I went out yesterday with the Sigma only, just to give it an airing. Then today I went out with both the Sigma and the Fuji. The Sigma is, as far as I'm concerned, all but peerless while the light is good. Then, when it gets beyond the Sigma's capabilities (i.e over ISO 400), then the Fuji comes out and starts showing off its very impressive high-ISO skills. It's a nice synergistic combination. And, as if I hadn't said it a few hundred times before, shooting with the Fuji is so much fun! The Sigma delivers the goods (and goes above and beyond), but you tend not to notice it until you load up the pictures, at which point your eyes pop out like in a cartoon). The Fuji provides the entertainment as you shoot it, and the results (while not holding a candle to the Sigma in terms of detail) are more than acceptable in their own right, and superb in the dark.

Sigma in good (and not so good) light first...

Halloween costumes all over the place...

This next shot was tricky. Took some Photoshop magic to get it the way I wanted it.

Just to prove that the Merrill CAN do low light if necessary...

With spot metering and a steady hand, the Merrill is OK up until sunset

Now it's Fuji's turn. These were shot when it was dark enough that the Sigma would not have been an option (short of turning it up to disastrously high ISO levels, which in the Sigma's case means anything over 400!). Most of these were around ISO 3200 and 4000, and for a change I shot the Fuji in RAW and ran it through Silkypix, which is only a little faster than Sigma's proprietary RAW conversion software. I'd started noticing some smearing and certain other undesirable effects in some of the JPEGs from the Fuji, so I figured I should give RAW a go.

Fire drill

And to finish this entry off, "baiser de la gare du métro" :-)

I should have some black and white film scans soon, so keep an eye out.

Thanks for looking!