Sony RX1 v Leica M 240

To satisfy my desire to fondle the latest Leica M, I found myself at Leica's Mayfair store in London today where the very knowledgeable assistant found me an M 240 with a 35 f/2 Summicron to play with. I'm not one for camera reviews but thought it worth sharing my thoughts on this one. The only other review I've seen that pits these two against each other is Steve Huff's which is a good read as usual.As it happened, I had my Sony RX1 with me as well, which as you all know is a full-frame camera with a fixed 25 f/2 Zeiss lens on the front. It would be a shame not to compare the two really, so that's exactly what I did.Firstly, the Leica is a substantial beast compared with the RX1. I didn't think I'd say that, having previously owned an M9 and having a brace of Canon 1D bodies, but having used the RX1 for some time the Leica feels big in comparison, and heavy too. It's beautifully made though, solid as you like and feels as though it would last forever unlike the Fuji XPro1 which is quite plasticy and light by comparison. I put the M in the "reassuringly chunky" camp.Control-wise I found it pretty much like the M9 which is a good thing. Everything was beautifully familiar. Simple menus, and I had sorted the ISO adjustment quickly. The only other thing you really need is shutter speed & aperture which is simplicity itself. I do wish Sony had put a shutter speed dial on the RX1 instead of exposure compensation. Live view was interesting and simple enough with focus peaking which worked fine and I liked the zoomable view which is more flexible than the Sony's one-zoom-magnifaction-and-that's-it facility. The Leica viewfinder was plenty good enough, but seemed to lack the eye detection that the Sony has and needed to be switched on manually (sorry if there's a setting to do this automatically on the Leica somewhere).Anyway, onward...with the 35 Summicron on I took some shots on the M and then swapped my card back into the RX1 to take pictures as similar as possible as on the Leica. Note all pictures are RAW, imported into Lightroom and exported as full res jpegs which you can see by clicking the pics.Above you can see that the RX1 missed focus slightly and the focal plane is on the chap's shirt rather than on his face where I positioned the focus square. I was using the centre focus point option and then recomposed, so it's possible the focus & recompose caused the issue but I did the same with the Leica so I think it's the very bright background which spooked the RX1 which is looking for contrasty edges. I usually have the camera in DMF mode and should have checked the focus using the focus peaking feature - I'll have to remind myself to do that against bright backgrounds in future. I found that I could focus with the Leica a bit, though not much, slower than the RX1 would focus. And with the Leica you know if you've got it right so no chimping required. The Leica also renders slightly warmer than the Sony, with both on auto white balance.Curiously the Leica seemed to be 1/3 under the RX1's exposure on every shot so I ended up with the Leica running a slightly slower shutter speed than the RX1 to get the same exposure. Strange.And now outside. I know you are stunned with the originality and superb composition of these pictures...You can see the slightly different colour rendition of the two cameras (both on auto white balance). If you want to make your RX1 files look like Leica M files then there's a bit of vignette to add plus a smidge of colour saturation and a slight white balance adjustment. I saw the same thing with Steve Huff's sample pictures, and set up a little Lightroom preset to see how easy it was to achieve the same look - answer - very easy. Both are lovely and sharp on the sign which is obviously the focal point. The Sony might just edge it but to be honest they are close enough not to care.There is some weirdness in the Leica bokeh though. It may just be the lens characteristics (I'm sure it is and someone will be along shortly to confirm this I'm sure), but it is quite peculiar in places, with what looks like sharpening around the edges of things that should be blurry. So there you have it. One photographer's weirdness is another photographer's character.A couple more examples for you. Just a quick note that I upped the exposure by a stop on each of these in Lightroom as they looked underexposed to me with the addition of my very patient subject into the frame.As you can see, the Sony got the focus on this one spot on.And no comparison would be complete without a picture of a wall, so here you go, this time at f/5.6.One thing that is immediately visible is the barrel distortion on the RX1 compared to the dead straight lines on the Leica. However, I usually have my RX1 file import set to automatically correct this based on the Lightroom lens profile correction so never usually notice it, but I'd set it to be off in this case.I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions re sharpness, but I think it's safe to say that both these cameras turn in astoundingly good quality pictures.So....what do I conclude from this. Firstly I think it's amazing that Sony have fitted such impressive capability into the tiny RX1. To compete effectively pixel for pixel against the mighty Leica M is no mean feat. It's a little powerhouse of a camera that fits in a pocket and produces stunning quality pictures. With the Leica M, you kind of expect the images to be stunning anyway, so it's not as surprising in a way. The M is a delight to use though. Much more intuitive than the RX1 - as a previous M9 owner I was straight back into that wonderful shooting experience.Then of course there's the price. You can't ignore the numbers. The Leica M and 35mm Summicron comes in at £5100 + £2160 = £7260. The Sony RX1 is £2500. So that's 3 Sony RX1's for the price of the Leica. Sure you'll lose some money on the RX1, but if you've seen the price of used M9's at the moment I'd venture that you'll lose the equivalent of the whole price of the RX1 on your Leica M after a couple of years, so depreciation on the RX1 will be lower in cash terms. Obviously the Leica lenses hold their value, but the RX1 lens is effectively free with the body - well sort-of.Based on that equation, if you are happy with 35mm and want pictures virtually indistinguishable (and possible better re smooth bokeh and marginally sharper) then the RX1 is a complete no brainer. It's also much more discrete than the Leica, smaller, quieter etc. Sure it doesn't have the beautiful shooting experience of the Leica M, with the excellent viewfinder attached and the convenience of autofocus you can buy yourself a nice second hand car with the price difference, or even a wonderful 2-month photographic journey to India/Africa/other country with nice light and interesting looking people and actually take some pictures instead of just buying more gear (note to self!!!).So, the RX1 is a slam dunk in my opinionAnd then I put a 21 1.4 on the Leica. Aaaaghhh dang....sell my soul, wife, children and all my vehicles. Give me an M 240, 21 1.4, 50 1.4 and 75 1.4, and do it now! And throw in a Noctilux while you're at it. I'm doomed!