Sigma Is Producing a High-Resolution Camera With a Unique Sensor Next Year

Sigma Is Producing a High-Resolution Camera With a Unique Sensor Next Year

Sigma just introduced the fp, a remarkably small full frame mirrorless camera, but it seems the company is only just getting started. Next year, they'll be releasing a high-resolution mirrorless camera that takes advantage of a niche sensor technology that produces very sharp images.

If you're ever shot with any of Sigma's cameras that use a Foveon sensor, you know that they produce stunningly sharp images. The Foveon sensor is fundamentally different from the more standard Bayer sensor. Whereas the Bayer sensor uses different photosites for red, green, and blue wavelengths, the Foveon sensor is stacked, with each photosite receiving all three and relying on the different depths to which each corresponding wavelength will penetrate to separate them. While these sensors produce great images at base ISO, the cameras Sigma put them in were known for being slow and not particularly flexible, especially given their fixed lenses, plus Foveon sensors tend to have very poor high-ISO performance. Nonetheless, Sigma is planning a 60-megapixel L-mount mirrorless camera with such a sensor for next year. While it's unclear if the high-ISO performance will be improved, surely, usability and speed will be better, and having the ability to take advantage of the L mount's library of lenses could make it an intriguing studio camera for those looking for high resolution and excellent image quality. 

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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18 Comments

I love the images produced from Sigmas Foveon sensors but L-mount?? seriously sooooo expensive. I mean I get it, there are really great modern lenses being made in this mount. But are so many affordable Nikon F mount lenses that perform really well. I wish there was an option or that there was some universal mount that was made to be modular and customized to whatever you need it to be.

Sigma and Panasonic are making l-mount lenses, not just Leica. You can adapt a ton of lenses. I don’t get the problem compared to any modern mirrorless mount.

Sorry to tell you this, Marc, but Nikon's F-mount is has basically been obsoleted by its Z-mount. No future mirrorless cameras will adopt F-mount.

Well, they are a part of the "L-Mount Alliance" so it's pretty logical that they would make L-Mount cameras...

If only it was a mirrorless camera that you could adapt to just about any mount you wanted.... We can only wish I guess

L mount is Mirrorless and Sigma already have an adator to use both the EF snd SA mountv lens called the MC-21

Wow you have literally no sense of sarcasm do you. You should raise the height on your chair with all these jokes flying over your head.

Hopefully price will be reasonable at launch.

"Sigma put them in were known for being slow and not particularly flexible, especially given their fixed lenses..."
Erm, the sd line don't have fixed lenses. They've been around for ages.

Yup.

The SD line also has accsess to almost every Sigma lens ever made too, the 105Art is amazing on the sdQH as are both of the f1.8 zooms

Sure your limited by ISO and dont have crazy AF tracking but I've still managed to shoot some events (light permitting) with the sdQ-H and shot many studio and landscape works with it.

I shot this with a simga dp.

The SFD mode added to the Quattro line is fantastic, stick on an ND filter to get your shutter around 4 seconds and the results can be spectacular.

They have my attention.
Yes, the original DP's were a pain, but the image quality was amazing for the pixel count and I also like the colour.

I'd like Sigma to break into the cinema camera market before making a 60 megapixel still camera.

The Sigma fp camera can potentially record internal raw video after a firmware upgrade. If they put that camera in a video-centric case with XLR audio inputs it would make a good cinema camera without needing much development cost.

I would love a Foveon cinema camera. If they do end up making a Foveon version of the FP, I’m hoping it will have some movie capabilities.

The FP is interesting, but I still want them to focus on Foveon sensors. They don’t have to compete with conventional sensors on ISO, but faster autofocus and better out-of-camera JPG and TIFF would be attainable yet meaningful improvements.

I wouldn't mind having a full-frame Foveon camera for use in the studio.

Guys dont worry about price, its a Sigma. It will probably be release with a price of 6k usd, but if you are patient in probably 5 months price will drop to 1k usd or less.....

Actually their last Sd Quattro was around £850 at lauch or just over 1k with a 30mm prime, the dp series with fixed leaf shutter lens where also around £850.

Full Frame will cost more but that's expected but I know your talking about the origonal SD1 release, Sigma gave the buys of that when the price was high credit to spend on lens after the price dropped.

Fyi the new Sigma is 20mp x3 so the actual image size is smaller than the current sdQ-H which has a 25.6mp output altough the return to true x3 and much larger photosites will most likely make them both resolve a similar amount if detail but hopefully the Full Frame will have dynamic range and ISO improvements.