Casual shooting with the dp2 quattro

Yesterday two fellow Sigma shooters visited us. As expected when you put four photographers together, they go out and find a spot to shoot around. In this case we headed for the Neuleiningen Castle. The village around it is build against a steep hill and the style of the houses are classic German.

‘Point & Shoot’

Only our timing could have been a little bit better. It was the middle of the day with bright sunshine, resulting in very harsh light conditions. For me there was another small handicap as I had to push a stroller around. But that turned the events into a interesting exercise. With the stroller, and it’s demanding passenger, I did not have the time to shoot slow and deliberately. One could say I had to ‘point & shoot’.

The dp2 quattro turned out to be very usable for this. The camera is very easy to shoot one handed with the new grip. Focusing is fast enough and the results are very good. I still have the habit of using always RAW but in this case the JPGs out of the camera would have been more than usable. Auto White Balance nailed practically every shot. Exposure was generally good although a bit on the bright side for my taste.

Battery life is OK

Another nice surprise was the battery life. With DP Merrills I always had to carry a bag full of batteries for a simple photo trip. With the quattro I see  batteries lasts for around 25o shots. For a trip like this one it is most of the time sufficient. Having one back up battery would be a good idea though,thankfully Sigma does include a spare battery in the package.

The screen

All good then? No, the screen turned out hard to use in this kind of (extremely) bright environment. The reflection on the glass is a bit much making it hard to use at times. In dimmer environments it is great, detailed & colorful, maybe even a bit too colorful.

Oh and more thing; the camera is considerably bigger in appearance making it much harder to shoot unnoticed.