Sigma’s dp Quattro: minimal be thy name

Today, cameras are starting to look more like smartphones and smartphones are starting to look more like cameras. Japanese camera manufacturer Sigma Corporation recently revealed its Sigma dp Quattro series. Apart from being the company’s second digital camera, one of the highlights of this series has to be its design. That, and Sigma’s new Foveon X3 direct image sensor which is said to rock your socks off.

The dp Quattro’s design is said to be based on feedback from its predecessor, the dp Merril, and is meant to not only give you superior holding performance but also a balanced shape, layout, and weight distribution. Whatever it’s meant to or not, it’s definitely an eye-catcher. Apart from the 3″ LCD monitor, a few buttons and two dials, it looks like a phone fitted with one of Sony’s DSC lenses.

The Verge ,who managed to get its hand on the dp Quattro, says that the overall effect of its design is “strikingly minimalist, reducing the camera down to the bare essentials: a lens, a grip with controls, and a box to house them all.”

There are three models: the wide-angle dp1 Quattro at 19mm, the standard dp2 Quattro at 30mm, and the medium telephoto dp3 Quattro at 50mm. The Sigma dp Quattro has a 29-megapixel sensor and a shutter speed of 1/2000 — 30 seconds.

The new Foveon X3 sensor, Sigma claims, is the world’s only direct image sensor because it uses “vertical colour separation technology”. Sigma further says that by “leveraging the light absorption characteristics of silicon, the sensor comprises three layers of photodiodes, each at a different depth within the silicon and each corresponding to a different RGB color.”

The images are said to have 30% more resolution than its predecessors. The Forex X3 captures light vertically instead of horizontally like most cameras do. This would give your images “rich tone, gradation and texture that one can almost touch.” It also somehow makes the volume of image data lighter and will process your images faster.

Image via The Verge