When you have a camera bag full of lenses, it's easy to get caught up in a lens-change frenzy rather than to focus on the world around you and try to capture what's going on. This is why I often go out with just a single lens, or even a camera with no option in which to change lenses (your phone is also one of these). The Sony RX1 has a 35mm lens and full-frame sensor, which are mated to each other in a relatively compact housing. Missing from the camera is a built in EVF, a large battery (less important for me), and better autofocus. Oh, and a tilting screen. If it had all of those things, perhaps I would not have purchased an A7R in the first place...
The Leica Q has piqued my interest. It likely has a fantastic lens and sensor combination—some say better than the digital M rangefinders, which I can believe having used the RX1 for quite a while. Merging a lens and sensor together to get around issues with interchangeable lenses really does allow for some outstanding image quality.
Unfortunately, it is circa £3000 in the UK. As we're in the process of buying a house, I need to invest money elsewhere and not in toys and trinkets (for now). So, I will see how this one plays out. What will Sony do next? If I get a chance to play with a Q, it would probably just make me feel that I *needed* to get one. If I did, the RX1 would surely go. What about the A7R? I have 28mm and 35mm lenses, and enjoy changing between them for random walks, but I could really just live with one camera—I rarely need the telephoto end, and I could stitch for wide angle, but wide is what I've come to enjoy. So I suppose the A7R fights a good argument.
But I don't need three cameras!
As usual, it's a case of gear lust, rather than anything truly substantial. Yes, the Leica Q has a few tricks up its sleeve compared to the RX1, but I rarely miss a shot due to the camera. Focus is not fast, but there are ways to handle that. I suppose I should not excuse the camera, but I do forgive it a few shortcomings for being the first camera in this style, in this digital age.
It's funny. Really, the SLR should have been the last to turn digital—there are plenty of film cameras out there that were fixed focal length and compact. It would have surely been easier to design cameras this way around and then turn to the SLR? But I suppose the big money is in the "professionals", using SLRs for a living.
The digital camera wars are fought between Canon and Nikon, after all....
to be continued...