In February, Sigma introduced the Sigma BF. It is a full-frame, interchangeable lens digicam with only a shutter launch, a dial and three buttons. That minimalism speaks to me, and I felt the BF was probably transformative. Images is considered one of my favourite hobbies, and I’ve all the time felt fashionable cameras are too difficult. After I acquired a unit of the Sigma BF to check, I wished to like it. Sadly, it may be too easy.
All of it begins with the design. The Sigma BF is without doubt one of the business’s few unibody cameras. It is carved from a single slab of aluminum, a course of Sigma says takes seven hours to finish. The result’s a digicam in contrast to 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 are considering: The BF appears like an ergonomic nightmare. Surprisingly, it isn’t too dangerous, because of the inclusion of two beveled edges the place your arms meet the underside of the digicam physique.
Nonetheless, it is lacking a number of options that will have made it extra snug to make use of, probably because of the limitations of its unibody design. For one, a correct grip would have been good, particularly if you’re utilizing a heavy 50mm lens just like the one Sigma despatched me for testing. The BF can be lacking a sizzling shoe mount, so third-party thumb grips are off the desk. Most annoying of all, it solely has a single strap eyelet, so should you do not wish to use a neck strap, you will want one which attaches to the digicam’s tripod mount. I do not personal a type of, so I needed to carry across the $2,000 BF in my hand the whole time I used to be utilizing it. You possibly can think about how that felt.
The BF affords a really completely different capturing expertise out of your typical digital digicam. As I discussed, it has solely a shutter launch, a single dial and three buttons (one for powering the digicam on and off, one for reviewing your photographs and pictures and one for accessing the overflow menu). There’s additionally a touchscreen, however you would not comprehend it at first, as a result of apart from when choosing a spotlight level and toggling some choices, you will not be utilizing it a lot whereas capturing.
The BF’s one dial is the first solution to work together with the digicam. To regulate your publicity, you first press left or proper on the dial to cycle to a selected setting, after which spin it to tweak the degrees as desired. A second smaller display above the dial means that you can regulate these parameters with out interacting with the primary show.
Alternatively, you possibly can press down on the middle of the dial to open the BF’s “twin layer” menu system. Because the identify suggests, Sigma has organized most of what you may want throughout two ranges of menus. For instance, say you wish to swap the digicam from matrix to identify metering. That entails 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 many of the settings you will want will not be as tedious, however this worst case situation demonstrates the place the expertise of capturing with the Sigma BF falls quick.
The BF is not nice for capturing fleeting moments. In ditching many of the bodily controls fashionable cameras are recognized for, the Sigma BF makes it tough to alter a number of settings concurrently. I used to be most aggravated by the BF at any time when I wished to shoot a fast-moving scene.
On considered one of my picture walks with the Sigma BF, I noticed a father using a motorbike together with his son within the seat behind him. With my X-E3 or practically another digicam, capturing that second would have been easy. I may have modified the drive mode, focus system and shutter velocity independently of each other. On the BF, I needed to regulate every setting consecutively. By the point I used to be achieved, the daddy and son have been lengthy gone.
A number of the BF’s shortcomings may very well be addressed if Sigma at the very least allowed you to edit the fast settings display to point out fewer choices. I do not want quick access to alter issues just like the side ratio, for instance. In 2025, each new digicam ships with a very bloated menu system, and in that regard the Sigma BF is a breath of contemporary air. Nevertheless, permitting the person to make their very own tweaks would have made for a significantly better expertise.
And that’s the factor: With the BF, Sigma breaks digicam interface conventions which might be conventions for good purpose. Let me provide you with one of many extra irritating examples: The digicam inexplicably does not provide a simple solution 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 could not add one to the primary display.
The one method I may see a histogram, my most well-liked technique 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 possibly can 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 is not your factor, there are two reside view overlays you possibly can allow to see should you’ve clipped your shadows or highlights. The primary is your standard zebra sample. The second, which Sigma calls False Shade, turns many of the display grayscale and makes use of warning colours. Neither felt as exact as a correct publicity meter or histogram.
On paper, the BF is an honest digicam for video, with assist 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 digicam has a set display. Getting usable footage can be tough. The BF does not provide in-body picture stabilization, and whereas there are a number of L-mount lenses with built-in stabilization, most would not be sensible to make use of with the BF because of their dimension and weight.
Should you’ve gotten this far, you are in all probability questioning if I’ve one thing constructive to say in regards to the BF. Nicely, one of the best factor in regards to the digicam 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 scientific. The BF additionally has nice topic detection autofocus that makes capturing portraits of individuals and pets simple.
The Sigma BF has some fascinating concepts about what a digicam can seem like in 2025, however these concepts are sometimes marred by poor execution. As a primary stab at a minimalist digicam, the BF has sufficient going for it, and with refinement, I may see future variations evolving into one thing particular. For instance, I’d like to see Sigma discover a solution to embrace a flip-out display within the BF’s unibody body. Till then, $2,000 is quite a bit to ask for a digicam that may very well be a lot extra.
