Contax G2 by Mark Packer

Advantages: Lenses, Build, Feel
Disadvantages: Viewfinder, Flash, Auto focus, noise

...I was excited about this camera. I wanted a light system that I could take anywere and I had read many good things about the lenses and build quality. I sold by Nikon N90s and most of my lenses to buy the G2 with 45mm and flash. I also purchased the 28mm and the 90mm and got a $700 rebate from Contax. Great deal! I wanted to love this camera- I really did. And there was much to love- superb lenses. fantistic build, great feel. But after using it for about two years, there were two things I could not get used to. The viewfinder was terrible- small and dark. I expected more for a camera the size of the G2- perhaps the view similar to a Leica M. It was more like the view that a point and shoot would have. The second problem was the flash. I was used to the wonerful fill flash Nikon produces, so the limits of the TLA 200 were...

markapacker 03.12.2006 · Read review
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Review of Contax G2

Exudes quality through and through

Advantages: Has the sharpest optics in the world
Disadvantages: unavailable in the high street, small lens range

...This unknown camera, (not many have heard of the Contax name even), has some of the best optics in the world in its stable, as verified by independent lens testing. The 16mm Hologon http://www.photodo.com/prod/lens/detail/CoGHologon168-124.shtml The 21mm Biogon http://www.photodo.com/prod/lens/detail/CoGBiogon2128-122.shtml 35mm Planar http://www.photodo.com/prod/lens/detail/CoGPlanar3520-125.shtml 45mm Planer http://www.photodo.com/prod/lens/detail/CoGPlanar4520-126.shtml 90mm Sonnar http://www.photodo.com/prod/lens/detail/CoGSonnar9028-127.shtml and the new zoom 35-70 Vario Sonnar http://www.contaxcameras.com/gseries/lenses/variosonnar3570.html All hewn it seems from solid Titanium, as this is the durable material which clothes these exquisitely crafted optics. Precision engineering with legendary Carl...

opinion-maker 03.02.2002 · Read review
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Review of Contax G1 Compact Camera

Snap one of these up

Advantages: Stunning optical quality, build and materials, you never want to put it down!
Disadvantages: Anti-red-eye device useless because way too slow

......

Bigjohnnybob 29.03.2003 · Read review
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Review of Contax T2 Compact Camera

Rock solid camera, will never let you down

Advantages: Very solid construction, excellent quality Zeiss lenses, excellent value
Disadvantages: It is fiddly to load the film, no TTL flash metering or DX film sensing

...I have used Prakticas for about 16 years now, and they are wonderful cameras. Seek one out in your local camera shop. A drawback with the more "modern" Praktica cameras is their obscure bayonet lenses. These are fantastic quality lenses and are exceptionally good value for money, but are hard to find. The B series cameras are similarly great, but are scarce. A short history of Praktica: Before the break up of Germany into East and West - the Carl Zeiss factory made some of the best cameras in the world. They are still doing so under the Contax name - check out how expensive Contax cameras are! In the East, the cameras were called Praktica, and they are just as good but a fraction of the price. This camera has no add ons - just centre-weighted metering and it is completely manual. It is also fairly heavy and chunky - but feels...

drewish 28.11.2004 · Read review
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Review of Praktica MTL-50

All purpose objective for Canon DSLR

Advantages: very fast AF mechanism, quiet operation, image stabilization
Disadvantages: feels a bit plastic, low-light performance not so good

...is around. This makes it difficult to shoot steadily in dark conditions. You either have to get a tripod, or set the sensitivity to ISO 1600-3200 (high noise). In low light, I prefer my Contax Yashica 50mm/1.4 much more. The Canon objective can feel a bit plastic and cheap, although not as cheap as the standard 18-55mm one. If you have the money, go for the 17-40L lense, which also has an ultra sonic motor (USM), but an aperture of F4 throughout the whole spectrum, as well as being a bit smaller and better built (I think it is one of the standard lenses recommended for the 5D). I would recommend this lense for the entry-level photographer, although it can be almost as expensive as a Canon 400D body. In the future, I will probably get a lighter fixed angle macro lense for travelling....

frozenace 11.07.2007 · Read review
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Review of Canon EF-S 17-85mm F4-5.6 IS USM

sharpest lens OUCH

Advantages: sharp lens
Disadvantages: basic features

...This sports a Carl Zeiss Tessar Lens and this is the sole reason to buy this camera. With decent processing you will find the prints are tack sharp. You don't buy this camera because you want a zoom lens or gimmicky auto exposure modes, you buy it because you want SLR type lens quality, which you can put into your shirt pocket. I find on really small camera apertures on extremely bright sunny days there is some light fall off on the prints, and the corners of the frames appear darker. This is particularly noticable on blue skys and light backgrounds. However I think most compact cameras in this price range exhibit some lens problem like distortion, fuzzy corners etc, so some light fall off is perhaps a small trade off in consideration of its modest price. Next step up of course is the Contax T2 from Yashica's sister company which...

opinion-maker 06.01.2001 (09.01.2001) · Read review
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Review of Yashica T5 Compact Camera

Master compact

Advantages: Small, light, great lens, flexible control
Disadvantages: 28mm sometimes limiting - 35mm better? Winder could be quieter

...'s expensive compared to some of the all-singing and all-dancing superzooms on the market now. It's not really in competition with those. It's much smaller and lighter. It's metal bodied, has aperture priority and exposure compensation, and has an awesome lens. Within it's own market it competes with the Fuji, the Nikon 35Ti and the Contax T2 (more features but bigger, heavier and more than twice the cost). Competition the other way comes from the Yashica T5 (less rugged, all-auto but waterproof and inexpensive - £130). All in all, if you want a small, light, and rugged camera that takes professional quality 35 mm photos and gives you the control of a basic SLR, look no further....

kingbing 20.03.2001 (18.02.2005) · Read review
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Review of Ricoh GR 1S

A Five Megapixel Star Camera

Advantages: Quality, Scope and Versatility
Disadvantages: negligible

...From the moment I began using this camera I felt it was a winner. I mainly bought it for it's resolution and optical range using super optics. I was one of the first in UK to get it at a cost of £900. Over the past year I have taken about 30 gigabites of photographs with it. More than I have taken with my previous Contax film cameras in five years! The results have amazed me and I have produced a range of photo cards of framable quality. Most of my images are of Scottish highland scenes and the photo cards number at present about 150. The optics are better than I expected having been used to Zeiss lenses. The range from 28mm wide angle to 200mm telephoto has met 90% of my needs. I have a 6 x 9 cm medium format camera for that bit extra on certain landscape shots. However, since I got the Minolta my photography has been...

Pastorbob 09.10.2002 · Read review
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Review of Minolta DiMAGE 7

Kyocera Finecam S5 1 year on

Advantages: Picture Quality, Ease of Use, Small Size
Disadvantages: Auto Focus in Dim light, Slow to write to memory

...that makes Contax cameras. I do have 2 main niggles with the camera. 1. The autofocus is not very good in dim light and by that I mean indoors. 2. the camera can be slow (especially after being used to 35mm SLRs) to take multiple pictures (up to 5 seconds between shots) due to the time taken to write to the memory card. I suspect this is common of all digital cameras. This is especially noticable after shooting a video sequence. Overall extremely pleased with the purchase and would buy another Kyocera Camera, except for the fact that the S5 is so good, I probably won't need to for a long time....

Dave1960 22.03.2004 · Read review
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Review of Kyocera Finecam S5

Jenoptik JD C 2.1 Lcd

Advantages: good clear photos easy to use reasonable battery life
Disadvantages: No video out steady hand needed

...'re used to the 4 way buttons and the mode dial, it's a breeze to use. JENOPTIK. Now as I mentioned before, Jenoptik cameras are not made by Jenoptik. They're made in China for the company who owns the Jenoptik rights to make consumer cameras, a German retail consortium called 3Mbo. Jenoptik do make high end studio Digital cameras of the highest quality (far better than your average top of the range Cannon or Olympus) of up to 22 MP, (the biggest file size for that camera is just under half a gigabyte at a resolution of 10688x8000 pixels , with the lowest size of 62 Mb and 5344 x 4000 pixels) and these can be found at www.eyelike.com . As for the Biotar lense on the camera, I correctly stated that Biotar was a Carl Zeiss design, but Zeiss once a Jenoptik company,are now owned by Kyocera the printer people who also own Yashica and Contax...

callancool 13.06.2003 (13.05.2004) · Read review
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Review of JENOPTIK JENDIGITAL JD C 2.1 LCD