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Real time

neilb

Active Member
Hi,

My first Contax was my G2, which I'm very happy with. I have the 90 and the 35 lenses. I'm now thinking I want another Contax, and am drawn to the Aria. I'd like to buy one soon, and probably the 50/1.4 lens.

On Kyocera website, I see this stuff about real time shutter release that happens at the speed of light, blah blah blah. Is this an actual feature, something that Contax has that others don't? Or is it just marketing BS?

This wont affect my decision @ the Aria... I'm just curious.

thanks,

Neil
 
Neil
I have recently acquired an Aria, and am very happy with it. As for shutter release at "the speed of light", you can take that with a large grain of salt. The Aria is the first camera I have owned which has any auto-exposure capability, and I assume that has something to do with the perceptible lag between pressing the shutter release and the actual firing. In this regard I have read that the Aria is better than some and worse than others. Just today I was out shooting with my venerable Contax IIa. Now there is a shutter that fires the instant you hit the button and by comparison it made the Aria seem like it took a week to complete the exposure. But go for the Aria. It has loads of great features.
Mike.
 
>Posted by Neil Baylis (Neilb) on Sunday, January 18, 2004 - 6:53 am: > >Hi, > >My first Contax was my G2, which I'm very happy with. I have the 90 >and the 35 lenses. I'm now thinking I want another Contax, and am >drawn to the Aria. I'd like to buy one soon, and probably the 50/1.4 >lens. > >On Kyocera website, I see this stuff about real time shutter release >that happens at the speed of light, blah blah blah. Is this an actual >feature, something that Contax has that others don't? Or is it just >marketing BS? > >This wont affect my decision @ the Aria... I'm just curious. > >thanks, > >Neil

I have an original RTS, short for "Real Time System". I never saw any reference to the speed of the shutter response, in any literature. What I did see was the claim, which is true, that the shutter speed is set just at the instant of exposure.

I would expect that the same is true of the Aria, which I would gladly have if I had the spare cash around. For now I will keep my original RTS, which has some special value, in that it was a limited edition demo with a gold-plated base plate. I think the Aria is an excellent choice and clearly it's smaller and lighter than the RTS which uses an external motor drive.

Good luck, (with a little envy)

DAW
 
Don,

> I have an original RTS, short for "Real Time System". I never saw any > reference to the speed of the shutter response, in any literature. > What I did see was the claim, which is true, that the shutter speed is > set just at the instant of exposure.

I'm not quite sure what you man by "the shutter speed is set just at the instant of exposure", or what you think that means. That is the way any automatic camera operates, as far as I know.

To quote directly from the RTS I brochure:

"Real Time is taken from computer terminology. It means the total absence of physical time-lag in the distribution of information." And from reading the brochure, they simply mean that all the information is instantaneous (as opposed to a system like the Canon F-1) for both the display and for the computations it does to choose the shutter speed, and that it was specifically designed to reduce the time from pressing the shutter to exposure.

The metering SPD is located directly above the viewfinder eyepiece, so it can only operate with the mirror down...so the RTS does not operate as was mentioned by someone else (adjusting the shutter speed after the aperture is stopped down). In fact, the brochure gives the sequence of events when the shutter is pressed:

"Depression of the shutter release button activates a micro-switch which instantly energizes an electromagnet and starts a chain-reaction... It activates the TTL full aperture light reading system; triggers the movement of the reflex mirror; stores the light reading information in the memory register; stops down the lens diaphragm to the preselected setting and releases the focal plane shutter."

Note, the meter is read BEFORE the aperture is stopped down, and quite a few things happen between the selection of the shutter speed and the opening of the shutter...so it's not really, in camera time, "just at the instant of exposure"...not that it isn't close, or that it really matters, but I think that terminology doesn't outline what really happens, as some cameras may in fact (someone mentioned the OM-4 and a few others) may compute the shutter speed as the last thing before opening the shutter.

I guess it depends on what one thins of as an "instant". For some, it's an eternity (I deal in pico second designs), and for some, it's a lifetime...

Regards,

Austin
 
Hi Neil,

> On Kyocera website, I see this stuff about real time shutter release > that happens at the speed of light, blah blah blah. Is this an actual > feature, something that Contax has that others don't? Or is it just > marketing BS? > > This wont affect my decision @ the Aria... I'm just curious.

I have an Aria and an RTS-III and I'm not sure that the Aria is any faster/slower than the RTS-III. It's hard to tell, as the Aria winder isn't near as fast as the RTS-III winder (which is but a tiny chirp), and audibly, the RTS-III sounds faster...but that's because of the winding, not the shutter delay.

The Aria is a simply outstanding camera (with minor matrix metering issues that should be spoken about in the archives, and as a note, I have not experienced any metering issues). The only thing is the camera is small, and for longer lenses (like 180) it may seem to get "lost" in the lense, and be a bit unbalanced. I use the 85/1.4 on it routinely (and the 35/1.4, my two favorite lenses...that is until I use the 18/4, then that's my favorite lense, until I use the 16/2.8...or most any other ;-) and the camera is superbly balanced. It's a quite comfortable camera to use for me, but I guess if you have large hands, it may be small.

The Aria should be a lot faster than the G2, as the G2 has to focus first...which makes is eternally slower, so if the G2 works for you, the Aria should be fine.

Regards,

Austin
 
Hmmm, somewhere I have a list of cameras and shutter response times as measured by Contax themselves. I'll post if and when I find it. Some of the cameras are dramatically faster than others, with the RTSs being the fastest of all (IIRC).

When the RTS was introduced most cameras still had mechanical shutter releases and there were some were bizarre electro-mechanical auto-exposure schemes, so the RTS was dramatically quicker in shutter response than the competition.

By all rights the G2 should be faster than any of the SLRs due to the lack of a mirror, but it wasn't on the list.

--Rick
 
I've found it (don't remember who wrote that mail - probably Dirk):
"May be it´s interesting for some list members, here is the answer from
Kyocera I got to my question about CONTAX shutter release delay times :

....the shutter release delay time for the requested models are as
follows:

RX 68,8ms
Aria 54,0ms
ST 72,0ms
S2 78,8ms
RTS III 21,8ms

and older models:

167 72,0ms
159 80,0ms
137 53,8ms
139 50,0ms
RTS 39,4ms
 
Rick,

> By all rights the G2 should be faster than any of the SLRs due to the > lack of a mirror, but it wasn't on the list.

The G1/G2 have to focus the lense first, which really is quite slow, so I doubt the Gs have low shutter lag.

Regards,

Austin
 
Hi Jerzy,

Thanks for the numbers...but one I question:

> > RTS III 21,8ms

I have a very detailed factory service manual for this camera, and it sho ws the timing of the system, and they show around 50ms between when the shut ter button press electronically starts something, until the shutter starts moving. So, I'm not sure I believe that number. I also have a detailed factory service manual for the Aria, and I could check what it shows as well...

Regards,

Austin
 
Hi Austin,

I agree if one's releasing the shutter with the lens "parked" the camera will have to rack out the lens before firing the shutter. You can practically count the seconds when it's a closeup. But I also think in most instances when using the G2, focus is either prelocked when in SAF mode, or the camera is being used in CAF mode with the focus occuring in real time (oops, there's that term again). In either situation I don't discern a delay prior to the shutter's release.

It would be interesting to see the spec. from Contax.

--Rick
 
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