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Review Contax Aria

I have been using my stepfathers' 167 MT. Now he bought me an aria with 50mm and 28-70 lenses.I have not tried it. The camera comes on friday. I have been reading some reviews and I realized that some people like the 28-70 and some hate it. I can still change the order. What do you think?
 
> For travelling, the 28mm is convenient when it comes to subjects requiring some sort of wide angle capability. So this is good, or at least much better than a 35mm. For portraits though, 70mm may not do much- the 85mm makes a big difference, however the 28-85 mm Vario is a lot more expensive than the 28-70.

Andrei
 
As I had already a few Discussions with People regarding the VS28-70 I'll drop my 2cent here.

Most people who write bad things about it actually never used it and simply underestimate picture Quality. From my perspective here are the Pros and Cons:

Pro: Very light and compact. Together with an Aria, FX3-2000 or other light Body it's an excellent choice if you don't want to carry around much. The two-touch operation for ME is also a Pro, as I personally don't like 2-touch Zooms that much. Color rendition has the typical Zeiss look. It's price is also much more affordable than the other CZ Zooms and it has a quite fair Price-Performance value IMHO.

Cons: Quite visible distortion on the 28mm Side makes it difficult to use for Architecture shots. Although I learned recently that the VS 28-85 is not *much* better here. The 70mm are sometimes a little too short but I can live with it. Sharpness is not on the level of the best Zeiss lenses like VS100-300,D21,P50,P100,VS35-135. It's more on the level of the older designs like the D25.

All in all I wouldn't trade it against a VS28-85. I would probably keep both and use the VS28-70 for light travel and the other for absolute optimum results.

In a recent test of a German Foto-magazine the VS28-70 was tested only slightly worse than the VS28-85 (which clearly won the test) and still above all but one other Zoom in that range.

Mike
 
Barbara, I agree with Michael K.. I own the same outfit that you are waiting to get. I think the 28-70 works quite well. I also own the czvs 35-135 zoom which is a much finer lens. However, this lens (and I assume the 28-85 also) does not balance well with the Aria. I use the Large zoom with my RX and use the 28-70, 50mm,25mm,85mm 2.8 with the Aria or FX3 2000. The Aria is an amazing camera -- it is compact and is almost as light as the FX3 2000, an all manual camera. The Aria is packed with a lot of useful things. For my money the team of 28-70cz zoom and the Aria is a fine one. Also the close focusing on the 28-70 is 3 to 1 rather than the 4 to 1 on the 35-135. In any event I think you will have a very good time photographing with this outfit. Good luck to you. Vincent
 
Thank you, Dieter, thank you, Paul!

Thank you so much! After your information about the shutter release times and noise Aria vs. RX, I bought and received my new Aria a few days ago - transport, shutter and mirror are for me surprising very quiet and fast. May be the Aria I saw and heard earlier had a problem or was damaged. And you are of course right, our (my) reaction time is the problem, not the cameras.

Good luck to all,

Valentin
 
hi guys, i ma interested to know the amount of shutter lag the aria have.
say in comparison to the 167mt or RX.

i knwo that the vibration is defintely more than the RX. but what about in comparison to the 167?
thank you
 
Again the shutter release delay times (according to Kyocera Hamburg)

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

older models

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

Aria is faster, you can feel it ! If you want a faster body than RX take AX (I don´t have the shutter delay time of it, but it feels definitly faster than RX. Really).

Dieter
 
Wow, I wouldn never have thought the RX had a longer lag than an Aria. When I played with a friends Aria the first thing I felt was the shutter lag...
 
John,

> When I played with a friends Aria the first thing I felt was the > shutter lag...

Now hold on. How could you tell something that is in the tens of millisecond range? What I think you "felt" was the slower motor drive. I've got quite a few cameras, and I can't tell which one has faster or slower shutter lag. Perhaps you can, but I'm skeptical...but I believe the fact that you though otherwise may be indicative that you (or I or anyone really) really can't.

Regards,

Austin
 
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