Sigma announces the DP2s, an improved DP2

 

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Posted on 24 Feb 2010 at 11:57

Sigma has announced a successor to the DP2 compact camera, which promises to fix most of the original's problems.

The camera's specifications are largely the same as the original DP2, but there are some improvements. The biggest flaw with the original DP2 was its often painfully slow auto-focus and Sigma was quick to highlight the newly announced DP2s's improved auto-focus system.

Sigma says that the new auto-focus system uses a new algorithm which provides high speed auto focusing to deliver a more enjoyable shooting experience, although it's still using contrast detection as opposed to phase detection.

A new power save mode, which lowers battery consumption and enables more photos to be taken with a single charge of the battery, has also been developed for the DP2s. The DP2s also has redesigned the back of the camera to incorporate an easier-to-use control system - Sigma says that the addition of red markings has paid dividends here, but the 230k dot 2.5in screen is a fairly low resolution by today's standards.

Inside its body, there's a 14 megapixel Foveon X3 CMOS sensor measuring 20.7 x 13.8mm which supports 12-bit RAW capture in addition to three JPEG quality levels. ISO sensitivity ranges from 100 to 800 in JPEG mode and can be expanded to 1,600 and 3,200 if you're capturing images in RAW.

The lens is a 41mm (effective) f/2.8 fixed focal length lens, which might put some people off, but we quite like the idea of a compact camera with a fixed focal length lens, as it should hopefully be much sharper than the tiny zoom lenses we see on today's compacts.

There's also a new version of the firm's RAW image processing software, Sigma Photo Pro 4.0, which comes with the DP2s. It has a superior image processing algorithm and improved compatibility with multi-core CPUs, which collectively result in better image processing speed and improved image quality. One image quality improvement highlighted by Sigma was its new noise reduction algorithm, which "reduces Chroma and Luminance noise when processing X3F files [the DP2s's RAW files] taken at ISO400 or more" - it's controllable using a slider in the control pallet.

Sigma offers a number of accessories for the DP2s, including a dedicated viewfinder, hood adapter and a hot-shoe mounted flash. Sigma hasn't announced availability or pricing for the DP2s yet.

Author: Tim Smalley