Comparing The Canon EOS 20D With The Sigma SD14

Comparing The Canon EOS 20D With The Sigma SD14

VitalBodies recently bought a new Sigma SD14 and had the opportunity to compare the Sigma with our Canon 20D. This is not intended to be an in depth review but instead a brief post about work flow and usability.

Canon EOS 20D Digital SLR 8.2 MP Camera Body

The 20D is a used but in excellent condition Canon EOS 20D Digital SLR Camera Body with an 8.2 MP sensor that VitalBodies used for taking product shots for listing for the VitalBodies web site and for ebay. The camera was also used for taking some scenic and nature photgraphs also. With 20D you can shoot JPG, Raw or both at the same time. The Camera uses CF cards for image storage and accepts nearly the whole range of Canon EOS lenses including the EFS lenses. The camera is a delight to use and has a very solid feeling in your hand.

VitalBodies did most of our product shots with a Canon 17-85mm f/4.5-5.6 lens with Image Stabilization.

This is a great lens for product shots where you need to take images of items that have a wide range of sizes like from the size of a person down to small coin. We needed a lens for tripod free shooting where we could use one lens and not have to stop and changes lenses all the time. Combined with the Canon 20D we were able to rapidly take all the shots we needed hand held and thus capture the full product and the angles and details also.

Work Flow: Work flow with this camera is fairly swift also. Once the images are shot, you just remove the CF card and insert the card into the computer and down load the images. For product images we mostly shoot in JPG for speed of use and smaller image storage needs. Once the images are in the computer GIMP was used to edit and crop. For most images the work flow was Crop, Curves, Sharpen, Scale, Save a Copy.

Sigma SD14 Digital SLR 14 MP Camera Body

This is a professional camera and uses a unique sensor called the Foveon X3® direct image sensor red11d that is said (by some) to be the best in the industry for capturing real color and creating digital images that rival film. Also said to create excellent large format prints on large format printers like many artists use in their studios. The Sigma has amazing ease of use and is very intuitive to use. VitalBodies is still getting used to the new lens and will comment more on that later.

Only SD14 Digital SLR camera powered by direct image sensor, can capture all primary RGB colors.

This camera is much more at home taking fine art photos than product images (so far) and takes amazing images, but you have to work for them as far as work flow is concerned.

Product Images: For this post we were only concerned with taking product images. An example might be to shoot a Dell Inspiron 530 to sell on Ebay. We only have one of these to sell so how much time do you want to spend on images? You want the product to sell and be well represented, yet you can’t spend forever, either.

Work Flow: Work flow with the Sigma camera is not as swift. Once the images are shot, you just remove the CF card and insert the card into the computer and down load the images, just like the Canon. For product images we mostly shoot in RAW on the Sigma for color quality which also requires larger image storage needs. Once the images are in the computer, one needs to open them with a program that edits the RAW files produced by this camera. If you used the program provided by Sigma your work flow might be more like this:

Adjust Exposure, Contrast, Shadow, Highlight, Saturation, Sharpness and X3 Fill Light.

The Save Image As of which you can choose one of three sizes: 13.9MP, 4.6MP or 1.5MP. You can Choose between JPG, TIFF 8-bit and TIFF 16-bit.

Next you will still need to open the image you just saved in GIMP to bring the image size down to where you can use it on the web. GIMP is then used to edit and crop. For most images the work flow was Crop, Scale, Save a Copy.

Reducing The Work Flow: A first glance you will find that GIMP can not open the Sigma RAW files. Yet, it is written, that you can use UFRaw as a plugin inside of GIMP. UFRaw can open the raw files as a stand alone program without GIMP and can also crop rotate and Scale the images! The simplicity and overall elegance of the Sigma Photo pro program is hard to let go of. The efficiency and power of the UFRaw program saves a lot of time and steps. Next is discover how UFRaw works inside of GIMP…