New Camera: Sigma BF

Try a needle. That toothpick is unlikely to be pointy enough.

You can find small rubber caps to protect such ports . I use them on my PC’s less used ports (USB-A left, and USB-C right):

(and doing a macro shot revealed how dirty they were after a couple of months… the picture above has been taken after some cleanup, and far from perfect…)

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I baught a load of these in bulk and use them on just about everything — I’ve had so many ports die and misbehave on me countless times.

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The PetaPixel review:

Definitely sounds like a try before you buy sort of deal.

Yeah, I saw a “non review” video from Mads Iversen and very quickly decided it’s not for me.

I believe in “form follows function” and to hide / obscure so much functionality in deference to appearance doesn’t sit well with me. In my mind (and obviously others may differ) one of the things that makes a tech device look good is that it looks like a tech device. Of course there’s far more to it than that – and I’m not advocating “empty” complexity – but this camera reminds me of an Apple-esque minimalist-artsy-fartsy-cool-appearance-at-all-costs approach. Maybe something you’d discuss over cheese and wine.

From a purely functional viewpoint, I detest having to use a touch-screen for anything other than functions intrinsically related to the screen image itself (e.g., focus point placement, etc.). For a hand-held device, a flat texture-less screen is a terrible interface. Bring on the physical buttons!

It seems to be designed to appeal to the P&S / Instagram crowd in many ways, but it’s priced way above that.

Anyway, just my take on it for what it’s not worth.

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Which incidentally goes for all of the “smart”-phones …

I pick up my Nokia N810 now and then just to feel it …

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For a camera I wholeheartedly agree, but for a phone I’d say it’s really debatable how much keys or buttons on the screen, or on its plane, help it.

Phone interfaces have come such a long way that even people with severe mental disabilities can use them and navigate its UI at ease, which we can’t say the same about a lot of other tech devices. Typing is still severely limited of course, even a thumb keyboard with physical keys has the same issue, but all the rest is pretty great. Maybe it’s due to the insane amount of money poured into it, but the results speak for themselves.

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You are not alone — this camera is not for 99.9% of photographers and Sigma probably knows this since they allocated a very limited production capacity for it, 7 units/day is ≈2k/year. It is best to think about it as something a Leica buyer would consider (but is it expensive enough? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:)

What’s surprising is that they still invested the R&D for it, which may mean that they are planning on reusing some components or code in other cameras. There is talk about Sigma releasing a “serious” camera later on, and of course there is the ever-present expectation about a full-frame Foveon.

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In the interview I posted further up (it’s worth a watch), the CEO of Sigma says that is in fact the case. He of course hopes that more “serious” photographers will like it too, but they are not the primary target group.

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I will say that of all the mobiles I’ve had over a period of 30 years, this was the smartest form factor:

Small in your pocket, large enough screen to be able to read (those times’ not mega-complicated) net pages and a physical keyboard that let you flip it up and start texting safely when driving, (-- at least as safely as talking with your passengers …) because you didn’t need to look at it at all.

The tactility of this phone is still in muscle memory now about twenty years afterwords.

EDIT: Did I explicitly mention that the smartness encompassed that it was well balanced and fully operable by one hand?

I keep waiting until someone invents a screen that’s tactile-adjustable programmatically. That is, soft buttons that have real physical dimension – where, e.g., each key on a soft keyboard has actual physical height and shape under control of code.

Yup, there’s a patent waiting for you there … :slight_smile:

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It occurs to me that the Sigma BF is the same concept as the Leica M, but executed inversely. Take a modern camera, but minus an EVF, all the buttons, but make it exquisitely crafted and honed for back screen operations. That’s the BF. The M instead subtracts autofocus and optimizes for viewfinder operations.

It’s as if the Sigma BF plus Leica M would make the perfect modern premium camera. (Would that make a Hasselblad?)

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That’d probably be Hassy! The tradition from Hassy and the tech from DJI. Would love to see their take on the 36×24 sensor size! Still I don’t see how we would come around the physics problem of making modern ILC AF lenses small enough to truly match a body like this. Leica (and Sony with the RX1 series) has solved it by stripping out AF or integrating the lens into the camera close to the sensor.

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Wow! I hadn’t realized how much more lint there is down there until you get in with a needle. I was hesitant to use sharp metal, but you’re right, it makes a ton of difference. Thanks for that tip.

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Also consider a silicone air blower (you might have one already for sensor cleaning). Gentle yet efficient.

The shop I take tablets & phones for repair has a neat handheld vacuum-like device to suck out debris out of devices. It is apparently called a “computer vacuum”, and is specially designed for electronics (or so they say). Didn’t get one myself yet. :wink:

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Many years ago poundshop in the UK sold an adapter kit that went on on a vacuum cleaner nozzle. It was really useful.Not so useful now unless you have a Henry hoover :frowning:

I just watched Christopher Frost’s overview of this camera. What struck me is how much it reminded me of my very first iPod. The way the wheel worked as the main control for almost everything, and menu navigation was a series of press and rotate, press and rotate to get further into the menu levels.

That iPod was revolutionary at the time and everyone raved about the minimalism, but I never enjoyed using it, and I still dislike Apple products to this day. I’m more of a tactile buttons kind of guy. So this camera is probably not for me, but I do appreciate it’s different and refreshing from a design point of view, and I hope it inspires other brands to be more daring.

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Becca Farsace thinks BF should stand for Best Friend:

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I was wondering about the USB-C’s durability when Lenovo migrated away from their proprietary (large) docking connector to plain USB-C.

My Thinkpad’s USB-C died after first months of COVID homeoffice regime. Pulling the cable in and out multiple times a day let to the connector being lose. Then it required finding the correct position to achieve reliable audio/video output.

The fix required a replacement of the entire motherboard… Thank god it was under warranty.

USB-C of subsequent Thinkpad models is also not 100% reliable after some time. It usually requires to have a spare cable or two to select the fitting one.

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