Sigma SD14 - 14-megapixel

Three years since Sigma last introduced a digital SLR. That's nearly two generations by digital camera standards. But, just days before the Photokina international trade show in September, Sigma announced the new SD14 ($1,600, estimated street, body only), proving it was still in the game.

Besides the Sigma name on the camera, you'll see the Foveon X3 logo: The SD14 is the first DSLR to include a new and improved Foveon X3 direct image sensor. Foveon and Sigma call it a 14.1-megapixel sensor and will market the camera as a 14.1MP DSLR, just as they billed the earlier SD9 and SD10 as 10MP cameras.

But all megapixels are not created equal. Unlike the CMOS and CCD imaging sensors used in cameras from other makers, which place red, green, and blue filters over different pixels on a monochromatic sensor, the Foveon X3 creates a color image by reading out color data from each of three separate layers sensitive to red, green, and blue. As a result, the sensor acts more like film does when capturing an image, helping to reduce moiré patterns and other artifacts in the very fine details of a typical image. So a more accurate description would be to say that the X3 sensor contains 14.1 million active pixels in three overlapping layers of 4.7 million pixels each. Granted, that would be hard to fit on the box!

Our Certified Lab Tests of the Sigma SD10 (which had 10.2 million active pixels in layers that each contained 3.4 million pixels) found it could resolve image detail on par with a good 6.5MP CMOS or CCD sensor. So, we'll bet that the new SD14 delivers resolution on par with 9.2-10MP DSLRs, but will not be in the same resolution class as the 12.4MP Nikon D2xs, for instance.


Of course, resolution is just one factor we use to determine image quality. And, based on the SD14's heritage, you can expect it to capture extremely accurate colors, fine details in shadow areas, and incredibly low noise. We'll reserve judgment, though, until we've run a production unit through the Pop Photo Lab.

Via Popphoto