I enjoyed another visit from a TOP reader a few evenings ago—Frank Sauer, of Princeton, New Jersey, same vintage as me more or less, a German-born American who still speaks with an accent and happened by chance to end up with a German company when, in the U.S., he switched jobs from Bell Labs to Siemens. Frank was nearby attending a conference on blockchain technology in Ithaca and brought some prints to Thai Elephants in Watkins Glen for me to see.
Frank Sauer
Ah, prints. I love looking at prints. I miss looking at prints. Most pictures exist only on screens, and that's as it should be—but that makes physical photographs more pleasing, not less. (In the same way, most music exists as digital files, and that's as it should be, but that makes vinyl records more pleasing, not less. Books, ditto.)
I really like physical pictures, but especially when they're as nicely made as Frank's. He's done two extensive projects recently, one of his backyard, and one of a nature preserve near where he lives, and he showed me three groups of prints: small, unmounted flower pictures (excellent), and two groups of large prints made on 17x22" paper, expertly matted: one group of B&W and one of color. These were superb.
He uses the little Sigma Merrill cameras for their image quality. As you might have heard me opine before, I think Sigma Foveon-sensor cameras offer the best image quality in digital. Various forum squatters will bloviate with impressive windiness as to why that cannot be true. Here's what they are: wrong.
Okay, I'm being provocative, tweaking peoples' tails. But I'll just say that I like Foveon-sensor 17x22 prints at least as well as Fuji GFX-50S 17x22 prints (not that there's anything wrong with those either). It's just that the Sigmas are about nine times worse as cameras—they're a pain in the katushka to use, and the software is slow and harder to master. If I wanted to make physical photographs, and I was a good enough technician to handle the challenge of using the camera and the necessary software—I'm not—I tried—then I'd get a Foveon-sensor camera and master it. It's not like they're expensive. But it was too much for me. I'm just not that devoted. Nice to know there are people out there, like Frank, who are.
The even better one
I'm not actually being provocative now. All just all plain true.
Frank and I parted early because I had a meeting to get to, and I encouraged him to hit Watkins Glen (the gorge, not the town) as long as he was in Watkins Glen (the town). He wrote later: "I followed your recommendation and went to the Watkins Glen gorge after our dinner, Mike. It is a magical place! I spent two and a half hours there, and only came back to the car at 9 p.m. when it started to get dark."
Frank's prints are beautiful, and were a joy to see. Thai Elephants is not bad, either. I had never been there before.
And I just remembered that I forgot to tell you about another very interesting reader who stopped by, who I met in Corning a while back. Gaaagh! Mistake. I must rectify that soon. He was going to clean up his website before I wrote about him and linked to it and then I left it slip. Sorry, Kyle. (As I sometimes say now, these days I can keep nine plates spinning, but it used to be 19.) More anon.
Mike
(Thanks to Frank)
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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:
David L.: "I recently started making 11x17 and 8x10 prints at home. What an eye opener, wow. After learning to use LR's split toning my B&W prints are beautiful. Color prints are also as exciting. Prints have a gravitas that not even my iMac 27-inch Retina screen can match."
Edward Taylor: "I agree with you completely about Foveon sensors. Perhaps someday Sony or another huge company will buy the rights and go to town."
MikeR: "Having coveted a camera with the Foveon sensor, like, forever, this year I bought a Sigma SD14 DSLR on eBay for real cheap. I sought that model, because it's the last one in the series that Lightroom can work with. It's everything you say it is. Nice film-like images, and a horrendous pain to use. Hence, no pictures yet. I place it in the view camera class of fiddlyness."
Ilkka: "I have two Sigma Foveon cameras and I agree with (almost) all you said. I also have two 4x5s. Yes, the Sigmas are slow and frustrating. But they are much faster to use than either of my 4x5s. They may be more frustrating, but for sure they are smaller, lighter, and faster. Than 4x5."
Arg: "I have had the Sigma Quattro dp0 ultra-wide fixed lens camera for going on three years now. They are indeed enigmatic. I thought I would mention, Mike, that one of the barriers to your adoption of the cameras, the eye-rolling software, can easily be circumnavigated with the Quattro models ever since early 2017, when a firmware upgrade provided the option of shooting direct to DNG files that are Lightroom-compatible. Needless to say, this has only opened another debating point within the Sigma communities, but I would be comfortably confident that it would also produce the print quality that you admire. As well as the option of colour-profiling one's own camera with a Macbeth colour card and Colorchecker software."
Mike asks: So can LR work with Sigma files or not? In the Comments so far, some (like Arg) say yes, some (like MikeR) say no.
TC: "My first attempt at a large-ish sensor compact was the original Sigma DP1. At low ISO the files were (and remain, even today) stellar. At mid- to high-ISO, it was unusable. The camera was maddeningly slow and difficult to use, not to mention the software. I had to get rid of it just to get my blood pressure normal again. But every so often I go back and look at the shots I did manage to get with that little monster gem of a camera, and sigh."
Frank Sauer: "Thank you for your nice words, Mike. I very much enjoyed our meeting. Here is a (yet to be processed) photo from the Watkins Glen gorge:
"Credit goes to your gorge recommendation. The Watkins Glen gorge is truly a spectacular place."
Michael Matthews: "I prefer prints, but am not exactly accomplished at making them. There’s plenty of beauty to be found in digital images as well, as some of the photos in the Garden Variety gallery at franksauer.smugmug.com make perfectly clear."
Al C.: "I second your statement re the Sigma Merrills. The only Bayer cam I've used which comes close is the Leica Q (I have not used any with larger sensor). I disagree with your comment that they are a pain in the katuschka to use. I would put it thus: in the right light conditions, they are quite easy to use; outside their ridiculously narrow operating envelop, they are impossible to use, and should not be used.
"Post-processing with Sigma Photo Pro (SPP) is not as bad as its reputation, in my opinion. It is slow, yes. But then I tend to be selective, and only process the few I deem worthy. And when the processed image emerges, it still takes my breath away."
