Contax AX - Courtesy of rbelyell

Laurence · Expire: 2016-06-19

Well, rbelyell provided me with a wonderful camera to try out for a while.
His generosity has astonished me, as he also sent the Yashica ML 24/2.8
AND the Zeiss Planar 50/1.4. Shocked

Frankly, I've never had a Zeiss lens in my hands. In fact, I've never had
a Yashica ML Contax-mount lens in my hands either! Time to party!

The Contax AX is the best-built camera I've seen in ages. While I haven't
used a ton of SLRs over the years, this camera exceeds anything
I've seen for pure, solid beauty. I love everything about this camera,
including it's massive structure. It's such a....MACHINE... Shocked

The AF function truly surprised me. Man, this thing is FAST! It is
a testament to Contax engineering that they could make the whole
mirror box and film plane unit move so meticulously and so quickly.

I wonder what might have happened if Contax had utilized the "in camera"
autofocus scheme in some of the first digital cameras, if that would have
been possible. Fun to speculate.

The lenses? What can I say? I quickly got some Rite-Aid Drugstore brand
ASA200 print film and loaded it up. Even the sound of the winding when
I closed the back sounded so darn precise. I popped on the Zeiss Planar
and found some flowers at the library. I alternated between the Zeiss
and the Yashica to use the roll up.

Here is a quick scan of a snapshot from the Planar. This is a low-rez scan
so there are artifacts and such other anomalies. But, I can still see the
truly gorgeous "look" from the Planar, AND how precisely the Contax
nailed the focus! Shocked

I'll scan more soon at higher resolutions. What FUN! And rbelyell -
THANK YOU so much for allowing me the opportunity to use this setup.
It's a wonderful thing to be able to go "back in time" to an era of truly
remarkable SLRs and lenses.

More to come (and better scans).

Did I say this camera is BIG? And I mean that in a good way...it fits my
medium sized hands beautifully, and I didn't even notice that this was
a massive camera after handling it for a few shots. The ergonomics are
outstanding, with all controls right where you would expect them to be.

Crinkled Flower
Contax AX
Zeiss Planar 50/1.4
f:4 and 1/450th
Rite-Aid 200 print film (perhaps rebranded Superia?)

And a quick scan at 400dpi from the Yashica lens.

Gladiolus
Contax AX - Macro Mode
Yashica ML 24/2.8
f:8 and 1/250th

kds315* · Expire: 2021-03-09

What wonderful results and what a generosity!!

koji · Expire: 2012-12-27

The story I got was this:

One camera designer at Kyocera (actually working from Yashica era)
almost got the first AF SLR camera in the world, but a couple of months
behind Minolta's patent application for Maxxum 7000. He continued to
work at Kyocera, but one day Mr. Inamori (CEO of Kyocera) heard this
designer's unhappy story. Then Mr. Inamori ordered him to make another
AF camera the designer was holding the idea in his head, he made this Contax AX.
Soon after he retired from Kyocera Co., so that was his last job at the work.

Some of parts are shared with RTSIII model in order to reduce the cost,
you are holding almost same quality camera as RTSIII without the vacuum
back plate holder.

Yebisu · Joined: 13 Feb 2011 Posts: 1299

What a generous you have?! Nice shots btw. Looking forward to seeing some more

Nikon75-150E · Joined: 14 Aug 2011 Posts: 148 Location: Houston TX

Nice Laurence. I like the crinkled flower.

Orio · Expire: 2012-12-04

Great camera, great friend... great photographer and great photos.
Infallible recipe.
Have you tried the "turn all lenses into macro" function yet?