thats really interesting, do you know which one's are optically good performers? as he doesnt mention it much.
Well they are all "good performers". For any single camera you will find someone out there praising its stellar, superb, whatever lens, no matter whether it's a Canonet, a Yashica or an Olympus. Usually people say pretty uncritical things like "needle-sharp" or "stellar".
I think I went a similar route as you did. I didn't feel like investing into an interchangeable-lens camera, and I had a Zorki already. So I used a Yashica GSN to some extent and a Canonet GIII-QL17 quite extensively. Both were fine cameras, I was never disappointed with the optical qualities, only the GSN was too big for my taste with no manual mode at all and the Canonet had no metered manual mode. If I were to recommend you a compact rangefinder on specs alone, it'd be the Yashica 35 CC. It's small, has a 35/1.7 lens and it takes 6V batteries, so no mercury issues.
I mainly mentioned compacts because I don't know your priorities. Myself I went for the Bessa R eventually because I did want to use interchangeable lenses at some point. Even if you don't want to use them right now, it
is nice to be able to just slap a $20 Jupiter-8 on it and get a 50 Sonnar for portraits. The metering system and viewfinder of the Bessa are much better. You get metered manual mode with the Bessa, which few compacts will give you. The problem with the Bessa, just like with all the Leicas is that compacts still have some advantages: they are smaller, and because of the lack of automation in the Bessa, your photography will be ever-so-slightly slower in the beginning. So after I got the Bessa I did find myself lusting for a Leica CL (for the compactness) or an R3A (for a fast 40/1.4 and automation) for a while. However, In the end going for the Bessa was a good decision that I don't regret.
Philipp
