I own 'em all and love 'em all. The Leicas are plenty compact and thoroughly nice. Their rangefinders are the best. The Canon's are a bit bigger, but the 7's have a meter and the VI's are the best built of any. The Nikons (particularly the SP) just beg to be used. They have too many dials and levers protruding from the body but have an aura. I take my best pictures with them. And they handle 28mm better than any. The Contax's are earlier, better built but have fewer features. The lenses for each of these are beyond spectacular. Not until we had modern sensors such as on the Sony's or digital Leicas did we have any way of knowing just how good the old Sonnars, Canons, Nikkors or Summicrons were.