In February, Sigma introduced the Sigma BF. It's a full-frame, interchangeable lens digital camera with only a shutter launch, a dial and three buttons. That minimalism speaks to me, and I felt the BF was doubtlessly transformative. Images is one among my favourite hobbies, and I've all the time felt fashionable cameras are too sophisticated. After I acquired a unit of the Sigma BF to check, I wished to find it irresistible. Sadly, it could be too easy.
All of it begins with the design. The Sigma BF is among the business's few unibody cameras. It's carved from a single slab of aluminum, a course of Sigma says takes seven hours to finish. The result’s a digital camera not like any I've used earlier than, with construct high quality that surpasses both of my present Fujifilm fashions, the X-E3 and X-S20. Now, I do know what you're considering: The BF seems like an ergonomic nightmare. Surprisingly, it's not too dangerous, because of the inclusion of two beveled edges the place your palms meet the underside of the digital camera physique.
Nonetheless, it's lacking a couple of options that may have made it extra snug to make use of, possible because of the limitations of its unibody design. For one, a correct grip would have been good, particularly once you're utilizing a heavy 50mm lens just like the one Sigma despatched me for testing. The BF can be lacking a scorching shoe mount, so third-party thumb grips are off the desk. Most annoying of all, it solely has a single strap eyelet, so in case you don't need to use a neck strap, you'll want one which attaches to the digital camera's tripod mount. I don't personal a kind of, so I needed to carry across the $2,000 BF in my hand your complete time I used to be utilizing it. You possibly can think about how that felt.
The BF presents a really totally different taking pictures expertise out of your typical digital digital camera. As I discussed, it has solely a shutter launch, a single dial and three buttons (one for powering the digital camera on and off, one for reviewing your photographs and pictures and one for accessing the overflow menu). There's additionally a touchscreen, however you wouldn't realize it at first, as a result of apart from when deciding on a spotlight level and toggling some choices, you received't be utilizing it a lot whereas taking pictures.
The BF's one dial is the first approach to work together with the digital camera. To regulate your publicity, you first press left or proper on the dial to cycle to a particular setting, after which spin it to tweak the degrees as desired. A second smaller display screen above the dial permits you to modify these parameters with out interacting with the principle show.
Alternatively, you may press down on the middle of the dial to open the BF's "twin layer" menu system. Because the title suggests, Sigma has organized most of what you would possibly want throughout two ranges of menus. For instance, say you need to change the digital camera from matrix to identify metering. That includes urgent down on the dial, scrolling over to one of many publicity settings, tapping the middle of the dial once more, after which utilizing your thumb to press the touchscreen and allow spot metering. Accessing a lot of the settings you'll want received't be as tedious, however this worst case situation demonstrates the place the expertise of taking pictures with the Sigma BF falls quick.
The BF isn't nice for capturing fleeting moments. In ditching a lot of the bodily controls fashionable cameras are identified for, the Sigma BF makes it tough to alter a number of settings concurrently. I used to be most aggravated by the BF each time I wished to shoot a fast-moving scene.
On one among my picture walks with the Sigma BF, I noticed a father driving a motorbike together with his son within the seat behind him. With my X-E3 or almost some other digital camera, capturing that second would have been easy. I might have modified the drive mode, focus system and shutter velocity independently of each other. On the BF, I needed to modify every setting consecutively. By the point I used to be performed, the daddy and son have been lengthy gone.
A few of the BF's shortcomings might be addressed if Sigma a minimum of allowed you to edit the fast settings display screen to point out fewer choices. I don't want quick access to alter issues just like the side ratio, for instance. In 2025, each new digital camera ships with an excessively bloated menu system, and in that regard the Sigma BF is a breath of contemporary air. Nevertheless, permitting the consumer to make their very own tweaks would have made for a significantly better expertise.
And that’s the factor: With the BF, Sigma breaks digital camera interface conventions which are conventions for good motive. Let me provide you with one of many extra irritating examples: The digital camera inexplicably doesn't supply a simple approach to measure the publicity of a scene. There was no meter to point whether or not I used to be about to under- or overexpose a shot, and I couldn't add one to the principle display screen.
The one method I might see a histogram, my most well-liked methodology for nailing publicity, was to entry the second layer of the interface from one of many seize settings. That is an particularly confounding choice as a result of you may half press the shutter to make fast publicity compensation changes with the management dial, however as quickly as you do, the BF jumps out of no matter menu you have been . If digging via menus isn't your factor, there are two reside view overlays you may allow to see in case you've clipped your shadows or highlights. The primary is your normal zebra sample. The second, which Sigma calls False Shade, turns a lot of the display screen grayscale and makes use of warning colours. Neither felt as exact as a correct publicity meter or histogram.
On paper, the BF is a good digital camera for video, with help for 6K recording, HEVC encoding and L-Log. Sadly, the BF's minimalism is a weak spot right here too. To begin, framing a shot is a problem because the digital camera has a hard and fast display screen. Getting usable footage can be difficult. The BF doesn't supply in-body picture stabilization, and whereas there are a couple of L-mount lenses with built-in stabilization, most wouldn't be sensible to make use of with the BF resulting from their dimension and weight.
For those who've gotten this far, you're most likely questioning if I’ve one thing constructive to say concerning the BF. Properly, one of the best factor concerning the digital camera is that it takes genuinely nice photographs, which is what makes all its shortcomings all of the extra irritating. The 24-megapixel, bottom illuminated sensor and Sigma's lenses seize and render element superbly with out being medical. The BF additionally has nice topic detection autofocus that makes taking pictures portraits of individuals and pets simple.
The Sigma BF has some fascinating concepts about what a digital camera can appear like in 2025, however these concepts are sometimes marred by poor execution. As a primary stab at a minimalist digital camera, the BF has sufficient going for it, and with refinement, I might see future variations evolving into one thing particular. For instance, I’d like to see Sigma discover a approach to embody a flip-out display screen within the BF's unibody body. Till then, $2,000 is lots to ask for a digital camera that might be a lot extra.
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