I've lusted after a Leica M9 for years now but at around $10000 for the body and a good lens it's oppressively expensive and not without limitations. And then I thought I might want a Sony RX1 but when you figure that it costs as much as a Nikon D600 and a Sigma 35mm f1.4 DG HSM lens and as a system it would definitely take better photographs. The Sony is much smaller though. Size is appealing.
This lens, the Nikkor 35mm f/2, is an affordable $427. It lives on my camera most of the time. If there's a shortcoming to it it's that there's only one of them in my possession and I have two cameras it could fit on. There's an updated version that sells for $1793. It goes to f/1.4, the full extra stop shouldn't be undervalued but $1300 or so is a large chunk of change. 1.4 means 1/60th. 2.0 means 1/30th. That's the difference between getting the shot and not getting the shot.
This series of photographs is taken with a really crappy point and shoot camera. They are grainy, distorted, full of artifacts, digital noise. Everything about them makes me cringe because they are very poor photographs, and yet they are beautiful and I like them very much. The flaws in image quality works for them. So who am I to complain about 1 stop?
The new cameras are interesting. I'm not in the market yet, my camera is still just fine, thank you very much. But the new cameras are getting closer to what the Leica M9 is/was but cost a lot less than $10000. Some of them cost less than $3000. A Fuji X-Pro1 with a 35mm equivalent lens is under $2000 but it's still a crop sensor, it's still a compromise, But it didn't exist two years ago. The Leica M9 didn't exist 4 years ago, its predecessor, the M8, also being a crop sensor camera. Things are moving in the right direction. I don't wish or hope for my camera to die. There's nothing out there that I want to replace it with today but I can imagine within a couple of years compact, high resolution, full frame cameras with be plentiful. At least I hope so.
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