nd will be the very promising Fujifilm X-T2).
I got my example of the SD Quattro yesterday together with the fantastic 30mm F1.4 DC lens from Ott and Wyss AG Switzerland. Thanks a lot to Markus Schranz for this opportunity.
Ultra brief verdict: The SD Quattro is great to shoot and the image quality is top level. Taken its price into account it's a fantastic cam and I'm sure some people will love it.
Things I like:
Very clean images (thanks to Foveon sensor)
Slow but very accurate autofocus (it takes a 1-2 seconds till the focus frame turns green with a beep but then it is absolutely in focus (my Sony often says "Yep sharp" but later in Lightroom I see... nope it wasn't))
Manual focussing with focus peaking
Feels great in your hand
The design is unique (and I personally like it)
Very solid built (the 3000$ Sony a7r II doesn't feel closely as solid)
Sigma Art lenses are great
Things I don't like:
No Lightroom Support (you have to go the way via SIGMA Photo Pro 6 which is free)
Autofocus is so slow you can not shoot moving objects (a snail may be too fast ;))
Image quality of the viewfinder is horrible (must be a bug)
Always a little noise visible even while shooting ISO 100 (everything above ISO 100 is not usable imho) and if I pull dark areas up in CameraRaw the noise gets pretty ugly (compared with the Sony a7r II)
No magnification/zoom while manually focussing
So... who is this cam for you may ask? Definitely not for everybody. Perhaps for landscape and product shooters. Well check it out anyways... sometimes it's better to try out something yourself than relying on stupid reviews ;)
Later this year Sigma will even release a APS-H version (resolution approx. 50 MPix) and I'm really really tempted to buy that baby as soon as it's available (together with the 20mm Art lens).
And here we go with a few images (all of them are slightely processed. Export via SIGMA PhotoPro 6 to Lightroom CC as 16Bit TIF and further to Photoshop (Camera Raw)):
Sunflower and crop below
Sunflower and crop below
Bike belt and crop below
Stones and green crop below
Wing crop below
