Before we decided to post this, we did a little bit of research and confirmed it to be true. Sigma’s DP line of point and shoots such as the DP1, DP2 and DP3 Merrill have been hacked by the Chinese to use an M Mount. We first heard about this via Mirrorless Rumors, and it is indeed real. There are some more images of the hack in this Google translated forum and a company is charging to do it for users.
So what does this mean? Well first off, this is one of the most exciting pieces of news that we’ve heard in a while. Sigma’s Foveon sensor is actually quite good if you can think of it as a Hasselblad Medium format camera–which means that you need to use proprietary software to get the best results and that the ISO range isn’t up to par with others. In this way, you could probably call it the closest thing to a Mamiya 7 II in terms of digital formats–but many of us who have used that camera know that nothing could ever touch it.
But the bigger question is why isn’t Sigma doing this themselves? Back at CES, I spoke with the President of the company–and his desk (he doesn’t have an office) is in the same area as the engineers. But I really wonder what he’s thinking, and am confident he’s reading this and looking at it with great curiosity