ed here with the digital digest and today i wanted to share my full review the digitally digested segment for the sigma fpl now this is the world’s smallest full-frame camera of course other than the original sigma fp but now we’ve got a 61 megapixel sensor we also have a hybrid autofocus system that does not exist on the original fp we also have the ability to power this with a power bank over the type c port something you also cannot do with the original fp but that pretty much is where things end in terms of differentiating this from the original sigma fp at 2500 us dollars it is expensive however i think it’s really a value at that price point when you take into account the capability it has with regard to being a cinema camera as well as a high resolution full frame camera with hybrid autofocus and eye autofocus capability we don’t have a full fully implemented touch screen on the back it is a fixed lcd that’s why you can go for the optional 700 evf that you see right here some of you will absolutely want this and this is yet another clear sign that sigma is differentiating the fpl from the original fp as being more of a hybrid than the original because the original did not have an electronic evf with an articulating capacity instead it only had an optical viewfinder so a clear sign again that sigma is being more aggressive with this camera than the original fp and really trying to appeal to a whole other audience you could argue a broader audience that’s more interested in hybrid capability but since the original fp is not discontinued they are really complementary cameras and it’s something where if you already own an fp and you want an fp that can take amazing stills well that’s where the l comes in so landscape photography architectural shots i could absolutely see having one of these in my bag especially if i owned more l mount glass unfortunately i don’t i predominantly own email class and that’s kind of
where my love affair with this camera ends and that’s not a knock against sigma it’s strictly a matter of do i want to give up all of my email glass and switch systems this camera does not give me that uh feeling that desire yet but i think sigma’s on the right path so again to reiterate if you are looking for simply the cinema camera that the fp represents with 24 megapixel capability go with the less expensive original fp you’ll have the same battery life all the same video capability you just won’t have the things i mentioned at the beginning the higher resolution sensor it is a newer sensor as well as the ability to essentially run this continuously by powering it over the type c port which by the way you lose once you attach the evf because if you want to do external capture you know you can still do that over this type c port that is channeled through the evf you also have a headphone jack for monitoring but that’s pretty much it so that’s something you need to be aware of um also i mean for me personally i would rather have the fpl because to me the whole appeal of the world’s smallest full-frame camera is the fact that it’s a cinema camera and a high resolution one at that so this directly competes with my a7r iv and sigma’s going in the right direction i love the form factor some people will argue that the ergonomics are not great but once you get sigma’s grip that you see attached right here the ergonomics are perfectly fine would i like to see an articulating screen sure but i like that we have a heat sink on this which means you don’t have to worry about overheating and even though the autofocus system is hybrid i
would be you know confusing all of you if i were to say it’s best in class it’s not it is far better than the original fp which was simply contrast based however it is not going to rival the a7r4 that i currently use as my daily driver and that’s where i get to the things that i would like to see sigma do for this camera so i’ve mentioned that it is a legit cinema camera and it is dci 4k 24p is here um color profiles out the wazoo 12 bit out of external capture at least internally though we are capped at 8-bit and that’s one thing that i think sigma needs to take to the next level if they give us 10-bit at least 10-bit internally like you can get with basically most full-frame flagship mirrorless cameras these days that’s going to put the sigma fp right up next to my a7r4 that i have right here but that’s a step that has to happen in order to get on this camera’s level and the reason the a7r is the best comparison is of course it also has a 60 plus megapixel sensor but the autofocus system here is much better than what you’ll get with the fpl bear in mind though that most cinema shooters who actually appreciate that they’re getting a cinema camera out of this not just a high-res sensor will shoot predominantly manually and that’s why i don’t think the autofocus system has ever been a huge emphasis for sigma which is completely understandable but if they can bring 10-bit internal recording to this as well as give us in-body image stabilization aka ibis which is another thing i
would love to see on here i think sigma has basically one of the best cameras on the market and that’s without even improving the autofocus system because people that are interested in this already know that autofocus is not a strong suit of the original fp or even the fpl the fpl is an improvement because now we do have a true still camera that’s high res that you can absolutely use for print work and get beautiful stills out of and i’m not saying you can’t do that with the original fp but this is much better in the still capacity with that 61 megapixel sensor now whether or not you need this is really clearly a matter of personal preference but it’s good that sigma brought it on it’s easily removed and that’s what i like about it so if you don’t care about having the electronic evf don’t buy it they do bundle it with it at a slight discount it does have good quality overall you do have an lcd evf switch because it does not have a sensor to detect when you are using it but also with the latest firmware you can use the menu button to switch back and forth so you don’t have to use that switch which is nice weather sealing on this is solid uh phenomenal build quality overall uh there’s that type c port that i was mentioning you can power the device through but you’ll be relegated again to internal recording so no 10 bit if you do that and that’s what i was getting at earlier is that that is a
bottleneck on this camera that hopefully in the next revision will be addressed you know we don’t have a full-size hdmi out you probably noticed that already we have a microphone port here and then we do have quarter 20 mounts on either side of the body once you mount this though you lose it and so sigma gives you another on the grip itself controls are very straightforward the power button you know in the original sigma fp not an issue but with this evf attached it’s a little bit difficult to get to um just because the evf is literally blocking it if you plan on switching it off with anything other than your right hand uh so that’s just food for thought not a big deal when it comes to the actual layout and the dial i think these are all solid controls the dedicated large record button the cinema and still switch all the design is exactly the same as on the original fp and so is the menu system and that is something that could use a refresh i think that’s something sigma we’ll get to eventually but i think this needs to be a compelling offering that a lot of people are going to pick up and right now it’s there i think there are a lot of people that will enjoy it but most consumers aren’t really familiar with sigma as anything other than a lens manufacturer they’re more focused on buying glass for their cameras made by sigma after all high quality glass affordable pricing everything’s made in japan what’s not to like and the same applies here with this camera i think it’s a little marvel of technology but i think it’s still in what i would refer to somewhat of a developmental phase and for some shooters you’re going to absolutely love this thing but for other people who are looking just to run
and gun and don’t care about its form factor they aren’t going to see the appeal here and i get that the menu again leaves some things to be desire a desired you do have a crop factor when shooting 4k video of two and a half times in 1080p it’s five times so that’s another nice thing that you can do on the fly it’s not groundbreaking but it’s good to have and you know overall again what sigma has put into this camera the director’s viewfinder also found on the fp another great value built into this little camera that essentially replaces a director’s viewfinder that would range anywhere from i don’t know 5 to 15 grand and you have that with various looks of different cameras whether it’s venice whatever it may be you’ve got it on here so that you can easily simulate that look record it and then know what you’re going to get out of this camera which you can’t really do with anything else other than a real director’s viewfinder now let’s talk about the glass you already know this shoots dci 4k you already know that in order to get the most out of what it’s able to do on the cinema side you need to capture externally that means having you know an nvme like this cyber make smaller ones you can go with samsung’s t line of drives t7 the t5 but one terabyte will get you one hour of the highest quality video this outputs the 12 bit dng raw so be
aware of that it is a monster and that’s another thing sigma has to work on i think down the road is getting a leaner codec enabled so that whether you’re going external or they actually do give us a solution for internal capture we need to get more efficient but that’s a nitpick in my opinion at this point there are other things that need to be addressed to really make this um one of the best cameras on the market and i have high hopes for it because this is the form factor i really appreciate it reminds me of the rx1 i said it with the original fp you’re looking at about an hour of battery life with this battery it’s the same battery from the previous generation there’s your uhs slot for your sd card and that’s you know another thing that thankfully a limitation that was addressed with being able to charge it over the type c port now when it comes to the other dedicated buttons you know your mode button your color uh profile tone it’s all here it’s all good they’ve got waveforms on board i have nothing to play back unfortunately for all of you so they’ve really gone out of their way to i think deliver a fully realized product but again the broad appeal that some might think it would have based on paper specs it doesn’t because really ultimately this is all
about its form factor in my opinion and once you start to build it out i mean sigma did send me a cage with this and you absolutely can build it out it’s a cinema camera and a full frame 61 megapixel bear sensor you can do a lot of things with it but i think in its purest form it’s really best for using on things like gimbals and drones that’s where a camera like this thrives i think that if you’re hiking you know anything out in the field and you want something incredibly small but that is going to give you fantastic still and video quality this does still fit the bill but you need good glass what sigma sent over for review uh specifically here is the 28 to 70 mil f2.8 dg dn a great pairing with this this is actually my favorite you’ve got beautiful quality throughout the range and it really matches the camera incredibly well again excuse the fact that i don’t have an sd card in here which it’s going to constantly remind us of in duplicates and again this is really about do you want to have a true hybrid you know the first sigma fp on paper absolutely a hybrid but i as reviewed uh when i did last year it leans more towards being a cinema camera in its true form here it is more of a blend there’s no question about it and this is a perfect lens for this camera if you want to go prime go prime the other lens that was sent over is the 35 mil f1.4 dg dn and this is a great piece of glass but it is going to bulk this up and it isn’t going to give you a lot of range it definitely makes it feel more like a street photography camera after all we’ve got a very fast 35 mil which is ideal for that but i really prefer having the 28 to 70 zoom it’s smaller it’s
still very fast at f 2.8 and pretty much ideal for i think the hybrid that this camera represents now sigma does have smaller lenses for it so if you want to keep it more compact you can and you know if we weren’t in a pandemic i would say this is getting closer to being a perfect travel camera even though i love my a7 r4 if we could make it smaller i’m all for it so sigma’s on the right path it’s just a matter of checking some more boxes which i think they can do and this is going to be a dream camera eventually we’re still not there um i think once we have again internal 10-bit i can live with the autofocus system here even though it’s not going to touch the a7r iv i have to think about portability compared to the a7r4 and even if you were just to pair it with a small prime like sigma’s 45 original kit lens i believe was the original kit for the fp you’re still going to get great results with this both in still and video and that’s something you’re not going to achieve with anything else on the market again in this form factor so if you’re putting this on a gimbal it’s ideal if you want uh first person uh you know fpv on a drone you’re going to get it out of a out of a camera like this which is going to be much more difficult to achieve with an alternative competing product like the a7r iv but it’s going to be hard to make the argument you know to replace an a7r iv like i have with a wide collection of glass because you know the a7r iv isn’t that much larger it’s about it feels like it’s about twice the size the ergonomics are better you have a great evf here you have a tilting display you know obviously it’s not a cinema camera it’s going to
overheat this pretty much won’t uh but if you’re fully vested like me again there’s just not enough for me going with the fpl to say i’m ditching my a7r4 and they’re close in price you know this is a little over three grand this is 2500 and some will argue you’re getting more for your money with sony which is a rare thing to be said now where i think sigma can really hit this out of the park is if they turn this into an rx1 style camera because right now pros look at this and they say why do i need the small form factor unless they’re doing what i just mentioned which is throwing it on a gimbal or a drone otherwise they’re going to say for this much money there are so many other cameras i can look at with similar features not really the 61 megapixel sensor but similar cinema video features and i can get better auto focus i can get a lot of things i’m not getting with the sigma that i’m sacrificing for its incredibly incredibly small form factor and they’re right so i think for sigma to turn this into the home run that they’ve always planned they need to come back to what sony did with the rx1 when you look at the rx1 you know sony walked away from this they have the a7c now and maybe that is the replacement ultimately to the rx1 but the beauty of the rx1 was its incredibly small form factor full frame paired this was a 24 megapixel sensor paired with a phenomenal 35 mil prime this sold incredibly well sony you know essentially was praised industry-wide for it because there was nothing else like it on the market it reminded most of a leica experience but not at a leica price it was around 3000 us and it’s still one of my favorite cameras to this day in fact my original one was destroyed along with a lot of my gear by hurricane matthew i repurchased it because i love this little
camera now i wish it had 4k video capture the refresh didn’t bring any of that it did bring the autofocus system from the a7r ii that i have right here another favorite of mine but it’s incomplete to me in order to make the rx1 truly be succeeded we need something like the sigma fpl and i think sigma can do it i think that if sigma pairs one of their phenomenal pieces of prime glass to this and builds it on and it’s very rare that i would suggest you know essentially putting a fixed lens on a camera like this but if they did it i think that this would get broad appeal that right now the fp and fpl simply do not have of course if they improve the autofocus and and also give 10-bit all of those things it’ll make it even more compelling but if they did something as simple as put a phenomenal piece of their own glass let’s say 35 or a 24 mil something in that capacity and glued it on to the fpl i think that this would be the sort of camera that not only gear heads would be looking at and pros and hobbies with big budgets but regular shooters that are spending thousands of dollars on sony uh canon not so much nikon uh you know fuji gear in order to get images and video they know they can’t achieve with their cell phones because that seems to be the market now it’s you either you know you’re using a smartphone or you have a camera that’s several thousand dollars people don’t believe in point-and-shoot anymore that’s an argument for a separate time but that’s where i think sigma has a really big opportunity to turn this into a point-and-shoot friendly full-frame cinema still monster that no one else is making right now literally i mean sony had it they dropped it it’s sigma’s opportunity to claim that in my
opinion because this camera presents that opportunity and then all of a sudden they have the ability to pull in consumers that i just mentioned that really you know they want something that differentiates from their smartphone and boy will this do this do that excuse me if it is given a proper opportunity and it’ll go from being a niche camera that appeals to people like me but i’m still not even sold because i’m already fully vested in sony’s e-mount ecosystem and that’s where it would even be appealing to me if it had a fixed lens on it and i could say wow you know if i want incredible quality both on the still and video side without bringing my whole gear bag one of my sony or two of my sony bodies as well as a collection of glass i can just grab the fpl whatever they want to call it the fpl elite i don’t know i’m making things up now but i think you see where i’m going that’s where all of a sudden this camera envisioned something like this so not as small as the rx because it still has to have a similar form factor in order to achieve what the fpl and fp does right now but cut down that glass make it kind of idiot proof whereas right now the fpl is something i feel like only more advanced shooters are going to want to pick up both on the video and still side and all of a sudden you’ve opened up your market to so many different customers both pro and hobbyist alike and then you’re going to get people like grandparents parents that want to shoot their kids that sounds wrong you know i mean with a camera and that is going to be
huge for sigma so sigma i hope you’re listening i love the fp the fpl is even better but i think the way they turn this camera or at least make another complimentary model that’s going to grab everyone’s attention and become something that is going to be a top seller is by basically recreating what sony gave up with the rx1 tell me what you think in the comments i’m curious i mean i’ve always loved the rx1 and i just don’t feel like we have a successor even though all of the hardware is out there to make one so that’s just my opinion my take and of course you know even without an evf just give us an articulating screen with a little more touch capability because this maintains the same pretty much the same touch capacity as the fp and all of the sudden we have a pocketable photographic tool and video tool unlike any on the market sigma can do it i know it they’ve got the lenses they’ve got the body and for those of you that don’t know as i mentioned earlier in this video you know in japan sigma is known for their cameras not just their glass in the u.s it’s very you know lens centric and i understand why but i think that what they’ve got going here is the foundation for an amazing camera that we don’t have yet now does this mean you shouldn’t buy this no it doesn’t as i said earlier if i didn’t already own a wide bevy of e-mount glass that i already am very happy with i would probably start
investing in elmount class with the at least hope that this is going to continue to become the flagship that it should be meaning they’ll revise the body next year give us a bigger battery all the things i’ve alluded to a tiltable display i don’t really care about the evf after all i love the fx3 i did a comparison of these two and they’re very different the fx3 isn’t a hybrid this is and i prefer a hybrid but again sigma’s got to give me more and i know they can do it the 10-bit internal is definitely on that wish list the ibis again the auto focus doesn’t have to be perfect but if they want to make that fixed lens version of this that i’m talking about they will need to step up the auto focus game because part of the beauty of using my a7 r4 is that even when i’m not shooting it if i hand it to someone else i’m not worried about whether or not they’re going to make the mark i can put it in auto like it is right now and they’ll take a good photo doesn’t matter what their capability is the camera can adapt this on the other hand it’s not going to do that and that’s where if sigma again builds in a fantastic prime even if they make it a 3 000 camera i think they have something that’s going to sell because there’s just this huge vacuum right now of people buying cameras they don’t know how to use to get something better than their iphone or samsung phone i mean that’s just a fact of life they’re not interested in point and shoot cameras i get it even though i still use them for convenience but sigma could replace that with something like this and even if they did it with the 24 megapixel version and it was a far less expensive
option like make it a you know put it at the current fp pricing 1700 or 1500 i think they have a winner now some of you will think i’m nuts with this but i think it’s one of the ways that they can leverage what they’ve designed and created here to make it far more marketable it’s something i know i would want to buy because then i wouldn’t have to invest in the lens system i would have just an incredible point-and-shoot camera like the original rx1 and again no one has done anything to answer that so to recap phenomenal build quality average battery life best video quality is only going to come out of it externally which is going to just like the original fp eat up nvme ssds for breakfast in addition to that you know if you do want an evf it’s great that we have the option now like i said in my first look um it is a good evf it is expensive but it’s worth it if that if you’re after shooting stills with this you need to have the evf i will say that now this is not going to be ideal to shoot stills with on a fixed display like this it just isn’t the display is good but it not being able to move again reminds you that this is a cinema camera and it is but it needs to be flushed out a little bit more i definitely as i stated at the top of this video would go with the fpl over the original fp but if you don’t care about the 61 megapixels or the ability to exceed the runtime of the standard battery using the type c port get the original fp there’s nothing to think about if like me you love that this has become a hybrid unlike any other go with the fpl and yes i could keep going back to the a7r4 that i have over here that’s my daily driver but that doesn’t make a lot of sense because ultimately even though they’re so similar in terms of their sensor and video performance they’re also incredibly different as i
stated this is not going to overheat this is almost as small as a point-and-shoot camera whereas the a7r iv is unquestionably you know an alternative to a digital slr as it is you know pointed to be so sigma’s on to something here i love that they haven’t given up they’re aggressive with firmware updates but i can definitely recommend this if you understand what you’re getting yourself into i think you know a lot of people have reviewed this and dismissed it i think that’s a mistake i think there are a lot of users that love this form factor love the capability that it offers it just means that you have to work a little bit harder and know exactly what you want it’s a more refined consumer than the average one it’s not a one size fits all solution but sigma can make it that i think if they do something to the effect of what i’ve suggested with the fixed lens and make it something that’s complete out of the box that all someone will need to buy are additional sd cards and batteries and then all of the sudden you’ve got a camera that for many users is going to replace a gear bag and it’s going to be the ideal holiday uh high-end travel camera that’s not the six thousand dollar zeiss craziness or leica craziness and sigma has this opportunity i hope that they do
something with it because i will be one of the first to jump on board with that as far as the l mount again if you already have l mount glass i don’t see why you wouldn’t entertain this and if you’re not already invested in another mount heavily like i am i don’t see why you wouldn’t entertain it the sigma glass is affordable has great quality both of these were fantastic with this both instilling they seem don’t know how much redundant you’ve done some repeating here but that’s because i really like this camera it’s so close to being something that will end up in my bag and hey if sigma does entertain my fixed lens idea again i think they will have a camera that will sell to everyone in the family this isn’t going to be limited to again the niche audience that i’ve been saying over and over again that the fpl appeals to right now i think they really have an opportunity here to take this to the next level that pretty much wraps up my review again a stellar little camera that fits in the palm of your hand i love it but i have to wait to see what sigma has up their sleeve next if you think you’re going to jump on it let me know i’m really curious because again this is unmatched right now in the marketplace when it comes to its form factor and overall capability nothing else like it on earth good job sigma keep it up any questions or comments please feel free to post them hit that like button and as usual please feel free to subscribe and please stay safe later
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