In case you're not au fait with the Foveon sensor in the Sigma DP3 Merrill, it basically consists of a single, very considerable tradeoff. You get absolutely incredible image quality (resolution, micro-contrast, etc) at ISO 100 and 200 - it's generally accepted that to match it you have to be dealing with something like a Nikon D810 with Nikon's top primes - but the penalty for this is that you can't really go any higher and expect the same quality. You can sort of get away with 400 sometimes if you expose it right, and there is a trick to shooting at 800 / 1600 and converting to black and white (however, you lose a lot of fine detail when you look up close). So you basically have to stay at 100 and 200 to get the most from the camera.

When it comes to low light, you have three choices : a) use a tripod or somehow stabilise the camera, b) spot meter the highlights and play with the exposure compensation until you get a decent exposure (and a usable shutter speed, which in my case is about 1/40 or over) or c) put the camera away. I'm actually starting to wait for the prices of the original Sony A7s to come down a bit more (which it will, as the version 2 is now out) because I've seen what it can do in low / very low light, and it is incredibly impressive. The A7s and the Merrill would be a great combination...but for now, it's just the Sigma.

Anyway, here are some shots made recently with the DP3 Merrill. First up, a couple of somewhat abstract shots using shadow, line and colour.

Two flower shots - the yellow flower in particular shows stunning contrast and detail at 100%.

A few "street" shots, if that's not going to bring down the wrath of the "you didn't shoot it with a 28mm and a rangefinder, so it's not street photography" crowd.

There's an old cliché that says when the light is good, anything looks good as a subject. I don't know if "everything" is quite right, but a simple blue net (which is actually used to cover garbage on collection days) looks pretty impressive.

Lastly, to show that the "spot meter the highlights, use exposure compensation and try not to breathe" method can work, a few shots from where there wasn't as much light. No doubt the A7S could have shot these at f11 at 1/1000 while not even breaking a sweat...but I don't have one yet. So I had to work around the Sigma's limitations a bit.

Next up (probably next week) will be the first of what I think will be a two-parter on the cherry blossoms, at it's that time of year again.

Thanks for looking!