These FF compact ILCs look great until you put a fast lens on them. Then not having a substantial grip makes almost no difference to the overall bulk while reducing the usability. Alternatively, a pancake will be slow so you lose a lot of the FF advantage. I guess a Leica might be the closest to the ideal of compact and FF, plus you’ll lose some weight from your wallet.
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I know that youtubers photograph using the back screen and I’m a Ricoh GR user so am not wholly against it. For an ILC though the lack of viewfinder is a big let down. Even with rather small FF lenses such as the metal Sigmas photographing strictly with the rear screen becomes a bit odd. For a camera emphasizing style it’s a bit of a let down to rely on the zombie pose. It’s not a very good looking way of taking a photo. With the tiny GR the whole handling and use is completely different, even in terms of style…
I’d expect this to be way, way less prone to breaking or causing trouble than any SD card slot. Moving parts, exposed contacts, springs, latches and cards that see various events whilst outside the camera.
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Yes. The SD14, SD15 and the SD1 Merrill are quite normal apart from the sensor type.
Long discussion in the Sigma Camera forum here:
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Ha. Apart from the photon registering part.
Further on the naming, if I look for Sigma BF on YouTube right now, I get about 10 review vids on the camera before it gets into Gen-Z memes about Sigma Bois and Christian Bale in American Psycho. So that’ll be fun for people to search in a few months’ time.
Sigma is notably inconsistent with naming.
For years, their SLRs were called “SD-something”, but then they changed that to “sd-something”. Equally their compacts went from ‘DP-’ to ‘dp-’. A mistake, IMO. Because people keep re-naming their later models to upper-case, one never really knows what model is meant by “DP1” in a post unless it is clear from context.
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I haven’t visited the dpreview forums for a while, so I am surprised to see what a sad place it has become. The editors opened the topic so that they can ask Sigma questions, but at least 50% of the comments are just kvetching about a camera they haven’t seen or used.
On the one hand, digital cameras have become very similar in capability (within a class), but on the other hand they are wildly different when it comes to handling.
And it is pretty much impossible to judge the latter from the specs, one has to spend at least 100 hours shooting to get comfortable with a camera with an unfamiliar interface. Clearly no one (or very few people) had the opportunity to do this yet, so people are voicing their likes/dislikes about the spec sheet.
The best approach to cameras may be
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The whiplash from idly flicking through the below the line comments on Panasonic’s latest full frame camera in the past few days is amazing. From Godlike expectations before the release to apocalyptic wailing afterwards. Then the backlash to the backlash, and on and on.
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I love these quirky cameras. I recently handled a Zeiss ZX1. A beautiful, ridiculous thing. HUGE, with an enormous screen. Impractical of course, and terribly expensive.
The BF will be similarly niche. This time, though, it seems small and with interchangeable lenses. If it had a viewfinder, it might even appeal to me. But the rest of the industry builds plenty of other gear that’s not for me either. I applaud Sigma for building something fun and quirky! I hope they find an audience.
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PetaPixel did an interview with the Sigma CEO:
In the segment before the interview, they talk a bit about the handling and apparently it is great to hold.
There are no review vids yet. There are videos from YouTube influencers who got samples for free in exchange for favourable “review like” videos.
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I have a Lumix GF3 that has a control wheel similar to that. Honestly it’s not the worst. My Lumix GX7 has all the dials but has a horrible lag when changing settings with them.
The style alone is a turn off for me, but I am almost certainly not part of the target audience for this one and that’s fine.
The fun part is, analog audio is implemented in the phone, and is output on the USB-C port.
The USB 3.1 specification supports both charging and data-transfer capabilities, as well as connections to analog audio headsets, by multiplexing four analog audio signals onto pins on the USB Type-C connector. The analog audio signals are the same as those used by traditional 3.5mm headset jacks.
(https://www.ti.com/document-viewer/lit/html/SSZTB49)
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Here’s a rundown of the UI:
Must say that so far I’m liking what I’m seeing.
Of course, buying one could be tricky:
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Limited supply gels with future cult pricing thesis.
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I beg to differ.
I’ve quite recently had to dump my 6 year old Dell laptop because both USB-C ports was gone. No other ports = no data in/out and no charging.
It joins the dustbin with two newer Sony phones whose USB-ports also ceased to function = no charging. 
This is really irritating as it is otherwise fully functional technology where there likely just a tiny crack in some soldering of the connection to the MB that renders the advanced products useless. But the whole port HW is so tiny that I cannot find anybody who is able to do soldering on this small scale.
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I’m also wondering how durable USB-C is because it’s one of the first things I have trouble with on all of my recent smartphones. I’m not sure if it’s the cables or port, but I invariably get contact issues after a couple of years. I clean out the dust and fluff, but it seems time is not always kind to this port.
After seeing a bit more of this camera and how it’s operated, I’m actually rather impressed with it. Not enough to actually buy one, probably, but it sure looks neat and fun. And much more practical than it seemed at first glance.
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Make sure you use a needle to dig it out. There can be a surprising amount at the bottom and it’s so compressed that getting it out can be near impossible with anything else.
I use a plastic toothpick from an old Swiss Army knife. I’m fairly sure the problem isn’t fluff/lint. I think the constant plugging in / unplugging takes it toll. It could well be the cables deteriorating rather than the port, but it’s something I’ve noticed. I’ve never had this problem with USB-A.
The Sigma L-mount lenses look rather unproportional on the tiny body. Smaller lenses would be too slow to be interesting.
With mirrorless it seems we can have small lenses with small bodies, but only if lenses are not interchangeable (think X100 series and Sony RX1).
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