This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Switzerland License.

Table of corrupted image-data-files

The table below lists corrupted RAW-Images produced with 2 different SIGMA SD14. The table describes the effect when opening the image in SIGMA Photo Pro (SPP), Adobe Photoshop CS2 (PSCS2) and Adobe Light Room v.1.4. (ALR).
I was not able to make out specific patterns or circumstances that would make the camera(s) produce corrupted image data files. Most interesting I found that the effects vary. Apart from firmware updates, batteries or CF-cards it is unknown to me what other circumstances make the camera(s) behave differently resulting in various different types of corrupted image data.
The only pattern I found is the situation when shooting a lot. For example: When shooting a panorama with 3 bracketed images for each section of the panorama. Then the internal memory buffer is mostly filled with image data and allows the next image to be taken only when there is space in that buffer. Once the buffer gets pushed to the limits the following may occur:

• the camera stops responding and the red light (writing to CF card) remains ON
• the camera sometimes throw an error code (such as: 'F74', '5b' or 'F48 9f' etc.)
• the camera makes one believe its writing the image data correctly, but it's not!
• I had several such occurences. In the table below only one example is listed.
  (see sample images IMG76080-76082)

When taking bracketed shots the SIGMA SD14 sometimes simply skips one shot and your series turns into a mess.
SPP is not able to convert some RAW files, but PSCS2 and LR can convert the same image data perfectly.
An example for this behaviour is image "77615.X3F".
...and this is the result out of ALR:

Lesson learned

The fact that SPP is not able to convert but ALR can convert that same image, tells me clearly that the problems described here are to be found within the camera, possibly the Firmware - and NOT due to a battery a CF card or external factors such as weather.
Hopefully SIGMA will now take the opportunity and release a Firmware that nullifies these problems.

Solution

In order to avoid problems as listed here, I found only one workable option:
Before taking the next shot wait till all image data has been written to the CF card (untill the flashing red light stops blinking).
If you don"t, you might experience similar problems.

The SIGMA SD14 only allows 4-digit filenumbering (an inconvenience to be resolved), therefore I normally rename downloaded files as a pre-processing step. For some trouble-images I took the effort to grab the original from the CF-card. Hence there are original and own filenames here.

Important Copyright notice

You may download the images available here for your own perusal, but remember the Copyright of each image remains with the author (even though most images are corrupted).
The Creative Commons license applies to the content of this HTML-page only and does NOT include the images listed in this table.

This Report on SIGMA SD14 camera producing corrupt image-data-files (Format: X3F)created by Hans Loepfe is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Switzerland License.
Based on a my work "Description of problems induced by the SIGMA Cameras SD10 and SD14 corrupting Image Data".
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.halo-photographs.com/info/obtain-license.html.

In late August 2008, Sigma provided the Firmware Update v1.08 for the SD14 that seems to resolve the issues mentioned here.

Download the latest official Firmware release from the SIGMA SD14 Website"
Version v1.08 corrects the rarely occurring error of camera freeze and image recording failure when shooting continuously or if the shutter button is pressed when the CF Card Busy Light is blinking.

The X3F File Format Specification is still available

The Author of this page does not assure accuracy of the information provided in this PDF.
View the X3F File Format Specification

Page Version

This Page was last updated: 13.04.2009 by Hans Loepfe (HALO-Photographs), Zurich, Switzerland.
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