I borrowed one and was pleasantly surprised. Read all the reviews, was wondering what Sigma were drinking making a camera circa 1998 slow and still delivering it a year late.
Indeed, the AF is slow, the LCD is rubbish, and the shot to shot time really poor, and using the Sigma raw software is like wading through molasses. In theory, it's a dreadful camera and I was prepared to hate it. Compared to of the better small digicams like the GRD, it is at least a couple of generations back in the interface, if not more. Despite being an enthusiast camera, important settings are still buried in menus, etc. etc. It's quite surprising how badly thought out it is as a camera - it is almost as if Sigma made a special effort to make it worse than t could have been.
Anyway, then I borrowed one. All of the above is true - but surprisingly unimportant in practice. Even the slow AF wasn't much of a problem, and I was using it mostly in social situations.
And what makes these trials worthwhile is the quality - it is the first digital camera (at least non SLR) I have used where the pictures look completely natural, and, even if 28mm f4 isn't going to give you noctilux-shallow dof, at least you get a bit - much more than a GRD, for instance.
At high ISO, it is very noisy and the saturation very low, but it looks natural - think film grain, neopan 1600 or so - rather than the chroma blotches most digital cameras have. In practice, surprisingly acceptable. The flash metering is also particularly good.
Seriously, the image quality really surprised me. I did get a magenta cast in one picture out of three hundred or so, and that pretty much ruined it, but apart from that it was only pleasant surprises. The lens is exceptionally good, if it was an afterthought it was a good one - in M mount people would be paying a fair few hundred pounds for it alone.
I think that wheras cameras like the Canon G9 or the GR Digital have wasted a really intelligently thought out, great body on a sensor that delivers so-so results, Sigma have a poor body design with a great sensor, and in the end, I would rather have a camera that makes better pictures than one which feels great in the hands but doesn't.
So why didn't I buy one? 28mm is a focal length I really don't get along with, and the Sigma raw software was sooo sloooow. I don't care how good the pictures are, if I have fight my computer for hours to edit them.
Since then Adobe have added support for the files to camera raw, so that is no longer any objection. And the DP2 will be 40mm, a good focal length for me, so I'll be seriously considering one when it comes out.
The only competition is the micro 4/3rds camera Olympus will likely be bringing out, which will likely be in all round terms better, so I'm going to wait it out until I cam make a proper comparison.
But to finish, I would agree that I couldn't recommend it: its strengths and negatives are so strong, that you really need to try it out for yourself and see if it suits your style.
