Sigma Photo Pro for OS X and Sigma DP1 Merrill
I downloaded Sigma Photo Pro 5.3 so as to process Sigma DP1 Merill X3F RAW files.
My eagerness evaporated quickly— Sigma Photo Pro 5.3 crashes within 30 seconds of double-clicking an image to edit, without fail. It is totally unusable , never mind the horrific user interface, which I can (literally) barely read. It’s a 32-bit application, not 64-bit as any app should have been for the past 2 years. And no, it’s not my machine, which is rock solid with Photoshop, etc.
The web site advises “Before starting the download of the installer program, make sure all applications in your computer are closed.”. Well, there is no installer and why in 2012 should anyone have to follow such requirements on a 64-bit memory-protected OS anyway? There is no way the web site could be written the way it is if they actually had looked (once) at the software they supply.
Anyway, the JPEG file quality looks to have the usual excessively high Sigma noise even at ISO 100, but with very high resolution and what looks to be a decent lens. I have no idea what a X3F RAW file can do, since the software cannot be used.
Look, here’s the executive summary: intriguing sensor, high noise, world’s worst autofocus, worst LCD I’ve seen in a long time, no built-in flash, plastic build, bulky and not pocketable, slippery body with no grip and boxy shape, better menus than last year, no support for RAW except from unusable software. Well, you do have to give Sigma credit for including two (2) batteries, presumably because of the very short battery life.
The crash
I was a professional software engineer (a damn good one) for 25 years. I have no tolerance for sloppiness in writing code, particularly for incompetents whose code is so buggy that bad pointers float around and then crash the program.
Process: SIGMA Photo Pro [10121] Path: /Applications/SIGMA Photo Pro.app/Contents/MacOS/SIGMA Photo Pro Identifier: com.sigmaphoto.photopro Version: 5.3.2 (4.0) Code Type: X86 (Native) Parent Process: launchd [243] User ID: 501 Date/Time: 2012-09-14 16:59:56.688 -0700 OS Version: Mac OS X 10.8.1 (12B19) Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV) Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000064166000 VM Regions Near 0x64166000: MALLOC_LARGE 00000000610aa000-0000000064166000 [ 48.7M] rw-/rwx SM=PRV --> MALLOC_LARGE 00000000648f1000-00000000673e8000 [ 43.0M] rw-/rwx SM=PRV