jfreak wrote:
I think I would like to correct myself. After reading all the CCD and CMOS and Ashwin\'s article, I was quite convinced that M240 was all about the newest and fastest and bestest etc and in terms of picture quality the M9 is probably still the best. Then I read some more and felt may be not so and as some have pointed out, m240 has higher DR and little more ease in shooting wide lens with live view help, has higher resolution screen, shutter sound and more res. So for 2k more, I get all this and 2yr warranty and if I trust these people who are more professional and put their prestige on stake claiming something, may be the IQ is different but not worse than M9. So all in all I found M240 for the price a better option.
I am writing this hoping that someone in my state of debate over the m240 vs M9 or a7 can get some help in the decision making.
I am very grateful to all of you who have written in response to my post on this debate and I hope someone else find this useful as well.
Think in terms of how you wish to use the camera. I was all set to take the plunge of purchasing the M240 to use with all of my R lenses and to supplement these with a couple of M wide angle lenses. There were just too many issues that soured the M240 for me. These included the inability of the camera to move the focus point (scroll) when using lenses with the add on EVF. This is a necessity to me for using longer lenses and macro work in particular. The M240 has a maximum shutter length of 60 seconds for some ISOs and still shorter for others. This was a 2nd strike against the camera. I need to have the option of using a bulb setting for potentially long exposures for work in some lighting conditions and using some ND alone and with Polarizing filters. The M240 is really designed as a hand held camera that allows you to mount the camera to a tripod. In order to access the camera to change the batteries and the SD cards you must remove the bottom of the camera and remove it from the tripod and re-position the camera on the tripod if you need to replace the battery or the SD card. In order to use a flash with M240 if you are using the add on EVF you must use the additional Multifunctional grip or the standard grip and to add a 2nd hot shoe. The A7 series cameras, the A7r in particular is a nature and landscape camera performing better on a tripod and probably better for tripod usage than the M240.
The M-240 is without question a better built camera than any of the A7 series cameras. But the M240 is 4 times the cost of the A7. I opted for the A7r because I found it to be a better R solution than the M240 would be. In order to get an M240 with the features that I required even living with the issues that I mentioned it would have cost me almost $8500 for the camera, the EVF, the Multifunctional Grip, 2 extra batteries, and the R to M adapter. The A7r only cost me about $2600 for the camera and 3 extra batteries and the Novoflex R to M adapter. And the A7r has a superior EVF that is built in that does not need to be added or removed for usage and protection of the camera and EVF when removed from or stored in my camera bag.
I opted for a Minolta CLE MC 40mm f2 M-Rokkor lens which is the latest incarnation of the Leica C 40mm f2 Summcron as my normal walk around lens on my A7r. I had hoped to get the M 21mm f3.4 SEM, but unfortunately I had to decide against this due to its poor performance on the A7r. I also had to reconsider which lenses that I would get for my wide angle lenses to perform well on the A7r. So, I opted for the R 28mm f2.8 Elmarit Version II which is the best performing 28mm lens on the A7r. And, I now have an order in for the M Wide Angle Tri-Elmar lens which is one of the best performing ultra wide angle lenses to perform on the A7r. The other Leica M wide angle lenses and many Zeiss lenses may perform better on the M240 and the M9 than the Tri-Elmar, but it is still a fine performer on these cameras. Consider that much of the performance of many of the M lenses on the M9 and the M240 is from the internal processing of these cameras.
