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Contax ND

..sorry Irakly the post was also meant to include you in my thanks...

Dirk
 
Okay Dirk, I'll leave the current test images up.

But wait until Irakly posts his gallery up-loads and writes his review here before jumping to any firm conclusions. I did the first test posted now by myself. But the second round of tests that Irakly and I did together were a bit more comprehensive. Irakly will be writing a review, and has all the images to post soon.

Dirk, I was not suprised that the ND did as well as it did against the Canon 1Ds in terms of image quality. I have found that well lit scenes, like those we were shooting, tend to reveal that doubling the meg count doesn't double the quality. Irakly mentioned that we also shot the test subject with my Canon G3, ( a 4 meg, 1& 1/3" CCD, point-and-shoot), which will serve to illustrate that very point. (we hooked up the G3 to the studio strobes with an adapter and shot the same scene).

Lastly, in all fairness, the Canon is brand new to me. I got it Saturday and we tested it Sunday. Plus, Irakly thought it unfair to use a 50 prime on the Contax and the 24-70/2.8L zoom on the Canon. So we used the 24-85 Ziess on the ND in our second round of tests.
And please remember that this is in studio stuff, not real world, action oriented, varied lighting situations that a 35mm type SLRD is intended for. When shooting in studio, I wouldn't use either of these cameras, but instead my Kodak DCS ProBack on a medium format camera, which proved itself the best image maker against all the cameras tested by a decent margin.

Lets all wait for Irakly's report.
 
John,

<N digital camera for sale with the bidding at about $1775>

Whatever it is that goes as a ND for $1775 on ebay, I really doubt it is a legitimate product.

Every ND comes with the sensor CCD Parameter Disk. The Software CD is dispensable since you can download the software at kyocera's website but without the parameter disk, thare is absolutely no opportunity to shoot RAWs (and use them).

Why would someone blow out a ND without reserve and with NONE of the standard accessories?
Even if this happens to be legitimate, the buyer will never get any support from Contax - and reading this forum shows clearly, that this may become essential.

My recommendation: Hands Off!
Christian
 
I contacted sellers on several ND ebay auctions including this one. Based on the responses in my opinion, all the recent ND auctions are scams.
 
Guys, I am sorry for the delay. Eventually I uploaded the test results in the gallery.
The test was performed as follows:
Canon 1Ds, Contax ND were set to ISO 160 and f/16
Contax 645/Kodak ProBack were set to ISO 100 and f/11
Canon G3 was set to ISO 50 because its minimum aperture is f/8
Canon EF 24-70 f/2.8 L was set to 70mm
Contax 3.5~4.5/24-85 Vario-Sonnar was set to 70mm
Contax 2/80 Planar was used for Kodak ProBack capture.
Canon G3 lens was adjusted to the same magnification, which resulted in focal length of 16mm
All files except from Contax N Digital were processed with Adobe RAW Converter plugin into 8-bit per channel files in Adobe RGB color space
Contax ND RAW files were developed with RAW Developer into 8-bit Adobe RGB files
Contax ND TIFF files were in sRGB space as this is the only available choice if you are not shooting RAW.
Here are our conclusions.
Canon D1s - great detail, almost no color bleeding, but colors appeared a bit shifted, which was especially well seen on the tomato.
Contax N Digital TIFF - image detalization is not as impressive as on Canon D1s pictures, bu it becomes evident only at 100% magnification. Some slight color bleeding was noticed in highlights. Beautiful saturated yet faithful colors despite sRGB solor space.
Contax ND RAW files were the worst in terms of image quality, but the best in terms of color reproduction.
Kodak DCS files were the best in all respects.
 
It's half past twelve, and I cannot hink stright. I will prite our impressions about Adobe RAW converter tomorrow morning.g
 
Thanks again, Marc and Irakly, for all of the work that you guys put into getting these comparisons. I would still be interested in seeing the original files, but I know that those are pretty large to post.

These results are pretty much what I expected except for two things: 1) the Canon G3 did pretty well in this test for a P&S camera!, and 2) the ND can't even begin to compare to the 1Ds and ProBack.

I agree with your assessment that the ND RAW image has the worst image quality. Based on the 100% crop, that is not a usable image. The RAW image does have good color, but that isn't useful if the image quality is that low.

The Contax TIFF image has too much color saturation in the reds, very evident in the color of the orange (are you using v1.08 of the firmware?). There is also noticeable clipping here in the red channel. The overall dynamic range from the Contax images is poor (though much better in the RAW image than in the TIFF).

The Canon 1Ds image did very well here, but I would expect that given previous s&les that I have seen from this camera. The colors are a bit on the yellow side compared to the other images, but that is extremely slight. The dynamic range is very good (but of course this is only one s&le) and noise is virtually non-existant.

Based strictly on the 100% crop that you posted, I think that the 1Ds image actually shows detail that is at least as good as the Pro Back, even if the total pixel count is slightly smaller. The Pro Back image is also a bit dark and a bit more green (which makes the apple look "better", but the orange looks worse. I am assuming that the color of the apple is actually more like the ND RAW image since you said that image had the best color. I expected the Pro Back to do much better than this given how expensive it is. It also looks like the Pro Back has more noise than the 1Ds (especially in the blue channel), but that is very hard to tell because of the JPEG conversion on these images, so that might just be an illusion.

On top of all of this, the Pro Back photo was taken with an amazingly sharp prime lens, while the ND and 1Ds photos were both taken with zoom lenses. We should have seen a much bigger performance difference between the Pro Back and the 1Ds.
 
Hi David, actually, the ProBack suffers the most from web reproduction. In reality, it was very clean and the colors quite true to the scene. It also could be enlarged a great deal before seeing any deterioration of quality. The shadow gradations were amazingly smooth.

What cannot be seen here was the Moire pattern in the background of the Contax RAW image. It was severe and obvious. As far as I'm concerned, the RAW option isn't an option until they fix the software. Which puts this camera at a considerable disadvantage from a pro's POV.

Also, in reality, there are some slight noise issues with the Canon 1Ds that I've noticed in general shooting. But in all fairness, I've only just got the camera, and haven't learned to fine tune it yet.

I'll be blunt with my final impressions so far:

My assessment of the Contax ND has improved as a result of these tests and recent real world shooting with the camera. Technical aspects aside, it produces a certain look that I like a lot. And, if I know I want B&W images, this is the first of my digital cameras I'd grab...which speaks well of the tonal gradations produced by the camera. Pure Pixel count and detail resolution isn't everything.

SO FAR, the Canon 1Ds, performs less well than I expected. But I just got it and have a lot to learn. It was purchased to shoot weddings, where the slower focusing Contax proved to be problematic. In dark reception halls the Canon will come into it's own. And it's ETTL and FEL flash system and controls
are eons ahead of the Contax solution.

The ProBack continues to reign supreme as the studio solution. I also use it to shoot portraits and parts of weddings that will be enlarged to 13X19 or beyond. It remains to be seen if the Canon can take over those wedding duties, thus making it so I need only carry it and my Leica Ms to a wedding job.

Next test will be the Kodak 14n that I was suppose to get this week...but it was delayed for yet another 2 weeks. Sound familiar?
 
Thank you again Irakly and Marc for all the work. I must say I am impressed/surprised the most with the Canon G3 results, especially if you consider the price difference to the Contax ND and Canon 1Ds.

I would like to offer a possibility to save the files in the original size for Marc and Irakly on the contaxinfo site, so others can download them - if they have a fast internet connection
happy.gif


I have to think about a possibility how to do this. As soon as I have a solution, I will post it here.

Dirk
 
David, I am not sure why did you conclude that Contax ND was the worst in our test. THat is definitely not so. Certainly, I am not talking about RAW files. Even in sRGB it produced colors superior to Canon 1Ds, and real difference in amount of detail can only be seen at 200%.
Mark and I came to the same conclusion, which basically boils down to "Kyocera, give us the bloody software"!
I think uploading full resolution files would help to see a real picture because JPEG conversion does not do this test any good.
 
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