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Contax ND

Lynn, I don't know about other forum members, but I have 4 other digital cameras that are balanced to my current monitor, printer, scanner set-ups. I can't adjust it all just for this camera.

On another note, since I'm stuck with the ND, I figured that I would stop bitching asbout it and try to discover it's strengths. If I speak to a shortcoming it will be to try and share a solution I've discovered or ask what some of you have done with the same problematic situation. The buffer question was already answered, so that's handled. Here's a test:

I set up the ND with a 85/1.4 on tripod in my studio using an Elinchrom Octabox with a Profoto head powered by an Acute 12 generator as a main light, and a moveable 7' white flat for bounce. 2 Elinchrom Mono heads mounted in Strip lights were used as spill lights on the mottled brown painted cloth background. This is a set up I just used to do a portrait with the Contax 645 & Kodak DCS ProBack. The 85 was stopped down to f/8, 11 & 16 as a bracket head and shoulders study of my long suffering wife. (For now I've given up on the RAW
setting as I also see a magenta cast and experienced terrible moire' noise when converting to tiff). So I set the camera to capture ISO 100 Tiff in camera, set X for mode, manually focused and then shot to a 512 16X CF card and directly read it with a Firewire CF card reader.

RESULTS: the flesh tones were dead looking so I adjusted in PhotoShop: increased some contrast and punched up the saturation. It all looked better but the blacks blocked (which I noticed that this camera does often). Solution: I ran a PhotoShop actions program from Fred Miranda called "Shadow Recovery" that was designed for the D1-X but also works for my other digital cameras. Bingo! Blacks fell into line much better. ( available very inexpensively at: www.fredmiranda.com).

Experiment #2: I took a close up head shot and converted it to B&W. Where (for me) this camera is problematic in the area of color capture, especially of people, it's B&W conversions are very good, second only to my 16 meg Kodak ProBack among my digital cameras. It had a B&W film look to it and that was a big discovery for me since I shoot a lot of B&W at weddings.

The controlled studio experiments tell me a couple of things; 1) B&W showed me that the lenses are increadibly sharp and the capture CCD resolution is as absolutely crisp as can be and even rivals film. 2) The software that is dealing with color capture sucks, and is the weak point of the whole system.

Software can be fixed, so the camera can be fixed. Contax....are you listening?
 
Lynn, I don't know about other forum members, but I have 4 other digital cameras that are balanced to my current monitor, printer, scanner set-ups. I can't adjust it all just for this camera.

On another note, since I'm stuck with the ND, I figured that I would stop bitching asbout it and try to discover it's strengths. If I speak to a shortcoming it will be to try and share a solution I've discovered or ask what some of you have done with the same problematic situation. The buffer question was already answered, so that's handled. Here's a test:

I set up the ND with a 85/1.4 on tripod in my studio using an Elinchrom Octabox with a Profoto head powered by an Acute 12 generator as a main light, and a moveable 7' white flat for bounce. 2 Elinchrom Mono heads mounted in Strip lights were used as spill lights on the mottled brown painted cloth background. This is a set up I just used to do a portrait with the Contax 645 & Kodak DCS ProBack. The 85 was stopped down to f/8, 11 & 16 as a bracket head and shoulders study of my long suffering wife. (For now I've given up on the RAW
setting as I also see a magenta cast and experienced terrible moire' noise when converting to tiff). So I set the camera to capture ISO 100 Tiff in camera, set X for mode, manually focused and then shot to a 512 16X CF card and directly read it with a Firewire CF card reader.

RESULTS: the flesh tones were dead looking so I adjusted in PhotoShop: increased some contrast and punched up the saturation. It all looked better but the blacks blocked (which I noticed that this camera does often). Solution: I ran a PhotoShop actions program from Fred Miranda called "Shadow Recovery" that was designed for the D1-X but also works for my other digital cameras. Bingo! Blacks fell into line much better. ( available very inexpensively at: www.fredmiranda.com).

Experiment #2: I took a close up head shot and converted it to B&W. Where (for me) this camera is problematic in the area of color capture, especially of people, it's B&W conversions are very good, second only to my 16 meg Kodak ProBack among my digital cameras. It had a B&W film look to it and that was a big discovery for me since I shoot a lot of B&W at weddings.

The controlled studio experiments tell me a couple of things; 1) B&W showed me that the lenses are increadibly sharp and the capture CCD resolution is as absolutely crisp as can be and even rivals film. 2) The software that is dealing with color capture sucks, and is the weak point of the whole system.

Software can be fixed, so the camera can be fixed. Contax....are you listening?
 
Marc,

What settings are you using for the following:

1. Firmware version: 1.06 (old), 1.07 or 1.08?
2. Tone curve: Standard, Linear, Hard or Soft?
3. Edge Emphasis: Standard, Slight or Strong?
4. Chroma: Standard, "+" or "-"?

If you haven't already, it may be worthwhile to experiment with each of these factors, as there may be a different combinations that may provide you with a better image for your various shooting environments. Since two of them can be instantly selected, it might be convenient for you.

DJ
 
DJ, how do I tell what firmware I have?

The other settings were already adjusted by Irakly for me. I am using + chroma. I'll look at the Hard and Soft setting to see if it has an effect on the blacks blocking.

Also, I visited Fred Mirandas site again and he has a Moire' reducer that I'm going to try, to see if it solves Irakly's issue. I'll report on it ASAP. Fred also had a action called "Digital Velvia" which enhances colors without blooming and keeps skin tones natural ( it corrects the problem where the reds get hot when boosting saturation in PhotoShop).
 
Marc,

Amazingly enough, unless you load a CF that has a ROM update you can't view it in the camera display! How dumb is that! However, it gets captured as part of the EXIF information in the image. ThumbPlus shows this as the Camera Version, and Adobe Photoshop Elements displays it as Exif/Software - I imagine PhotoShop does likewise.

If you haven't updated yet I would recommend you do so. maybe to 1.07 in your case, although it's pretty quick to switch from one to the other in the studio - about 2-4 minutes so you could try both. 1.08 provides a contrastier tonal balance over 1.07. I figured for my shooting I'd try it for awhile and see.

DJ
 
Hi Everybody:

Last time I wrote, it was the middle of October, 14 days short of Photo plus Expo 2002 in New York. After speaking at length with my dealer and receiving an e-mail (thru him) from Blake Ziegler, I had my hopes up about going to the Contax Stand.

Little I imagined what Blake Ziegler had in store for me. After introducing myself, having flown all the way from Venezuela (1st to Protect my 10,000+ investment, 2nd to see the show) the “gentleman” told me he knew already who I was and the best I could do was to return the camera and its lenses to my dealer, because he was completely sure that I would never be happy with the ND.

After a couple of minutes, deciding if I heard right or not, I told him that if that is the way Contax dealt with their loyal customer base, then I would follow his advice. I thought about moving back a couple of feet and trashing the camera with its lenses against the crystal display, but my dealer asked me to calm while he spoke to regional sales manager.

I strolled around the Kodak booth, played with the DCS Pro 14n, which is a superbly engineered product, met with the lead engineer of the camera who took his time in explaining every feature and its technological advances and made me feel that they really wanted me as a client. Then I stopped at Canon, and had a chance to play with the amazing EOS 1Ds, same feeling. Then to Hasselblad and saw the new 645 autofocus which is a work of art. Common feature at all the booths: No attitude, just competing for the same clients and willingness to sell their product.

Here is what I learned:

1.- Zeiss lenses are superb. So are a couple of Nikon’s, Canon’s and Leica’s . I guess it is time to start reading the MTF Charts.
2.- When a company has a great product, but no technology, it helps to pair with somebody who can help you correct your faults. i.e- Hasselblad-Fuji, Kodak-Nikon, Leica-Panasonic, etc.
3.- The aforementioned association would mean more market share for each company. i.e- more bodies for Kodak, more lenses for Nikon.
4.- If you have what it takes, a great product with superb lenses, then go for the gold as Canon does. Just read the reviews.
5.- Do not take it out on your customers. After all it is your flaw.

I felt I had every right to complain. I am an advanced amateur photographer and the only reason I went with the ND is because it is 35mm and has a full frame CCD. That means mobility, portability, less than perfect lighting conditions and opportunity.

If this camera is marketed for use at ISO 100 or less, with mediocre battery performance, shutter lag, no mirror lock up, slow buffer and imperfect software, then what advantage do I have over my Contax 645 with a digital back???? I guess the advantage lies with the digital back which are made by many great companies and tested over time as opposed to the ND.

I still do not understand the profile of the customer they where targeting the camera for: Weddings, commercial, sports or outdoors photographers do not fit the bill. Maybe they were targeting stupid amateurs (like myself) with expensive hobbies………………….Or as Marc suggested, somebody who just fell off a turnip truck and landed on a barrel of money…………….

My dealer kindly enough provided me with a new camera with the new firmware upgrade. After 3 weeks of testing it, I came to the conclusion that Blake Ziegler was right, same problems different camera. I will return it for a full refund and buy either the new Kodak or the Canon (again from my dealer), which I am pretty sure, will work perfectly out of the box, and their companies will fully support them (in fact Kodak has been named the company with the best support/customer care in the industry, Canon also received very high praises)

As for Blake Ziegler, I discussed with Chris Szynal (Great guy and Regional Sales manager for Contax and terribly embarrassed for the attitude Ziegler had with me in front of everybody) that Ziegler should not quit his night job just yet. I find it hard to believe that Contax’s new president will keep him on the job for long (or at least out of the customer’s sight).

A last thought for Contax : Listen to your customers, and be ready to compete. The time when you were alone in this market has passed, and every other company except you, has learned from YOUR mistakes.

Regards,

Martin Lustgarten.

Marc Williams: Do you live in the Miami Area (I guessed from some of your pictures ?? If you do, please send me your e-mail. I would love to meet you and discuss a couple of jobs that I need.
 
By the way, when I told Ziegler I was going to write about him on this forum, he handed me a business card and asked me to make sure that his name was spelled correctly.

So Contax listen up and be more selective as to the people who go out representing you.

Regards,

Martin
 
Now wait a minute... The camera has issues, BUT NO MIRROR LOCK UP? That's one of the first things I'd look for if buying an expensive SLR, so how can you gripe about it?

SURELY you knew when buying the camera that it didn't have this feature?

-Dana
 
Martin, sadly I live in Michigan. But it is a mere 3 hours direct flight on my free Northwest Miles !
Anything to get the hell out of here in winter. What kind of jobs do you have?

e-mail: fotografz@comcast.net
 
Marc, clearly we need to spend some time tomorrow on your camera settings. I found no problem with colour balance both in daylight and at 3200K. If you remember that ethnic dancer picture posted in the gallery, it was printed practically stright from the camera, without any photoshop tweaking.

Another note about magenta cast with new firmware. When you convert RAW file into 16-bit TIFF and open it in Photoshop, DISCARD assigned colour profile when you are prompted to do something about colour profile mismatch. Then you can assign any colour profile you want through Image>Mode>Assign Colour profile menu item. Make sure you have preview box checked - this way you will be able to see how the new profile looks like.

I also found that 1.07 firmware is a better option than a higher contrast 1.08 if you don't mind adjusting the image with RAW Developer. As bad as it is, it does marvelous job at curve adjustment, and you can safely shoot at a lower contrast setting to preserve both highlight and shadow detail.
 
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