JonPB Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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John,
Oi. :-)
The easy answer is "all of them." The honest answer is between an SL and investing in the development of a fully featured FE-R adapter.
I'm approaching the conclusion that Sony cameras represent an awkward compromise between color and monochrome imaging. I'm convinced that this is because Sony sees high sensitivity as a unique selling point and so they thin their color filter array as much as possible. The result being color, yes; color differentiation, not so much. But, there's enough color data there to correct for lateral CA and to apply color filters in post, which are both quite valuable. Still, I see my images in color and I want those images to look good in color.
Leica and Canon are the only companies making 24x36mm sensor cameras with colors that I like these days. (Smaller sensors don't work for me because I like these particular lenses, and the Speed Booster is just too much of a compromise after shooting with it for a good year and a half.) Canon doesn't work because it requires either shaving the mirror or removing optical/physical protection from my lenses. I have no objection to meddling with hardware, but I have a hard time believing that removing even a few grams of weight from the mirror wouldn't have unwanted consequences on the reflex mechanism. (And Canon lenses don't tempt me to jump ship. At all.) So, that leaves Leica.
The M9 is appealing. Not so good at high ISO, but I'm mostly a base-ISO shooter. I'm a slow subject shooter, so point, scale focus, chimp, and refine would work for a lot of my shooting. But that's still a pain. The M240 is better. I consider their base ISO colors to be equivalent. They both differentiate color well and I figure that the difference between the two cameras is mostly down to how each user (and their software) defaults to mapping the sensor to the color space. However, the 240's viewfinder is ungainly at best and unreliable at worst. I feel like the M240 would be more aggravating than the M9, even if it sometimes works much better.
And then there's the SL. Great color from everything I've seen. Great handling and performance from everything I've read. With the SL, the weak point is the adapter, as today they're offering us a stacked L-M and M-R adapter "solution." That's brilliant, in a way, as I'm more likely to buy into the M system that way ... but it isn't what I want. What I'd like to see is an adapter that allows the camera to show (and select) the lens' aperture; recording EXIF data (lens, focal length, aperture) would also be nice. I can't see a technical reason why this adapter can't exist. Nonetheless, Leica has given us no reason to expect that such an adapter will be released.
If Leica does release a fully featured L-R adapter, then it'll just be a question of saving up to buy that without putting the roof over my head (or prospects of someday retiring) in jeopardy.
Finally, there's the dark horse of making my own adapter. The FE mount is semi-open; all you have to do is get your company to convince Sony that you're legit, sign a non-compete, and they'll share lens mount specs with you. The R mount is public domain; all you need to do is reverse engineer it. ;-) (Which is to say, the ROM patent protection in the U.S. appears to have expired, but the patents didn't disclose much that appears, at face value, to be very useful.) So, with the help of some folks I know, with a bit of electrical and mechanical engineering, and with far more prototypes machined and soldered than I expected to have to go through, I don't see why I couldn't make a full featured FE to R adapter. I suspect I could get to proof of concept for about as much as it'd cost to buy an SL and L-R adapter, and then to full production with modest investment on the premise of selling ~100 copies over the next two years or so. So, if Leica doesn't release such a thing, and I'm willing to limit my "serious" work to B&W, I bet I could make an adapter that would allow me to fully enjoy the R lenses I like so much.
On the side are the medium format options. I could jump ship to an S 006 with a 70, or perhaps I could find a Pentax 645D and 28-45, though these systems would lean toward larger and less replaceable than I'd really like.
There is an insane range of highly desirable kits out there but none of them really land in the sweet spot of "that's what I need." So, I'm building up the coffers, trying not to buy every R lens ever made, shooting with what I've already got in my bag (A7 II), and waiting for determination to strike.
Cheers,
Jon
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