Gallery Preview
We mentioned that you'll have a ton of red in your LCD preview. That's actually good. If you've got a lot of white in the LCD, you're overexposed, and it's tough to fix, especially in JPEG, so again, we remind you to shoot RAW. If you choose to shoot JPEG, don't say we didn't warn you.
The next step is to bring the images into your RAW converter. For black and white conversions, the Monochrome White Balance function of Sigma's Photo Pro software is impressive for both neutral (silver-type) and tinted monochromes. But for color IR plus visible images, Adobe Camera RAW seems to do a better job, particularly with setting color temperature. We found that setting the color temp to around 2600 and desaturating between -33 and -66 yields good global adjustments before importing to Photoshop for final image optimization. Depending on the particulars of the image, you'll probably want to tweak the main exposure adjustment slider during RAW processing.
Once we brought the images into Photoshop, we messed around with most of the commands under Image>Adjustments to get a feel for what worked well with these IR images. Hue/Saturation can selectively desaturate colors even more, or conversely, boost the colors. Shadow/Highlights can pull up blocked shadows. Channel Mixer is probably the strongest monochrome tool in Photoshop, and is an alternative to using Sigma's Monochrome White Balance. Photo filter is good for warming or cooling an image as desired.
We'd tell you there was a formula, but there's not. It's all about experimentation.
With one IR plus visible image, we decided to go two ways, one a full-on monochrome version through Sigma Photo Pro, and the other a false color image via ACR. We then selectively desaturated the blue sky to bring a surreal mood to the same frame. Again, experimentation is a big part of the process.
Sigma is not aggressively marketing the SD14 as one of the only hot-swappable visible, IR plus visible and IR-only spectrum interchangeable lens cameras on the market, but maybe they should. It's a cool trick of this already unconventional, Foveon-sensor based camera. (One of the few others is the Leica M8, but that's another story!)
Stay tuned to Popular Photography & Imaging and www.PopPhoto.com for our full lab test of the SD14.
LINKS:
Sigma SD14 Hands On
Sigma SD14 Product Gallery
Sigma SD14 Image Quality Gallery
Sigma SD14 Infrared Image Quality Gallery
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