Sigma BF

Stylish mirrorless takes on both Leica and your phone camera

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£1,969/$1,999 (body only)

Perhaps it’s an L-Mount Alliance in-joke, but the Sigma BF just out-Leica'd Leica. Maybe the two companies placed a wager on whether Sigma would be first to outdo Leica’s cameras or Leica would be first to outdo Sigma’s lenses.

Either way, the Sigma BF is a clever little camera for some familiar reasons. It's so beautiful that it makes your heart skip a beat. It's made from a single block of aluminium. It boasts a bountiful internal memory. It strips physical controls and an EVF in favour of a friction-free touchscreen-driven experience. And it uses the L-Mount.

What has that got to do with Leica? Because back in 2014, it launched the Leica T - a camera that was also achingly beautiful, made from a single block of aluminium, had loads of internal memory, ditched the controls and EVF, and used the L-Mount (back then it was called the T mount).

But the Sigma BF is bigger, better, more in every way. And it’s hands-down the most gorgeous camera I've ever seen, let alone used — not since the Hasselblad X1D has a modern camera had the chutzpah to be so daringly different in how it looks. It’s truly a masterclass in industrial design.

The same ethos behind the way the camera looks - ‘radical simplicity’ — lies behind the way it operates. Not only does it ditch almost every physical control, but it also banishes every single icon from the rear screen. The idea is that the Sigma BF becomes the everyday camera that can replace your phone, for all those moments when we reach for our pocket instead of our camera bag. So the Sigma BF beats Leica at its own game. But does it beat today's cameras?

Build and handling