Sony A7: The modern Leica CL?

Sony A7 with Minolta M-Rokkor 40/2 - November 2013 

Many a photographer from the old timey days of chemical processing, has a soft spot in their heart for the "mini" M; otherwise known as the Leica CL, or its cousin, the Minolta CLE. The CL was famous for shrinking the M in both physical proportion and price, making it a very popular entry into the M world. So popular that you will hear whispers claiming Leica killed the CL project to protect its M sales. To my knowledge, to this day, the CL and CLE remain the smallest and lightest interchangeable M-mount film rangefinders.

Sony A7 Hands On Review

Christmas came early yesterday when the FedEx man delivered the hotly anticipated Sony A7 to my front door, direct from DigitalRev in Hong Kong. Much has been written about the 24 megapixel full frame A7 and its big brother, the 36 megapixel A7r so I will assume you are mostly up to speed on what these cameras are about and we will treat this piece as a hands on.

Sony A7 - they crammed a full frame sensor in there

A little background: I previously owned the highly regarded Sony RX1, as well as several NEX cameras and still shoot with a trusty Sony A900 SLR so the A7 was a must buy when I first heard it announced. Because the A7 looks to be so versatile, my intention is to use it as both a compact, everyday/travel cam fitted with the relatively small new full frame lenses (FE) and rangefinder legacy lenses, as well as a second body to the A900, fitted with the very cool Sony battery grip and LA-EA4 adapter for Alpha SLR lenses.