Short Report: Sigma SD14

Is this new D-SLR, with its unique image sensor, great for outdoors?

By Mike Stensvold

On paper, the unique Foveon X3 sensor in Sigma’s new SD14 D-SLR offers several benefits for the outdoor photographer: a wide dynamic range, important when shooting contrasty scenes or subjects; great detail, handy for those landscapes and close-up detail studies; and accurate color rendition, useful for all outdoor subjects.

Sigma’s catalog for the camera contains gorgeous photos, but they’re all studio shots made with flash. So naturally, we wondered how the new D-SLR and its Foveon X3 image sensor would handle outdoor subjects and light.

Sigma SD14 Before revealing the answer, a few words about the X3 image sensor. While the sensors in other D-SLRs record one primary color (red, green or blue) at each pixel site and interpolate data for the other colors from neighboring pixels via complex algorithms, the X3 records all three primary colors at every pixel site. This results in image quality well beyond what one would expect from the sensor’s horizontal-by-vertical pixel count.

For the X3 sensor in the SD14, that horizontal-by-vertical pixel count is 2640 x 1760, or 4.7 megapixels. However, there are three layers (hence the X3 name)—a top layer records blue, a middle layer records green, and a bottom layer records red. Thus, Sigma claims that the sensor contains three times 4.7 megapixels, or 14 megapixels.