Sigma dp2 Quattro Review – Image Quality

Colour and white balance

On the whole the camera’s auto white balance performance is reliable. JPEG files offer a richer and more vibrant colour palette than previous Sigma DP models.

If you’re looking for a different colour palette to better suit your needs the good news is that there are a range of alternative colour modes on offer, each with the ability to fine-tune contrast, sharpness and saturation should you so require.

Exposure

Thanks to the utilisation of on-sensor metering, the dp2 Quattro generally delivers well-judged exposures. The image capture process also benefits from the presence of an on-screen histogram for exposure reference, while the rear command dial delivers quick tweaking of exposure compensation settings.

Resolution

The Foveon Quattro image sensor delivers a seriously impressive amount of detail, quite unlike that captured on a conventional Bayer sensor. In fact, although the native resolution is 19.6MP, if you were to compare it to a more traditional Bayer pattern sensor the real resolution would be far higher.

This performance is also made possible by the fantastic quality of the lens, delivering corner to corner sharpness and no visible chromatic aberration in a wide range of conditions. It’s fair to say it’s one of the best fixed lenses on the market.

Noise

For all the benefits of the Foveon sensor when it comes to fine detail and general image quality, there have always been question marks over the sensor performance when it comes to the higher ISO settings.

There have been a few modifications when it comes to the sensor of the dp2 Quattro, and at the lower settings the sensor generally holds up well, up to around ISO 800. At this point colours smear and desaturate, while detail in shadow areas also diminishes.

At ISO 1600 JPEG files suffer greatly due to a change in the processing style whereby the dp2 Quattro begins working at 4.9MP resolution and then upsampling to 19.6MP. As a result, detail drops off hugely and colours block.

This process can be avoided when shooting Raw files, and although the quality is markedly better unfortunately you can only process the Raw files using Sigma’s Photo Pro 6 editing software, and as such it can be a slightly restrictive process.