Why Sony A7 Is The New Leica

I have been shooting street with a Leica M9 for the past three years, and most of the time I loved the camera. It has been with me to New York, London. Paris and Shanghai. Some of the results can be found here.

But still I came to realize that the M9 was not the ideal camera  for me. No matter how much I loved the rangefinder, the manual focus and the Leica glass, life with the M9 just became more and more frustrating. I really missed live view and a usable high ISO. And to be honest, I missed focus too often.

So a few weeks ago I finally decided to part with my digital rangefinder. The plan was to use the money to buy a Fuji X E2 with its fast auto focus, amazing X-trans sensor and excellent lenses. But i decided to give the Sony a chance, mostly so that I could feel the Fuji was the right choice.

But when I got the Sony in my hands, I had that special feeling that this is the instrument I want to use. 15 minutes later I left the store with a Sony A7 and a Zeiss 55mm 1.8. (And a huge hole in my bank account....)

This weekend I took the Sony for a walk in Stockholm's Old Town. I shot tons of pictures and back home by the computer all my doubts around AF-speed and that the lens is too big was gone. The results was amazing. When the Leica a good day gave me one usable shot out of three, the Sony is spot on 70-80 percent of the time. A huge improvement. The sensor gives great pictures at least up to 3200 ISO, which means that I can take great pictures later in the evening and earlier in the morning.

Live view means I can compose the picture without rising the camera to my eye. That means a lot in many settings.

In short, I have a camera that is just as quick as I want it. For me street is all about capturing the moment. Fast AF gives me the opportunity to capture even more moments.

Do I miss the Leica see-through rangefinder? Absolutely, but maybe not as much as I first thought. For me the only similar camera, the Fuji X-Pro1 is way too slow. The Fuji X100s has a 35mm and I prefer 50mm, so that was never an option, although its a great camera. I love the small size of the Sony. Thats almost comparable to a Leica M9 body, even if the lens is much bigger than Leicas. The electronic viewfinder is if not great so at least more than good enough.

Here are just a few shots that I took last Saturday. All pictures are with the 55mm 1.8 lens.

I´ll come back to talk more about the Sonys amazing color capabilities and why the cheaper A7 was the right choice for me.

First Impressions of the Sony A7

I have done the unthinkable, sold my trusted Leica M9 and bought a Sony A7. OK, I got a ´n old mechanical Leica M6 in the trade, so Im not leaving Leica all together. But my new tool for street will be an A7 with the Zeiss 55mm 1.8.
Lets be honest. The Sony with lens is just over 3200 dollars in Sweden. You par more than twice that for a Leica M240 body. In terms of image quality the two cameras are comparable and I can still use my Leica lenses on the A7 body. Not many rational arguments to stick to Leica, Im afraid...

Here are some early shots with the A7.

Analog Efex Pro

Google och Nik Sotware har uppdaterat sviten med mer godis. Min nya favorit heter Analog Efex Pro, som gör att man enkelt kam efterlikna gamla tiders kameror. En 100 år gammal glasplåt är lika enkel att fixa som ett bleknat färgfoto från 60-talet.

Precs som Color Efex Pro och Silver Efex pro är Analog ett plugin som fungerar med Lightroom och Photoshop (också Elements). Pris 150 dollar för hela sviten gör att det är en nobrainer.

Här är några exempel:

Färgbild Old Camera

 Silver Efex Pro

 Vintage Camera

 Vintage 2

 Wet Plate

Originalet