Sigma Unveils New Tiny Camera, With External Electronic Viewfinder

Sigma has introduced $2,500 fp L with a much higher resolution 61-megapixel sensor and an external electronic viewfinder, which was the original model’s most-requested feature.

The fp L has a weird, boxy shape like a squished Leica rangefinder. Manual controls are sparse, with just a front dial to adjust exposure settings, along with a video record, stills/video and power switch on top. Around the back is another (fiddly) dial with a centre “OK” button, plus eight buttons for the AE lock, quick menu, menu, mode, colour, tone, display and playback.

The square body, 24-megapixel fb was designed as a video and a street camera and it suited that purpose. However, the fp L has a 61-megapixel sensor, better for portraits and landscape shooting.

Though portable and not heavy compared to rival cameras (427 grams compared to 665 for the Sony A7R IV), it is not very comfortable to hold. The lack of a proper grip and tilting screen like other portable cameras makes it problematic

Without a tripod or support, it is difficult to hold onto the camera and lens. Another issue is that a 61-megapixel sensor is begging for heavy, high-quality glass while manual controls are sparse, gadget annalist S. Dent stated that the top and back dials could handle most of his exposure settings. However, the back dial’s D-pad controls are too sensitive.

With the fp L, Sigma introduced the EVF-11 external electronic viewfinder that also works on the original fp. It attaches to the camera on the side, connecting to the HDMI and USB-C ports.

Connecting the EVF is tricky but once connected, though, the 3.69-million-dot display offers decent resolution, color accuracy and refresh speeds. It tilts all the way through 90 degrees, making it possible to use it for both regular and low-angle shooting.

It has a bright and colour accurate touchscreen, Touch functions are limited to focus selection, much like older Sony cameras. The menu is well designed to enable users.

The burst speeds is up to 10 fps, along with a new phase-detect autofocus system that supports face and eye-detect autofocus and in any event, the lack of a mechanical shutter means that burst shooting is nearly out of the question, because the rolling shutter on this camera is pretty bad.

The lack of in-body stabilization doesn’t help, as it forces you to rely on lens stabilization. And many L-Mount lenses you’d want to use with this camera lack those features.

Sigma appears to use oversampling rather than line-skipping like Sony does with the A7R IV and it has a unique digital zoom that gives you anywhere from a 1.0 to 2.5 times crop, depending on the video resolution. With that mode, you can effectively transform a 24-70mm zoom into a 24-175mm lens with very little loss in quality.