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Future of the Contax N

Marc,

But as you know, Canon doesn't want to irritate its users now and they simply use current lineup of lenses with smaller sensors. Sales don't seem to hurt that much.

And by the way, Kodak 14n was probably a runaway success in the PR plans of Kodak guys. But here is a newsflash - Kodak have pissed a lot of professional photographers in last 5-6 years. For that reason, a lot of people would be cautious in spending any money for Kodak digital SLR. And technically speaking, most DSLR users don't really use wide-angle lenses, so 1.3 to1.6 focal length multiplication factor is acceptable for most. Which is why Canon has more models with smaller sensors and only one with 24x36mm sensor (that and the fact that in their case making 24x36mm is difficult).

And, Contax N1 digital was such a remarkable flop also because they repeated somebody else's mistake. Pentax have been playing around with idea of making full-frame, 24x36mm digital SLR based on Philips chip. Quickly enough they realized it's not going to work exactly the way they envision it and pulled the plug on it. Kyocera decided to play a Big Guy and failed. (by the way, when it comes to CCDs/CMOSs, full-frame is not equal to 24x36mm! It's a totally different thing, has nothing to do with size).


Dirk,

Valid points. If Kyocera wants to keep our business, they better speak up.

Taylor,

yes it should develop better relations with their customer base. BUT, do they listen to what you and I think? I doubt it. Because if they had listened to users, we would already have few new lenses in manual focus MM mount and at least one new camera in manual focus line, such as next generation RTS for ex&le.

Lynn,

That's a valid point too and that's why not everyone uses Contax
happy.gif


Mike.
 
Mike,

> And, Contax N1 digital was such a remarkable flop also because they > repeated somebody else's mistake. Pentax have been playing around with > idea of making full-frame, 24x36mm digital SLR based on Philips chip. > Quickly enough they realized it's not going to work exactly the way > they envision it and pulled the plug on it.

What, exactly, do you believe it was that Pentax figured out that was "not goign to work exactly the way they envision[ed]"? What is technically "wrong" with the Contax N1 Digital, in your opinion?

> Kyocera decided to play a > Big Guy and failed.

As far as marketing/sales goes, yes, it was a "failure", but as far as meeting technical goals I don't see it that way. It creates spectacular images, to where I'd say that it produces the best images of any 6M Bayer pattern sensor camera, but it needs post processing, but the raw data is there...and it does have some limitations...but that in no way means it's a "failure".

Regards,

Austin
 
Austin,

From what I remember, they were not happy with performance at ISO speed over 100 and the fact that it was draining so much power and the heat of the sensor itself (more noise the longer you use it). Also, manufacturing costs were huge, because even creating all supporting circuitry, placing it correctly in the image plane (the sensor itself I mean), getting it to work well at high shutter speeds and downloading data from it - all that proven itself as one too ambitious, too expensive project that would most likely have very little demand among consumers and have long-run reliability issues.

And it wasn't only marketing flop for Kyocera. You don't pull the product off the market in a year unless there are serious problems with it (as far as sales are concerned) on major markets just because it was marketing/sales failure. Here is an ex&le. RTS III is still on the market, despite very low sales.

The reason why N1 Digital wasn't successful is the fact that it's expensive, drains batteries like crazy and as far as I can tell - performance isn't all that great for the money. Not to mention problems that they had to fix just few months after they released it to the market. I wonder, did they manage to sell more than 1000 of these worldwide?

Anyway, I personally doubt whether they will release another full-frame, 24x36mm digital camera for N-mount. It's more likely they will take the Canon's approach and release one or two cheaper models using smaller sensors with some focus length multiplier factor. Sort of like NX vs. N1.

UNLESS, Kyocera develops its own full-frame, 24x36mm chip and use it instead of Philips (yeah, this chip is good for scanning backs. Doesn't automatically make it good for DSLRs though).


Mike.
 
Canon and Contax certainly operate in a completely different time scale, design philosophy and target customers. Unknown to most people,Contax was the first to produce an operational autofcous SLR prototype dubbed "Contax 137AF" in 1982. Obviously it never went into production. It took Contax 18 years to launch its first production AF camera. In some ways, Leica and Contax share very strong believe in manual focus SLR system. Their main customers are not targeted to be sport, news or wildlife shooters, but more well-heeled amatuers or pro who are not in a hurry to capture the images. They are more conservative in some ways and more resistant to the latest technological trends like image stabilisation, VR, diffraction optics..Having said that Contax is very innovative in the design of their camera bodies.

Certainly Zeiss would never produce cheap plastic lenses like Nikon and Canon do. This follows the tradition of German optical engineering-uncompromising attitude towards quality regardless of costs; thats why Zeiss Ikon went bust in spite of their reputation of producing the finest SLR lenses! So it won't be surprising that you will have to wait for many years before Contax will cough up with its full line-up of N lenses.
 
"Certainly Zeiss would never produce cheap plastic lenses like Nikon and Canon do."

Are you certain? Does anyone know if the Zeiss T lens in the Yashica T4 or some of those Sony camcorders are all glass?

-Dana
 
well I don't know about the sony's but the cheap T4 do produce great picture, I saw a friend's photo who use T4 for it, the colour reproduction is excellent, IMHO, I can not tell much of a different with my N1 and definitly better then the canon's pic!

Ben
 
Agreed. I really doubt the future of N series. From business point of view, Zeiss does not have the justification to invest more R&D for this product line as the target market has not scaled up as planned.

I think Kyocera lacks vision in the dynamic market nor do they have a product re-engineering plan to synergize the cost. They should clearly position in the digital trend.

1) Consumer P&S. I use this term is because these DC's are the replacement of present film P&S. This represent the most market share that major brand are competing. In this range DC provides much more while the cost is becoming contained. Kyocera certain smells that. The problem is that petential customers in this segment tend to buy the brands they're familiar with.

2) Prosumer DC. It's a good focused market. While the CCD is not full frame, a all-in-one 28-200 fast zoom is not costly. Sony, Minolta and Nikon do very well in providing good stuffs. My Dimage 7i performs well. The enlargement to A4 size is more than acceptable. I even think, despite the writing speed and smaller buffer, it is more attractive than a pro DSLR in versatility and cost without little compromise is image quality because the overly sophisticated SLR lenses simply do not have marginal contribution (that's why there were APS).

3) DSLR. This is the most venturing product line while the vendor must choose a technical direction, such as CCD, SuperCCD, CMOS or Feveon and else. I think Canon has the lead in resolving 11 magapix by its EOS 1Ds.

Given Contax is lagged behind, what I mostly like to see is the so-called G3 digital with a full-frame device. It's a perfect balance of quality, portability and cost. G lens is one of the best price performance series and can resolve up to 7 - 8 magapix, and just two lenses to be added: 135mm and 200mm.

Rgds, David
 
Mike,

You state that "they pulled the ND off the market". Where do you get this information. Would you point me to a release or an official document from Kyocera that reports this information? Or, are you just repeating rumours?

Thanks,

Michael.
 
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