Cary uses a Canon EOS 3 with a couple of nice mid-level Canon lenses. Usually she's shooting with Fuji Provia. She's quite experienced, and has a pretty good eye for some types of shots. Better than me, a lot of times.
The issue she's got now is how her Canon lenses (which as I said are mid level - not the low end consumer grade, but not L series either) are rendering the shot. The ones we were looking at were from a recent trip to tassie, and while we were in the same spots we were usually taking pictures of slightly different things. The CV and Leica lenses really do have something extra - call it what you will. It's not sharpness, contrast, you could call it bokeh at times, or you could get into a quasi religious ferver about it. But there's definately a better look to the shots taken with those lenses.
From what I've seen, the top of the range Canon and Nikon lenses are exceptional too - but then, similar kind of price!
To me, one of the fascinating things is just how well the CV lenses stack up. Probably 90% of the time they are as good as the Leica glass. Then you get the other ?10% where the Leica glass just renders an image that little bit special. I still don't know exactly how or what, but there's something there. Even a couple of my cynical friends can see it. However, that aside, that just further shows how good a cost/performance bargain the CV lenses are........ 95% of the performance for 20% of the price (or whatever - I don't guarantee the percentages) is an amazing deal.
Anyway, to get back to the point - Cary really likes the way the CV and Leica lenses render the shots. And she also likes the smaller size and weight of Bessa's. While we'll never ditch the SLR (kinda hard to get a 400mm lens on a RF unless you're a masochist and want to go play with Visaflexes) it looks like there may be another RF addict soon!
