chicken of the dslr industry

Sigma has laid another egg.

As expected, the "14" in "SD14", the latest DSLR from Sigma, refers to its Foveon sensor's "14-megapixels". This is stretching the truth at best. None of us counts an XGA (1024x768) monitor as having 2.36 megapixels (1024x768x3), so neither should Sigma count its 2652x1769 sensor as having 14.15 megapixels - it's really 4.7 megapixels.

In all fairness, the Sigma does have higher resolution per output pixel than the others, but not three times higher. DPReview measured the Sigma SD10, with its "10.4-megapixel" Foveon sensor, as having about the same resolution as the 6.3-megapixel Canon 10D. Assuming no major changes in either sensor architecture (if there had been any, I'm sure they would've been touted by these two technology-driven companies), a 14.15-megapixel Foveon would then have the equivalent resolution of an 8.6-megapixel Canon - i.e., less than any of the new entry-level 10-megapixel DSLRs. In other words, Sigma has fallen behind the resolution curve.

Meanwhile, compared to the competition, the Sigma SD10 was lacking a number of features. Has Sigma closed the gap in areas other than the sensor?

Nope. The bullet points in the press release are pitiful:

- in-camera JPEG
Great, now Sigma can do what every single digital camera from disposable on up has had standard since the mid-90s. Oh wait, wasn't there one that didn't? Hint: the model name started with "Sigma SD1".

- improved 5-point AF
Ummm, every DSLR above $600 has at least 9 AF points now. Hell, the Canon 300D had 7 points, and that was introduced two months before the SD14's predecessor.

- Li-Ion battery
Wow, it can take a whole 500 shots on one charge. Even the measly little battery on the Canon 350D can take 600 shots.

- Larger 2.5" LCD
Yeah, but with 150,000 pixels - significantly lower resolution than the 210,000-230,000-pixel units found on all the new entry-level DSLRs. (While other DSLR manufacturers refrain from counting Sigma-style on their sensors, they uniformly count 3-for-1 on their LCDs - but so does Sigma).

- Large and Bright Pentaprism Viewfinder
I don't know about bright, but the Sigma's 0.9x magnification of a 1.7x-crop image ranks as one of the smaller viewfinders in the DSLR industry. The Canon 400D is a tiny bit smaller, and the Olympus, with its four-thirds sensor, is smaller still. But this is significantly smaller than the 0.94x/0.95x magnification, 1.5x-crop of the Nikon D80 or Pentax K10D. And it's not even close to the full-frame Canon DSLRs (or even an entry-level film SLR).

- Three Metering Modes
...none of which are "spot". And eight-segment metering is laughable in an age of 21-1002-sample metering

- Built-in flash
Again, is Sigma marketing so lacking features to tout that they need mention what every consumer-level camera has had since long before the dawn of digital cameras?

- Dust Protector
This is apparently the same as on the SD10: a translucent covering that keeps dust off the sensor - but which in turn will collect dust. Sigma brushes the problem under the rug, by saying the protector is far enough away from the sensor to prevent dust from appearing in the image. They're probably right, but sooner or later you'll have to clean the protector, which makes it not much better than the other DSLR solutions out there.

- 100,000-cycle shutter
Okay, finally we have something that is an improvement over an entry-level DSLR, but no more than what's offered in the Canon 30D (and see pricing below).

Add to this an industry-trailing 6-frame buffer (both RAW and JPEG), a form factor larger than any of the entry-level competition, and none of the new bells and whistles like in-body anti-shake, sensitivity-priority, dynamic range optimization, or weather-sealing.

But maybe I'm looking at this all wrong. I mean, the improvements over the SD10 should remove most of the annoyances with using a Sigma DSLR, so are all the bells-and-whistles of competitors' DSLRs really necessary? Well, in my book, the answer to that depends on how much cheaper the Sigma is than the competition. Of the competition, the Nikon D80 is the most expensive, at $999. The Sigma is - wait for it - more than $600 more expensive. That's right, Sigma is asking the same price it asked for the SD10: 1099 British pounds. The SD10 sold for over $1600 in the US, or roughly the price of a new Nikon D200 - a camera which adds dust-sealing and 5 fps continuous drive to the D80's already superior feature list.

In case my conclusion is not yet clear, let me spell it out: Sigma, you've lost. It was interesting, but you've never been close to competitive, and the handful of cameras you sell a year is doing nothing to spur competition with the other manufacturers. The theoretical superiority of the Foveon sensor appears to be even more illusory than that of RISC vs. CISC processors. At least the RISC processors really were faster for a while until Intel caught up and left them in the dust (as evidenced by Apple's switch from PowerPC to Intel). Foveon never even led.