Thoughts? It looks interesting but not having a foveon or other exotic features is a bit of a letdown. The internal storage is pretty nice and hopefully more cameras start implementing it.
I think it targets the same market as Leica: expensive (given the features), unique design and API, attention to small details.
It is clearly not a “workhorse” camera for pro photographers.
I hope it succeeds (in the sense that it remains viable, it clearly will not dominate the market as a niche product), so that more camera makers experiment with something new.
As for the interface, I would have to handle one for a few weeks to say anything. My first response was that it does not have enough buttons/dials, but if they came up with a novel way of controlling the camera (as they claim) then they would not be needed.
In any case, Sigma is on a roll: new lenses, and a new body. Lots of seemingly dormant camera companies came out with new stuff in 2025 already, I hope Pentax has something up its sleeve too
Very quintessentially Sigma. Are they even capable of making a “normal” camera?
The name is certainly apt:
Already saw some references to Sigma Boyfriend on the rumour sites. Had to Google it and the ai summary kinda fits.
It strikes me as the kind of camera that flops commercially because photographers are like, I can get all these features or more for cheaper in a mainstream ergonomic black generic package. Then in five years, it takes off on YouTube with a bunch of influencers shouting “this camera you’ve never heard of is like wearing jewellery” and prices skyrocket and everyone asks “why don’t you make a camera like this?” Basically, the Olympus Pen-F.
Why? An utter nightmare I’d say. The video mentioned “designed for durability”. What happens when the flash storage wears out 5 or 10 years from now? There’s no guarantee Sigma is still providing support or repairs for cameras in your country.
The built-in storage and the lack of a hotshoe and an external viewfinder makes it rather uninteresting to me. Lack of of viewfinder can be OK if the display can be angled. Seems to be no such possibility with this camera.
Otherwise, interesting concept!
I kinda think they miss a trick rolling this kind of product out to a bunch of plaid shirt dudes whose job it is to ask whether it does internal raw video rather than spending the money getting Kendall Jenner to wave it around on Kimmy Jimmel or Conan O’ Meyers or whatever
I agree with your durability worry, It would be perfectly fine if they provided an SD card slot to go along with it.
I doubt that is a practical concern. Modern flash components have an endurance of 10000-100000 cycles, and the usage pattern would be highly sequential (makes images/video, download, format, repeat; you are not going to mount it as ZFS ).
Assuming wear leveling, given that you can store about 4000 RAW photos, you would have to take 40 million (!) photos to get 10000 cycles. The rest of the camera would wear out well before that.
That’s theoretical. I’ve experienced dying SSDs twice within a couple of years after purchase. It’s just another component that can (and eventually will) die.
And what exactly are the upsides of having a camera with non-removable storage only? CFExpress is plenty fast and with removable flash storage you can still connect a USB cable and transfer the files off the camera if you wish to do so. And yeah, if the card fills up you can even carry a bunch of extra cards so you can keep shooting if your storage fills up. Cool, innit?
I don’t want cameras to go the Apple way. If that’s the case they’ll might as well install non-removable batteries as many of us have in our computers and phones.
That a soldered chip takes up less space than even an SD card, most likely. For removable storage, the card itself is bigger than the flash chip and you also need the card cage with the retention/eject mechanism.
Yes, but that applies to all components, from the buttons to the main board. Camera manufacturers usually keep a stock of spare parts to supply the warranty needs of expected failures after the product is not sold. When those run out, your camera becomes impractical to repair.
I can only speculate, but probably space. It is a tiny bit but these things add up. Also notice that it has a single USB-C port.
It is hard to predict whether innovations like this are successful eventually. Many of us here remember when Apple killed the floppy disc, then the CD drive, then the 3.5mm jack. The first two of those were widely debated but eventually the whole industry followed them. The third is not so clearcut, many people don’t want to part with an analog audio port.
Let’s see what happens. In any case, it is a beautiful camera. If I wanted to spend $2000 on a camera body (I don’t ) I would consider it, as it is one of the smallest FF bodies around (Sony A7C is narrower but has almost 2x the depth).
I believe the killing of the 3.5mm port was “okay” in the end. Phone DACs were pretty poor, for the most case, and in the end this lead to rapid development of dongles and other DAC/Amp products like the qudelix 5k etc.
Apple’s own DAC dongle measures very well even compared to high end products and I believe this stirred the industry and brought us where we are today with affordable very high end audio products.
The only downside I see is the single point of failure, although USB-C is very durable in my experience, and also the fact that you can’t charge whilst listening to music. This is hardly a problem as well given how fast things charge nowadays.
Of course. That’s why I said “another”. However, the storage can be removable without apparent downsides and plenty of upsides. Camera companies have been proving that for the last 25 years.
I think you’re conflating innovation with enshittification.
Yeah, I remember that. The CD gave us ~486 times the storage in a medium that was comparable in size. I don’t remember many of us protesting against that change. What does soldered storage give us users? Again, change does not equate progress.
We’ve had tiny ILCs with removable storage for quite some time. My EOS M200 is one of them (APS-C, but yeah, there are other examples). To camera makers who use cramped space as an excuse I’d say: try harder.
Yes, though this is my attempt to make the lightning-3.5mm dongle last more than a month or two before failing. Hoping when I finally switch to a usb-c phone, I’ll be able to get something sturdier and less needing of Sugru, electrical tape bodges:
When engineers and shareholder’s clash… Such a well engineered product when it comes to it’s electrical part only to be shipped with the flimsiest cable in existence.
Like all camera features (and lack of them), this will be important for some people, a minor nuisance for some, irrelevant for others, and useful for the rest.
Personally I consider it mildly useful: if they include a module with fast write speeds optimized for this camera, I would not have to find and buy a complatible SD card or carry a reader (I have a cable for my phone when I travel).
But it is clear that you dislike this, and that is fine, reasonable people can have a different opinion about it.
I thought it was really cool. I won’t buy one, but glad to see something different, as if you covered the name brand at the apex of Nikon, canon, Sony etc and got rid of the colors, the designs are all the same.
I hope they put out a super duper pancake lens for this too, it’d be slim and portable.
My first reaction when i saw this was “cool!”. It looks very stylish, it’s FF in a compact body, it’s different, it’s affordable compared to a Leica, it’s another brand other than the big 3/4/5, it’s an interchangeable lens system…
But I probably wouldn’t buy it. First of all, it doesn’t have an EVF or OVF, and that’s almost a dealbreaker for me. I also wonder about its ergonomics. It looks lovely, but would it be comfortable to hold? One of the complaints I hear about Leica is that they’re not that comfortable. And what would the balance feel like with some FF lenses on that compact body? Even though I’m tempted by FF, I’m wondering if APS-C or m4/3 makes more sense for this kind of camera.
And much as I love to have more competitors, I would struggle to justify this over say an A7Cii, which offers a lot more in terms of features for not a lot more money.
I hope it succeeds, but I don’t think it’s for me. If I wanted ultra-compact, I think I’d go for a Ricoh or Fuji XE, and if I wanted FF, I’d go for a Sony A7C.
Frankly, I would get the OM3 for the same price. Because I am a nerd and I want all the features and gizmos, EVF, IBIS, computational graduated ND filters, you name it.
Gazillion customizable buttons, the more the better. In fact the camera manufacturers could nerdsnipe me by putting a bunch of buttons on a camera mockup body, no sensor or lens mount, and I would keep customizing them forever.
But we are not the target audience for this camera. I frankly wonder who is, but I think the same about Leica so what do I know, they keep selling.