it's been only a couple of months since I got me a G1 + 45mm + 28mm setup, it's the most beautiful camera I own, and those lenses are AMAZING, however, as I'm shooting street/candid/instant only, I experience the focusing (both using it in manual and auto) is way to slow for non "planned" shots.
Don't focus on any moving subject but lock your focus somewhere on the pavement (either using the AF of the "manual" focus - which isn't a genuine manual focus because it won't work if the AF doesn't lock up on something it can "catch" in the frame), recompose, and shoot when your subject is where you have focused, or somewhere at the same distance.
This is how manual rangefindering works anyway ; with a manual focus camera, even a Leica M, you cannot quickly focus on something moving, in general, so you need to either use hyperfocal or focus using the rangefinder on something fixed located at the same distance as where your moving subject will be when you will shoot, then very quickly re-frame and shoot.
Yet the BIG Contax G system problem is that its so-called manual focus which won't let you take a photo if the AF hasn't detected something to catch at, say, 6 meters even if you have put the "manual focus" dial on 6 meters. So this isn't any real manual focus there.
Not speaking of how it poorly deals with reflective surfaces being in the field (windows, cars hoods...).
Great lenses, beautiful bodies, decent VF afterall with a real-time parallax compensation and a beautiful information display bargraph, but with a BIG problem regarding how it's focusing in practice...
This is the problem that it's not "real" manual focus, no matter what tricks we talk about here etc. it's just not suitable for instant/street photography where 1 second is sometimes A VERY LONG time... Sad really as the glass is REALLY nice!
You said it all...
