Amateur Photographer Magazine

Skip to Content
Digital Photography Forum - A shared resource

Equipment >> Contax & Kyocera Discussions
 |  Print Topic
Jump to first unread post. Pages: 1
eryri



Reged: 09/08/2002
Posts: 637
Loc: Chester
Contax autofocus & digital models
      #201129 - 23/04/2005 10:18

Anyone hear had any experience with either of the two Contax autofocus models (not the AX), or their full frame digital model?

Steve
http://www.landscapesofwales.co.uk


Post Extras: Print Post   Remind Me!   Notify Moderator  
TimF
Senior Member


Reged: 30/07/2001
Posts: 15967
Loc: Herts/Beds border
Re: Contax autofocus & digital models [Re: eryri]
      #201130 - 23/04/2005 17:50

Only an extremely (like less than a minute) brief play when the N1 first appeared, so not long enough to form any sensible judgement. The thing that did strike me was the enormity of the lenses! An important point is that the lens mount is incompatible with the manual focus glass.

The digital was by almost all accounts a disaster, with very mediocre performance at moderate ISO speeds. To be fair to Kyocera, the issues were with the Philips designed chip (which had been due to be used by Pentax in their own proposed full-frame DSLR around the same time until the company wisely pulled the plug), but Kyocera's inept handling was pretty much the coup de grace for the entire Contax 35mm system which seemed to drift aimlessly from that point until the plug was pulled a couple of weeks ago.

Tim BSRIPN


Post Extras: Print Post   Remind Me!   Notify Moderator  
BenchistaModerator
Wich Tyler


Reged: 11/08/2000
Posts: 36427
Loc: Everywhere and nowhere, baby
Re: Contax autofocus & digital models [Re: TimF]
      #201131 - 24/04/2005 08:13

Well.....that was certainly the common impression of the digi at launch, however there has recently been quite a bit of discussion on the Contax group to which I belong (http://photo.cis.to/mailman/listinfo/contax) from people who have used it extensively, and their impression is that quality is actually very good indeed up to ISO 160. Now I don't think that's massively impressive, but it does appear to be a good camera within its limits. That group is a great place to repeat this question.

Nick BSRIPN
And why not?


Post Extras: Print Post   Remind Me!   Notify Moderator  
eric5420
newbie


Reged: 17/10/2005
Posts: 1
Re: Contax autofocus & digital models [Re: TimF]
      #264924 - 17/10/2005 08:00

the digital N is defenitely a terrific camera especially today at itsprice (you can find it new with a two yera warranty at less than 2000 USD). I've been using it for three month now with severla lens.

In fact the first days wher not easy, as you have to understand the way the CCD and the camera works (coming out from a leica M, it is not an easy task), once you have it in the eyes great.

The camera provide very good sharp not noisy image under any condition up 1second whatever the ISO. However the dynamic of the CCD is so wide that 100 ISO is really the perfect speed especially with the wide open lens I have the same result at 100 ISO with half a second pose than a fim 100 iso at several second!!!!

The camera is optimised for 100 and 200 iso which means that all others iso proopvide less good picture. In addition surprisingly teh JPEG mode is better than the TIFF mode. So I shoot only JPEG (up to 4 seconds) and RAW (up to 11 second).


Post Extras: Print Post   Remind Me!   Notify Moderator  
Pages: 1

Subscribe now »

CANON LAUNCH 15MP EOS 50D
Read AP's view on the new high-end enthusiast EOS 50D

More




Extra information
0 registered and 3 anonymous users are browsing this forum.

Moderator:  admin, GCW, Siuya, huwevans, Benchista, Fen, TheFatControlleR, Damien Demolder, AndrewC, mark_jacobs, daft_biker, Myk.R 


Print Topic

Forum Permissions
      You cannot start new topics
      You cannot reply to topics
      HTML is disabled
      Mark-up is enabled

Rating:
Topic views: 4656

Rate this topic

Jump to

Contact Us | Privacy statement Main website

Generated in 0.111 seconds in which 0.018 seconds were spent on a total of 12 queries. Zlib compression disabled.