Future of the Contax N

[dormant]

I must agree with Derek while I am a bit more optimistic about the future of N. I prefer primes to zooms not so much because the former has better resolution but because primes are smaller, lighter, and faster compared to zooms.

Although my usual carry-everywhere camera is G1, I still prefer to have more primes for N. D1.4/35 would be terrific, though I shudder to think how big, heavy and pricey it will be. Look what they have done to P1.4/50!

I for the moment remain optimistic about the future of N as I have not seen any concrete indication to make me feel otherwise. Canon is good, but digital isn't yet where I want it to be. I will give N couple more years. But the complete lack of information on Kyocera's DSLR strategy is certainly disconcerting. I wish they would make themselves more available to their customers.

 

[mikel]

Taylor,

It's a well-known thing about Japanese companies. They're very tight-lipped. You will never know what exactly they have in their plans, what their difficulties are and definitely you wouldn't know about their failures. Which means - you will only hear from them once they're ready to show you something. It's annoying, because they keep you in the dark, but Kyocera isn't the only one that does it. Canon for one, practically never says anything about their future products. Everything you hear around is mostly rumors! Very rarely you hear some far-reaching product plans coming out of Canon. I will give you one ex&le. When Canon last year or so released their first weatherproof lens, they made a news from this. However, when they were asked what lenses are going to follow the suit - no answer. So, anyone thinking about getting that Canon EOS1V and weatheproof lenses will have to wait and see what they're actually going to manufacture and what will turn out to be too expensive to even think about it.
Same thing with Kyocera. Nothing is known about their "future" manual focus film cameras or lenses for C/Y-mount cameras as well as nothing is known about their future products in N-mount line. They keep you in a dark and don't give a damn about the fact that you don't like it

However, I personally see one problem for N-mount line down the road (excluding the problems associated with small market and demand). Since I owned N1 for almost two years before I sold it,
I can say that one of the biggest shortcomings of N-mount line is their manual focus. Yes, you read it right. Compared to manual focus line of lenses, N-mount lenses are harder to focus manually, especially in the dim light (that, of course, is also because it's AF system and most zooms are relatively "slow" optically). Precise focusing is even more difficult.


Derek,

it's funny that you switched from M7 to R8. I personally don't think about R8 as unobtrusive. It's pretty big compared to most other SLR cameras. Personally I think that most unobtrusive SLR cameras are Pentax ZX-5N (and other Pentax cameras of the same family), Contax Aria and probably Contax S2/S2b (I say probably, because I never saw them myself, only one pictures in catalog

)

Anyway, I would personally say - stop worrying about future of N-mount line or any other line of cameras for that matter. Whether you're worrying or not won't make a difference. What will make a difference is where you spend the money. If you won't spend any money for any equipment - all camera manufacturers will quickly go out of business

O, and of course, introduce your workers, friends, etc to photography - that will help as well!


Mike.

 

[dormant]

Mike,

Well, yeah, I know how them Japanese companies work. But it's good for Canon to do whatever it pleases, as it's the market leader. If Kyocera behaved exactly the same way, how can they dig out of the hole they had put themselves in? If they can't deliver, they should at least come across as nice guys.

If Canon delivered a DSLR flop, investors might worry but photographers would generally stay with the company their beliefs unwavered. But when Kyocera delivered a flop, the future of the entire Contax N line was in doubt. I don't believe it works in Kyocera's favor to keep their mouth shut. At least they should try to reassure their customers.

 

[Colin645]

Dermot, The rep. may have been considering that all Zeiss lenses are PRIME(i.e. first class), or he was a bit "thick" One would hope that company reps. were trained in the products they sell but life's experiences show us differently.
I know that I can use an adapter to connect my C645 lenses to 35mm, however, this is only a compromise. Don't buy into that sales pitch(crap) that because you are only using the "centre" portion of the lens that your images are better. Whilst it is known that lenses perform better in their centre compared to the edges, it isn't that simple.(or we'd all be using lenses from 8X10 cameras for 35mm!) MF and LF lenses don't have(need) the resolving power of the 35 format.
Colin

 

[mikel]

Taylor,

Well, I wouldn't hold a breath for Canon. They have had their share of failures. They're certainly a leader in digital camera market now, but how mature is this market? Is it going to stay the way it is now in 5 years? I highly doubt it. Just check what happened to camcorder craze.

And by the way, they did release couple "pilot" digital cameras that weren't exactly super great. D30 and D60 are prime ex&les. Sure, they were popular. But so were cheap Casio, Kodak, Pentax, whatever-else digicams, palm pilots, black berries, yo-yos with speedometer, you get the idea. It's a hip thing now. Every hip person must have email account, cellphone and digital camera. He can have an empty skull, but these three things are an absolute must-have

And now he also must have Segway, or at least boast that he rode one

Besides, Kyocera is in bad position for many reasons. One of them is they kept Contax as a purely niche market for all these years. They can't just cut the corner now and say, hey, look, we've got the most dazzling digital camera on the market! It even makes coffee for you!

That's why Olympus have pretty much quit competing with Canon and Nikon and now are trying to push their 3/4 stuff. Good luck to them, but it ain't gonna work.

Also, did you notice that there are two more companies that make digital cameras that accept Nikon lenses? That's a very important aspect, since it allows Nikon to get some additional share of the market that it wouldn't have otherwise. I'm talking about Fuji and Kodak.

And I believe that could cost Canon dearly when DSLR market matures, because as prices drop and feature sets become more or less standardized, it will get back to the same thing again - which lens should I use for this or that. And then people will have a lot more choice, since they will be able to use cameras from three different manufacturers if they're using Nikon lenses, or just one if they're using Canon lenses.

And by the way, couple years ago, Mitsubishi Motors finally acknowledged numerous significant safety problems in their cars. So, they had to have them recalled and repaired. Number of cars affected was in the millions. The problem? Mitsubishi kept "reassuring" their customers for years that all complaints about safety issues are baseless.

So, do you really want any reassurances from Japan-based Kyocera?

And by the way, where is Canon's reassurance that if I buy EOS1V today it won't be discontinued tomorrow?

See my point?


Good night everyone. Or good morning

Mike.

 

[fotografz]

Mike and all, there are no reassurances that I won't be killed by a truck tomorrow either. All you can do is look at the history, and then roll the dice. For ex&le, who would have thought that a solid investment in Hasselblad V series gear would go south so quickly?

Canon made a big switch years and years ago to a larger lens mount. It irritated a lot of Canon users at the time, but was the wisest thing to do in retrospect. Although other manufacturers make digital bodies with a Nikon lens mount , they are all semi-flops because of the restricted sensor size/lens mount issue. The full frame Kodak 14n should have been a run-away success, but isn't partially due to this design problem.

What baffels me is that the N series lenses also have a larger lens mount which works with a full frame sensor. Despite being plagued by other design and engineering problems, the lens system and mount isn't one of them. Yet, C/K can't seem to use that initial advantage to their marketplace advantage. If the ND had a good power source, and most of all better FIRMWEAR/SOFTWEAR, the camera might have held it's own. Today we may have been looking at a 12 meg full frame ND2 in the near future.

BTW, that larger lens mount is one reason why the N series is larger. So are most of the Canon L lenses.

 

[dirk]

"...It's a well-known thing about Japanese companies. They're very tight-lipped.."

This is true. But there is a big difference between Canon and Kyocera. Canon brings out a new digital SLR model every 6 months, a digital P&S even more often. I can easily wait 3 months with tight-lipped marketing guys, if I have then also a new model.

With Kyocera it is different. They neither talk, nor do they deliver. They are just sitting there praying for better times. This is the worst behaviour. It is a shame for a Japanese company to be so bad compared to its Japanese competitors.

The fact that more and more people ask here in the Contax forum about alternatives to a Contax camera speaks for itself.

As far as I know, there will be no new Contax digital SLR before photokina. But Photokina means "prototypes", not at the dealer's shelves. And we will see whether Kyocera will remember this time, that christmas is on December 24th and not in March. In the past Kyocera never got it right to deliver products for the christmas business. Mybe in Tokyo they do not have a calendar.

"....because as prices drop and feature sets become more or less standardized, it will get back to the same thing again - which lens should I use for this or that...."

This is also true. The only problem is that once you invested in a system of a competitor, how likely is it to sell it for low second hand prices and then buy a significant higher priced Contax System? People do not have a money machine. It is hard saved money and you can not spend the same amount every year again and again.

Of course there will be people who are doing this. The question is only whether Kyocera/Contax can live of these numbers and whether Zeiss will look at this for years or pull the plug at a certain point. IMHO there is not so much time left for Kyocera to rethink their behaviour.

So I find it very useful and realistic to talk about alternatives. And there are many out there - also with very good lenses. Competition is always good for the costumer.

 

[dormant]

Mike,

I was hoping for a more genuine kind of rapport developing between Kyocera and its customers, but maybe I have had too much beer.

Empty lip service means nothing, but if Kyocera is in a niche market then it should strive to develop a better relationship with its customers. It's one of the few ways to turn its current position to its advantage, or so I believe.

Ah, well, maybe I should pick up a used Y/C body and a D1.4/35.

 

[writing4me]

I'm also one of the people who am going to have to go back to Canon L series lenses to fill certain photographic needs. When doing stills, nature, scenics, or portraiture I could be well served by the fast semi-tele primes in the N series line up. But, the problem is, I've just been offered a possibly chance to do some of the old type of work I did many years ago, photographing horses in competition next summer and fall. If I do it, I need an equivalent to the fast L series zooms Canon offers, which I used last time I did this type of work. I know they never failed me when I did this years ago, and produced stunning images. I wish there was an N-series fast zoom that could perform wide open at 2.8 the way the 70-200 2.8 L series does. When photographing competitions, I can't really swap lenses too well without missing important shots, so it has to be a good fast zoom. I wish I knew what Kyocera had in mind and was actually bringing to market, but since I don't, I have to look to Canon who has never let me down. If they dropped new products on the market now, they might just be field tested long enough to understand their quirks and limitations in time for next summer. Just my view of things. -Lynn L.

 

[writing4me]

Please excuse the glaring grammatical errors in my last post! That's what happens when I type and edit and hit send too quickly. Sorry. -Lynn