Terrible review!! He writes it like a person who has never USED a Hexar RF. If he had, he would have fallen in love with it!
The Hexar RF has a few advantages over the Mechanical M's:
1/4000th second top shutter speed. - Something I love and adore for using larger apertures outdoors with my favorite films.
Film handling/loading is superb on the Hexar RF. It does NOT 'waste' any film. You will always get 38 shots on a 36 roll.
Auto rewind - also fantastic, a time saver and always accurate. I like to pop open the back when it stops and leave the tail out (if you don't pop open the back when it stops, it will suck the tail into the cannister in one more second) it's your choice.
And the lenses? HA! They are superb too!! Just like the hexanon lenses for the old SLR's were, superb.
The exposure compensation dial? It works great, I use it all the time.
The meter readout? Works great, can see it in any light.
The framelines and the patch? Not a thing wrong with those either. I use mine primarily for 35/28 and a 50 (in that order of popularity) and I am not one bit unhappy with the finder or the patch.
Ken also neglects to mention AEL (AE Lock), it uses DX film coding (you can also set the ISO manually), she accepts a regular cable release, gets incredible battery life, has a 2 frames per second motor (if you need it) and a self timer function.
He also does not say that it feels great in the hand, shoots like a dream come true and exudes quality (it's heavy...items inside are dense, well made).
He is welcome to send me all his unwanted Hexar RF's and M-Hexanon glass!!
While I have never owned the Contax G2, I do hear a lot of people say these cameras made a lot of racket. The Hexar RF is not as quiet as a Leica M bit it does not make a 'racket'.
Like I said, sounds to me like he has never used a Hexar RF.
The only 'sketchy' thing about the Hexar RF is parts availability. It's essentially an orphaned camera in the USA (better chance getting it repaired properly in Japan).
Cheers!!
