The silly bits! 

I thought it was about time I made some comments on the sillier things that don’t get mentioned too often in tests. You know, the things that either annoy or please you but whichever it is, you grin and bear it because, most of the time they are not really worth worrying about.

And one has had some subtle tweaks! You guess which is which!

The CF card door is the type that you pull towards you and then hinge open. It works fine although some might say the door feels a little flimsy, although it has proved robust enough in my rather clumsy hands. The quirk though, is that, like it’s predecessors, the card goes in the ‘wrong’ way! This will affect very few people, as most will use just the one system but, for myself who uses all of the dSLR camera brands, the Sigma is the only one where the printed face of the card needs to face away from you for insertion. I always try to put it in the wrong way round before I remember!!

On board, or Pop-up flash. Now this I like. I agree that they don’t replace a proper dedicated flashgun, but they do have a place where fill flash is needed and at least you will always have it with you. They are also handy for triggering off camera flashguns without the bulk of a normal gun. The one on-board the SD14 I particularly like as it needs activating manually. None of this popping up when the camera decides there is not enough light. What does the camera know, eh? The Program mode will set the camera for the ambient light unless you manually raise the flash unit, when it will readjust the setting for use of the flash unit. A button on the left side of the lens mount allows flash compensation to be set anywhere between –3 stops to +3 stops in 1/3rd stop increments.

The SD14 has subtle colours mastered too.

Battery compartment door. It can fall off! To be fair, Sigma do state in the manual that it can, when at a certain angle, come out of it’s hinge and that it is a simple matter to replace it. It is designed this way so that it is easy to remove when fitting a PG-21 battery grip and if it does come out unintentionally (as it has once with me) then it is a very simple matter to put it back in place.

Accurate prime colours mastered.

So generally I have to say that the camera is becoming more and more natural to use as each day passes. There does not seem to be any really annoying foibles that won’t go away or that I am really disappointed in. I don’t have to refer to the manual every time I need to change a parameter as most of the controls are button based and not buried deep in some obscure menu.