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.