It is here, my friends, it is here: the first serious review of Sigma’s new Foveon DSLR, the SD15 – well, the first in English, that is. (The actual first review came from DCWatch and was in Japanese, as reported earlier.)

Picture courtesy of Sigma Corporation.

The Sigma SD15, successor to the SD14 (which is in-stock at B&H Photo), sports the same 3 x 4.7 megapixel Foveon sensor as its predecessor. Due to the Foveon sensor’s unique format, any lens mounted to the SD15 will have a field-of-view equivalent to ~ 1.7x of its indicated focal length on full-frame. An article on the achitecture of the Foveon sensor can be found here on dpreview, as well as the full specs of the SD15 DSLR.

On the IQ side, PhotoBLOG note that the SD15 delivers much more consistent colours than any of its predecessors, showing less white-balance problems or odd colour casts, which the earlier Sigma cameras were kind of renowned for. High ISOs are still very prone to noise, though, and anything above ISO 800 looks plainly awful (in the humble opinion of this blog’s editor). But if you know how to handle the camera, it can deliver some astonishing results. Pair this with the very nice lens setup Sigma has on offer for the SD series, and you’ve got a nice tool for those who are serious about image quality.

You can find the full review of the Sigma SD15 here at PhotographyBLOG.