I've just bought a new toy, a Sigma SD14, it was a tough choice with the Cannon EOS 400D and Nikon D40 both pretty well established in the first dSLR market. The Sigma was however a bargain, with Sigma's £200 cashback and Jessops already cheap price you can get the body with an 18-50mm lense, UV filter and a cleaning cloth for under £300 (after cashback) That's not bad for any dSLR, especially when the suggested retail price of the SD14 is £1099.99!!

Well, first off, I'm no professional photographer, no studio, no fancy lights, no special kit, I just like taking pictures and fell that I've gone about as far as I can with my compact.

I've only been playing with this camera for a few minutes, but I thought I'd post up my first A/B comparison against my Dad's Canon EOS 350D, so here goes. Viewpoint's not quite the same, I guess I got a bit over enthusiastic!

Bear in mind this is "turn the SD14 on, press the shutter button", no setup, no configuration, just take the picture, and I've used the 350D a fair bit before, so I'm much more used to how that works etc...

Let me know what you think, did I make the right choice?

If you ask me there's not much between them, if out of the box it's as good as a 350D it's good enough for me! I think given the time to learn how it works, how to shoot in RAW and process in the Sigma software etc it'll be a match for either the 400D or the D40x, maybe even with a bit of room to grow into...

Expect more pictures soon :)

UPDATE: I've just "developed" my first RAW pictures through Sigma Photo Pro, now I'm using the old version under Wine rather than using the latest version 3, I'll have a go installing that tomorrow. I think the results are pretty good though, I think this camera is better than I am!