Does it Dave? Really?
...
Leica just doesn't seem to grasp that their reputation and customer base is with the M, and new customers entering the enthusiasts market may not take to Rangefinder cameras …
Have to disagree with you, Marc. I think the M240 "tack ons" as you call them and the T are exactly the indication that Leica knows that new customers entering the enthusiasts market and wanting their lenses, their imaging qualities might not be so happy with "just the old M" model in a camera.
The obsessive body finishing stuff on the T is a bit of over-hype to me, but damn it's gotten them advertising cred with a viral video and every other fracking enthusiast list rationalizing why their favorite camera is just as good despite NOT having a 45 minute polish and finish video to ballyhoo.
Three folks I know ran to buy an M240 as soon as it was available Specifically because it did video. I don't think they're insane, they wanted the optical finder, the large format in a small form factor, etc. They've made good money on their video work ...
I see nothing wrong with basing the T on a well-proven, excellent sensor rather than risking the imaging qualities at the same time as innovating on the user experience. And providing a new lens mount for a new, forward looking line of lenses that support automation AND the possibility of a full frame model in the future, a daring ultra-simplified control experience ... exactly what Leica's
future customers will want. Us graybeards are the old rank and file who have loved the M, we're not the future customer base.
Change is inevitable, time marches on relentlessly. Getting there, being ready for it, changing in tune to it ... That's what the S, the M240, and the T say to me. Leica will die, surely and definitively, if they do not innovate in ways that other camera manufacturers do not. They provide the model for all the others to aspire to.
The prices ... eh? As I've said before, they are high but no one's forcing me to spend the money. I choose to spend the money, when I do, because I feel the thing I'm buying is worth the premium.
Every time I pick up the Sony A7 with any of my lovely Leica R lenses, I marvel at how wonderful the old lenses do on its lovely sensor and what a clunky, awkward body design the A7 is. I endure the body to enjoy what I can make with the lenses. I tried a NEX 6 briefly ... awkward, clumsy, etc, body design were the biggest obstacles to my plunking down the cash.
Somehow, I think the T will not be awkward and clunky. Somehow, I think the Leica lenses for the T will make that sensor sing beyond its "two-three year old" antiquity. ;-)
As to the original question: NEX vs A7 ... as I said, I tried a NEX 6 briefly and just couldn't bring myself to buy it. From a raw file/sensor point of view, tho, up to ISO 6400 I really don't see that much difference between the A7 and the Olympus E-M1, and the E-M1 body is way more sophisticated, complete, etc. What the A7 offers, for me, is a way to use my R and Nikkor SLR lenses on the format that they were designed for. The same lenses on the E-M1 work well also, but you lose the magic of all that tuning for the format that Leica does, that Nikon does. The key, in the end, is the nuance of the lenses used as they were designed to be with respect to DoF and FoV, and the sensor is good enough to serve them. That's all I expected, and the A7 provides it.
G