Sigma’s Minimalist Camera and Maximalist Lenses

It’s announcement season, and Sigma made waves yesterday with the unveiling of one of the most radically designed cameras that we’ve seen in a long time: the Sigma BF. This full-frame camera is minimalist to the extreme – although the two lenses that Sigma announced alongside it are the opposite of minimalist!

In total, yesterday’s product announcements are as follows:

• Sigma BF: A full-frame 24 megapixel camera with a new autofocus system and a simplified design. Sigma says “All controls are integrated into just three buttons, one dial, the shutter release, and the power button.” The camera will cost $2000.
• Sigma 300-600mm f/4: A high-end zoom for sports and wildlife photography, available for the E Mount and L Mount. It has the makings of a dream lens for wildlife photographers as long as you don’t mind the weight (3985 grams / 8.79 pounds). The price of $6000 is less than half of what you’d spend on a 600mm f/4 from Nikon, Canon, or Sony.
• Sigma 16-300mm f/3.5-6.7 DC: One of the longest superzooms ever made, with an 18.8x zoom ratio. This lens is for APS-C cameras and will be available for the Sony E, Leica L, Fuji X, and Canon RF mounts at a price of $700.

Sigma also announced a new corporate branding, including a new logo and the launch of the Sigma Foundation to promote the art of photography. Some of their existing lenses (namely the I-series primes) will be repackaged with the new logo and branding, although the optics, prices, and features won’t change.

Here’s a little more information about these announcements.

Sigma BF Announcement

If you spend a lot of time around photographers, there’s a topic that will inevitably come up: the perfect camera they would design if they could. And while no two photographers have exactly the same ideal camera in mind, I hear the same theme a lot: simplify, simplify, simplify. Why can’t a camera just have a few buttons and dials for the essential settings and call it a day?

I have to admit, I’m not completely sold on this philosophy myself. Nearly every “extra” setting for one photographer is an essential feature for a professional out there somewhere, and camera companies can only cut so many features before they start losing customers. Still, I do appreciate cameras that make it easy to access their most important settings and get out of the way as much as possible. The Sigma BF aims to do just that.

Here it is from a few different angles:

Sigma takes the minimalism further in a few other ways, too. The camera has no in-body image stabilization, no mechanical shutter, and – most surprisingly of all – no memory card slot. Instead, the camera has a built-in SSD with 230 GB of storage, which should be enough for 4300 uncompressed RAW files. Images are transferred to your computer via a USB-C port, which is the only port on the camera.

On top of that, each copy of the Sigma BF is machined from a single block of aluminum, and the buttons use haptic feedback when pressed. This gives the camera an ultra-sturdy construction and, potentially, better weather sealing in adverse conditions. However, Sigma doesn’t make any specific claims about the BF’s weather resistance that I could find.

One major benefit of such a streamlined camera is the weight. Including the battery, the Sigma BF weighs just 446 grams (0.98 pounds), making it the third lightest full-frame consumer camera ever made (only slightly heavier than Sigma’s own fp and fp L). Thanks to the L Mount, the Sigma BF is compatible with a wide range of lenses from Panasonic and Leica in addition to Sigma’s own glass, so you should have plenty of lightweight lenses to choose from if you’re looking for a nice travel kit.

As for other specifications, for better or worse, the camera’s 24 megapixel BSI sensor and 8 FPS shooting are pretty typical baseline features these days. The new autofocus system is potentially more interesting, since it makes the BF the first Sigma camera with a subject recognition system that can identify people, dogs, and cats. At a price of $2000, the BF strikes me as reasonably priced for a specialty camera, even though there are less expensive cameras with similar features on paper.

Oh, and what does the “BF” name mean? Sigma’s one-of-a-kind CEO Kazuto Yamaki says it stands for “Beautiful Foolishness.”

• You can pre-order the Sigma BF here at B&H in black or silver. It’s expected to ship April 22, 2025.

Sigma 300-600mm f/4 Announcement

It’s not every day that you can call a $6000 lens a bargain, but that’s exactly how the Sigma 300-600mm f/4 DG OS Sports lens looks to me. This high-end supertelephoto is so unique and exciting that I think it will convince some photographers to switch to the L Mount, or at least Sony, in order to buy it – assuming that the performance holds up, of course. (In fact, you could buy this lens plus the Sony a1 II for less than the cost of the Canon RF 600mm f/4 L or Nikon Z 600mm f/4 TC VR S alone.)

What makes this lens so exciting? Simply put, it’s a combination of focal lengths, maximum aperture, and price that we have never seen before. 600mm f/4 lenses are already rare and expensive, but being able to zoom out to 300mm on top of that is unprecedented. It’s a tamer – though perhaps only slightly tamer – sibling to the Sigma 200-500mm f/2.8 from 2008 that was fondly nicknamed “Bigma” at the time.

Speaking of “Bigma,” the new Sigma 300-600mm f/4 is not a lightweight lens. However, it’s also not as bad as it could have been. Here’s a brief comparison among 600mm f/4 lenses past and present:

• Sigma 300-600mm f/4: 3985 grams, 47.0 cm long (8.70 lbs, 18.5 inches) – $6000
• Canon RF 600mm f/4 L: 3090 grams, 47.2 cm long (6.81 lbs, 18.6 inches) – $13,000
• Sony 600mm f/4 GM: 3040 grams, 44.9 cm long (6.70 lbs, 17.7 inches) – $13,000
• Nikon Z 600mm f/4 TC VR S: 3260 grams, 43.7 cm long (7.19 lbs, 17.2 inches) – $15,500
• Nikon AF-S 600mm f/4E FL: 3810 grams, 43.2 cm long (7.01 lbs, 17.0 inches) – $8700 today
• Nikon AF-S 600mm f/4 VR II: 5060 grams, 44.5 cm long (11.2 lbs, 17.5 inches) – No longer sold new

As you can see, the new Sigma 300-600mm f/4 is on the heavier and larger side among this crowd, but it isn’t completely out of left field. It’s also the least expensive lens here. And of course, none of these other lenses has the ability to zoom! (Though the Nikon Z 600mm f/4 TC VR S does have a built-in teleconverter that can turn it into an 840mm f/5.6 lens.)

How will it perform? That’s something I can’t wait to test, although if other recent Sigma lenses are any indication, it should be a great lens optically. If it is, then Sigma has just put the “Big Three” of Canon, Sony, and Nikon on notice!

• You can pre-order the Sigma 300-600mm f/4 DG OS Sports lens from B&H for $6000 in Leica L or Sony E mounts. It ships April 22, 2025.

Sigma 16-300mm f/3.5-6.7 DC Announcement

This new lens will fly under the radar given the two previous announcements, but it’s still a record-breaker – namely, the APS-C mirrorless lens with the widest zoom range yet. (There was a Tamron 18-400mm for APS-C DSLRs that still has the overall crown, but we have yet to see a similar lens appear for mirrorless.)

Superzooms never offer perfect optical performance, but they are convenient, and today’s superzooms are much more capable than their counterparts from even 10 years ago.

The Sigma 16-300mm f/3.5-6.7 DC is a complex lens with 20 elements in 14 groups, but the weight of 615 grams / 1.36 pounds is quite reasonable. The focal length range is equivalent to 24-450mm on full-frame (and the aperture range is equivalent to f/5.3-10, but no one ever mentions that :)

• You can pre-order the Sigma 16-300mm f/3.5-6.7 DC from B&H for $700. It’s available for Sony E, Leica L, Fuji X, and Canon RF, and is expected to ship April 22, 2025.

Sigma BF Press Release