DPR Forum

Welcome to the Friendly Aisles!
DPRF is a photography forum with people from all over the world freely sharing their knowledge and love of photography. Everybody is welcome, from beginners to the experienced professional. Whether it is Medium Format, fullframe, APS-C, MFT or smaller formats. Digital or film. DPRF is a forum for everybody and for every format.
Enjoy this modern, easy to use software. Look also at our Reviews & Gallery!

Contax NDigital (ND)

G

Guest

Today, I called up contax usa and was able to order battery clip for the contax digital camera!! at the cost of 58usd. i ordered three additional ones. so now i can go on the field without worries and weight problem and no cables either. i have also notices when the lcd review is turned off, i get a lot more shots (i mean a lot more shots). also if u use a slowe rate charger, the batteries seem to last longer. this was also reported by Kaisern.
 
I have had my ND for a couple of weeks now. I bought from my dealer as a demo model with a substantial discount. After reading the posts concerning battery life I decided to try it on my own.

After loading the camera with a fresh set of batteries, I decided to shoot every combination of white balance/aperture/speed possible. After 117 shots, the camera died. I did notice that the lcd battery indicator is not reliable. When it showed very little battery, I still had about 70 shots left.

I e-mailed Contax with my serial number to find out if my camera needed an upgrade, to no avail.

Does anybody have a user manual for the Raw developer software?? I am new to digital and not familiar with it.

Are there any Li-Ion AA rechargable batteries on the market?????

Is there a better web site for Contax than www.contaxcameras.com ???
 
Hi Martin,

I do not have a Contax ND, but for other purposes (a.o. point and shoot Digital cameras)I have tried to get rechargable Li ion batteries on various occasions. These are simply not available (as far as I have been told in no seize or voltage). The only rechargables on the market are either made of Nickel Cadmium or Nickel Metal Hydride.
Only if the seize of the batteries (either directly or via an adaptor) fits you may be able to replace the Li batteries by rechargables.
Peter
 
Regarding the problem of N Digital battery life, my camera salesman suggested the Olympus NiMH charger package which is sold for the E-20. I have started using 1800 mAh batteries and charger sold by thomas-distributing.com under the brand name Maha Powerex. The jury is still out, because so far they seem to need a lot more seasoning. Even so, they have performed better than the Samsungs that came with the camera.
 
To Garry Brook:
Hi. I misread your question on the board and I thought that you wanted to know HOW to assign colour profiles, not WHY to do so. The reason is that when a file is recorded it RAW format, it has no colour profile assigned to it. So, you can choose either sRGB or Adobe RGB before you convert the file to TIFF.When you shoot TIFF, though, the default profile is sRGB, and you end up with a narower colour gamut even after you convert to Adobe RGB. Don't be deceived by Photoshop announcement that your TIFF file is missing a colour profile, because yes it is indeed missing, but the file was recorded in the sRGB gamut. Visually you can see what I mean by shooting the same picture with shadows in red in RAW and TIFF formats, assigning Adobe RGB to both and comparing those shadows. RAW file will be just fine, but TIFF will have unnatural grayish tint to those shadows, and it is nearly impossible to compensate for. Believe me, I have been through this way bbefore Contax Digital was even in plans. Imagine how unpleasantly surprized I was when I saw this problem in the most expensive camera that I have ever owned
happy.gif
Luckily, I knew where it all comes from.
 
Many thanks for the tip on ordering extra battery carriages. I could not reach a real person in parts (or anywhere else for that matter), but e-mailed them an inquiry which was answered the next day. I then ordered 3 extras via e-mail, and asked when they would be sent. If I get an answer I'll post it.

I also went to a battery speciality store and asked about different chargers for Medal Hydride batteries. Slow charge ones MAY store a bit more but not much. The battery expert gave me (ie FREE) 4 AA, 1.5 volt Lithium batteries to try. They are not rechargable, but are suppose to last 4X to 5X as long as rechargeables or alkalines. They are expensive, but if they work longer when on a job who cares? I'll also report on these. If they work I would use them on weddings for sure.
 
the phone number for contax is and the part extension is 4361or 4475 and the contact name is crystal. the number is +1 (800) 245-8979. i also ordered three and should get them tomorrow
 
Hi guys
i use the ND for two weeks-i'am from austria and have tested the first camera available in austria.
i was surprised when i converted my RAW data files
into TIFF files from CFCard IBM 1GB on my Mac G3
Powerbook and waited 130 seconds for this conversion. The TIFF files loaded in about 10 seconds(18MB) while the RAW files(9MB) need 130 sec to convert into TIFF. Is this normal? Is this due to the G3 Processor of the Mac or due to the RAW Data Developer Software? Does anybody know anything about this problem?
 
Hi Martin. It is normal for RAW developer software to do its thing in such a sluggish fashion, however it is common not just for Contax RAW Developer, but for all software products of this kind. I found that on my dual PIII 800MHz wth 512MB RAM it takes about fifty seconds to develop a Contax RAW file, while it takes about a minute to develop a Canon file with Canon software.
BTW, recently I received an email from Blake Zeigler who informed me that an updated version of Contax RAW Developer is about to be released and will be available for download from www.contaxcameras.com
 
Back
Top