2. Controls and Usability
Physical controls
The camera's physical controls are mainly located on the top and back.
On the back, there are quick-access buttons for various features such as focus, which brings up a focusing scale on the LCD screen, as well as one that brings up the focus point selector. Most buttons are relatively self-explanatory, with the exception of one labelled "QS". The QS button seems to attempt to make up for this lack of dedicated buttons, by providing an all-in-one solution to change various settings.
A single press of the QS button brings up the quick select menu for ISO (auto, 100-6400), metering mode (matrix, centred and spot), drive mode (single shot, continuous burst, and timer) and flash (auto, red eye reduction, slow sync and slow sync with red eye reduction).
Pressing the QS button a second time brings up a second quick select menu, this time for white balance, image quality (low to high), colour mode (a plethora are available, ranging from standard to Foveon Blue) and file type (RAW or jpeg).
While the QS button is certainly a welcome change from having to search through the menu system to make simple setting changes, it simply cannot beat dedicated buttons for speed and ease of use.
On the top, there is only the power button, mode button as well as the shutter release and a scroll wheel.
The power button blinks green when switched on, and blinks green again when the camera is powered off. The camera has rather fast startup, displaying the logo for the Sigma DP1 Merrill briefly switching on. Once the camera is started, it is possible to start taking photos almost immediately with very little lag time.
In the front, there is a focusing ring around the lens, which is smooth and wide enough for comfortable usage. Turning the focusing ring while the camera is in autofocus does nothing - the camera has to be set to manual focus before the ring has an effect. When in manual focus, the an electronic distance scale appears on the LCD screen.
Menu system
The menu system is divided into three sections: shooting, playback and general settings. I have to admit that when I first started using the camera, the menu system was less than intuitive for me, although it is no longer an issue now. Thanks to the QS button mentioned previously, most significant shooting settings can be accessed via other means, although the menu still has to be used if one wishes to do bracketing for example.
The menu defaults back to the first option after exiting the system, which can at times be frustrating because it requires a scroll through to the item you were previously at. Nonetheless, it is a relatively well laid-out menu system that can be understood relatively easily.
Write speed
I had been warned beforehand that the Sigma DP1M was an exceptionally slow camera that required extra patience, but nothing really prepared me for the waiting time I encountered the first time I took a photograph with it. As someone used to the lightning fast speed of professional DSLRs, having to wait a good 10 seconds before the file finished writing to the card was a new experience.
I mainly used Sandisk Extreme 45mb/s SD cards in the camera, and even with that card, the amount of time taken to write a single RAW file to the card was between 8-9 seconds at best. With a 30mb/s card, the write time I measured was around 13-14 seconds for a single RAW file.
The Sigma DP1M does have sufficient buffer for 7 consecutive RAW shots, but the bigger issue for me is that an image preview of the photograph I just took is not available until the RAW file(s) have finished writing to the card. This means that if I took 7 images in quick succession, I would have to wait for all 7 to finish writing before being able to even preview a single one of them. RAW file sizes ranged from 45MB to just over 60MB per file, which is pretty massive for such a small camera and partially explains the slow write speed, but the inability to preview an image immediately was really a source of much irritation for me.
Battery life
The Sigma DP1M actually comes with two batteries in the box, which I think gives an indication of Sigma's confidence in its battery life. For occasional usage, the camera's battery is sufficient, but for serious and heavy usage, even two batteries is grossly insufficient. I only managed to get an average of 80-90 shots out of the camera before the battery ran flat, and I imagine that things would be a lot worse in a cold climate or when doing long exposures. The only real solution to this would be to carry multiple batteries, which although small, could be rather inconvenient. Especially when travelling, the need to constantly keep multiple batteries charged could be an issue.
