I am looking at one of these cameras, but is the AX worth the extra money over the RX. Does the auto focus work. I know it won't be as fast as a Canon or Nikon but is it accurate. Or should I just by the RX and use the extra money on the lens

-- Keith Anderson (andos@pacific.net.au), June 05, 2000

Answers

Keith,

Check out http://www.photographyreview.com http://www.camerareview.com

They several user reviews on there that may answer some of your concerns. Go into the appropriate sections on those sites under Contax or 35mm cameras.

-- Nhat Nguyen (nhat@lowrider.com), June 05, 2000.

Keith, I've played with the AX in a store, and found it not only ridiculously heavy, but the autofocus could not track a person jogging down the sidealk. A Nikon F100 in the same conditions locked focus immediately and follow focused accurately. This camera was an ill- advised attempt at keeping up with the competition without releasing a complete new line of lenses.

I could not recommend the AX to anyone. Get another model and spend the money you save on lenses. I can focus my Nikon F3 faster than the AX focuses. The AX is one of the few cameras on the market I consider a real dog.

-- Darron Spohn (dspohn@photobitstream.com), June 06, 2000.

Keith,

I will second Darron's opinion about the AX. I used Contax for a few years before switching back to Nikon, and the AX was the last body I purchased.

The autofocus was completely useless. Very slow to lock on and completely incapable of tracking a moving subject. This design was Contax's response to Zeiss's steadfast refusal to abandon their archaic technology and embrace autofocus, so the AX was an attempt to keep pace with the major manufacturers and retain some piece of the market.

That is inside info I received from someone at Kyocera ( the parent company ) so I think it's accurate.

The RX is a nice solid camera, but again, very old fashioned. The electronic rangefinder is a novel idea, but did nothing to speed up the focusing process, in fact I found that it slowed me down.

If you don't need autofocus, the RX is certainly the better choice. If you DO need or want autofocus, you need to look at another system.

-- Moses Sparks (moses.sparks@unistudios.com), June 07, 2000.

I was idly playing with the AX in B+H; I think Contax has nice glass, and occasionally I like to play my "What if I were as rich as Bill Gates?" game.

I have pretty big hands, and the AX was at my outer range of decent gripability, lay aside the issue of weight. If you don't have big hands, I think you're going to find this camera uncomfortable in pretty short order.

If I were were seriously thinking about buying into contax, I would either:

1) get one of the manual cameras -- the RX, or perhaps the overpriced RTSIII (also big; has a noisy shutter; and, puzzlingly, not up-to-date for current Contax TTL flash technology) 2) or wait a bit. The fellow I trust most a B+H said he thought that Contax would bring out a new camera with new autofocus lenses in the near future. Certainly, there's reason to think this might be so: they have developed autofocus lenses for two lines now: the G lenses and the 645.

-- john beckman (john.beckman@nyu.edu), June 08, 2000.

I've got an Aria, which is price/feature comparative to the Nikon N80 (except for that AF thang). It's a nice camera: lightweight and rugged polycarbonate with an aluminum frame and mirror box. You'll find that the Aria has the same film advance, shutterspeed, and exposure mode options as the RX, only at half the price and size. It's also gott a matrix meter, but that seems to be of dubious worth.

The RX does have a very quiet dampened mirror, and is definitely less obtrusive for taking photos. It's also got a focus indicator which can be handy in low light situations.

The lenses are absolutely worth the hassle of expensive and outmoded camera bodies, tho. Colors will appear brighter, and the photos will take on an amazing dimensionality. It's most visible when shooting chromes: expect to get comments on your "three-dee" shots by non-photogeeks. (They're not really three-dee, the image is so snappy and sharp, it just looks that way.)

-- Matt Gabriel (mgabriel@crosswinds.net), June 09, 2000.

This thread is over a year old and I'm sure that the original question has been settled once and for all by now. I am only commenting because I wanted to illustrate how you can't rely on opinions based on a cursory examination of any piece of complex technology.

In the comments above, I see a couple of "It doesn't track moving subjects and therefore is GOOD FOR NOTHING!!" Notice how easily the whole argument can be turned around.

"I borrowed a Canon from a friend to do some sports shooting. The AF was fast to lock on for sure but it locked on the wrong thing forcing me to go through the process several times and I missed several good shots."

"I have to agree. I tried a Nikon in the camera store and the AF was all over the place."

Note how you can't make a judgement about an entire line of cameras based on a 1 hour (or shorter) trial period but many people do just that and then post "authoritiative" opinions based on their "experience".

The world of photography doesn't rise and fall on the ability to track moving subject (something that I have learned to do quite nicely with manual focus).

The AX is a very accurate autofocus; allows the use of a photographers existing stock of lenses and provides macro capability to lenses that ordinarily don't have it.

-- Meryl Arbing (marbing@sympatico.ca), October 19, 2001.

I could not more agree with Meryl. I think thoses negative comments on AX are highly biased. You can't really appreciate the AX unless you really know how to use it properly. It is no good just to try it out in the shop and then jump into conclusion that it is rubbish. In fact I found it's autofocus surprsingly accurate and fast considering the mass and inertia of the internal back focusing body. Lots of people write non-nonsense not knowing what they are talking about. I recommend it for people who have already owned lots of manual CZ optics and still want to use manual focus for critical focusing. Yes Cannon and Nikon are much faster, but not everyone is a point-and shoot or sport photographer, quality photography is better achieved with manual focusing.

-- Sing (ME_S512@atlas.kingston.ac.uk), January 30, 2002.