Sigma DP1s review

A compact for the pros, with full manual controls

Two years on from the release of Sigma’s first-ever compact digital camera, the DP1, comes its successor, the DP1s. This model includes a few design changes to help speed up the operation, but essentially it offers the same core feature set as the original.

The DP1s is a well-built and easy-to-use compact, aimed at the professional photographer or prosumer looking for a pocket alternative to their DSLR. It marries a 14MP Foveon X3 sensor to a 28mm prime lens, which creates excellent images with appealing colour and corner-to-corner sharpness.

There’s a wealth of advanced features on offer for the discerning user, including Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority and Manual exposure modes, a Manual Focus mode complete with thumb-operated dial, built-in pop-up flash, an external hotshoe which takes either a flash gun or optional optical viewfinder, and support for both JPEG and RAW.

The control layout is largely well thought out, with a likeable stripped-back interface, although there are a few aspects that betray Sigma’s relative inexperience in camera design. The brand new Quick Settings menu, inherited from the DP2 camera, speeds up operation by providing most of the key settings in one submenu, and the ability to program several of the controls and essentially customise the camera is very welcome. There’s a traditional Shooting mode dial on top of the body, mimicking a DSLR, and the Shutter Release button has a positive action.

On the other hand, there’s no control wheel for setting either the aperture or the shutter speed, instead awkwardly relying on the navigation pad on the rear. Also, if you forget to remove the lens hood, the camera annoyingly prompts you to turn the power off and then on again.

Manual focusing is much better implemented than on most compact cameras, with a dedicated rear dial allowing you to quickly set the distance, accompanied by an on-screen horizontal bar. Unfortunately, the display isn’t magnified to assist in judging if the subject is sharp.

The autofocus system is reliable enough in that it almost always locks onto the subject, but it takes around a second to do so, making the DP1s better suited to stationary subjects than action photography. This is reinforced by the need to dip into the menu system just to change the autofocus point, slowing things down even further, and there’s no fancy Subject-tracking mode.

As with the general operation of the DP1s, lots of patience is required, as the camera takes around ten seconds to record a RAW file to memory before you can take the next picture. Even JPEGs suffer, with a one-second delay between each shot.

The 2.5-inch LCD screen is on the small side, and it’s rather grainy thanks to the barely-adequate 230k-dot resolution. An optional optical viewfinder can be fitted via the external hotshoe, but Sigma’s unit is imprecise and expensive.

Image quality is where the DP1s shines. Even two years after the original model, it’s still one of the few compacts to offer DSLR-like results, thanks to the 14-megapixel Foveon sensor and sharp 28mm lens, which delivers a unique look and noise-free results from ISO 50-400. Even the top speed of ISO 800 isn’t too bad, so it’s difficult to understand why there are no faster settings which would have increased the camera’s handheld versatility in low light. The main drawback of the Foveon technology is the limited image size of 2640 x 1760 pixels, requiring interpolation to make really big prints, but the APS-C-size sensor undoubtedly produces stunning photos.

With only a couple of real improvements, the DP1s already feels somewhat out of date.