To compare real-life performance, I shot this scene with the Sigma DP1 Quattro and the Fujifilm XT1 within a few moments of each other. To perfectly match the coverage of the Sigma, I fitted the XT1 with the 10-24mm zoom and adjusted it to match. Both lenses were then set to f5.6 in Aperture Priority and their exposures matched. Both cameras were set to RAW+JPEG. I’m presenting the JPEG results here and will add RAW results once the DP1 Quattro is supported in Adobe Camera RAW. I shot at the base sensitivity of 100 ISO for the DP1 Quattro and 200 ISO for the XT1. Tone Control on the DP1 was set to Mild and Purple Fringe reduction enabled.In this first table I’ve compared the JPEG output from two quite different sensor technologies: Sigma’s DP1 Quattro with its Foveon X3 sensor and Fujifilm’s XT1 with the company’s own X-Trans sensor. To get the best quality from the Fuji I really wanted to test it with an equivalent prime lens here, but one wasn’t available to me at the time of testing, so I went for the 10-24mm zoom and adjusted it until the coverage perfectly matched. As such I believe the output from the XT1 could be crisper, but the comparison still gives an indication of what you can expect.Shooting at its native 19 Megapixel resolution, the DP1 Quattro crops show a slightly smaller area than the 16 Megapixel Fuji sensor when presented at 100% here. In pure numbers this should give it a small resolution advantage, and indeed the DP1 crops reveal crisper details across the frame, including the middle where the Fuji lens should be performing optimally. In comparison the Fuji crops look a little soft. I believe the difference isn’t down to a few Megapixels difference though, but the different sensor technologies and default JPEG processing which on the DP1 Quattro is simply delivering more bite. I also think the colours are more vibrant on the Sigma, and not in an artificially boosted way either.

But with that bite come some compromises. Even at the base sensitivity of 100 ISO I’m seeing a faint sprinkling of noise across the image, especially in the shadows and skies. To me this looks like noise reduction has been turned right down and sharpening boosted, which would certainly explain the bite of the image. I used the Standard Colour mode for all my test shots which has sharpening set to the middle 0 position, but there’s nowhere to adjust noise reduction that I could see. I look forward to updating this page with RAW results once supported in Adobe Camera RAW to see how much noise is present on both cameras and also how much it can be removed on the Sigma.

I’m also interested to see how effective the chromatic aberration correction on RAW files can be as despite having the camera’s own Purple Fringe reduction enabled, there’s still evidence of coloured fringing on the sample here, especially on the final crop.

But even with the caveats, there’s a look to the DP1 Quattro’s images that’s very appealing in terms of tone and colour, and you’ll see a lot more of that in my Sigma DP1 Quattro sample images. But before heading off, scroll down to see a comparison between the native 19 Megapixel and interpolated 39 Megapixel JPEG modes, along with another comparison, this time with the Olympus OMD EM1. Or skip to my Sigma DP1 Quattro noise results or head straight to my verdict!