I think to shrink the size of T3, it cut some corners as compares with T2.

For instance, T3 has only a five blade aperture diaphram, while T2 has seven blades, closer to round shape.

T3 has no ceramic pressure plate like T2

Does T3 has saphire viewfinder window ? T2 does.

-- martin tai (cg081@torfree.net), July 10, 2001

Answers

So don't buy it. I just hope these "crimes" aren't keeping you awake at night.

-- Gary Watson (cg.watson@sympatico.ca), July 10, 2001.

Martin,

I also like lenses that use lots of blades. One of my Leica M lenses has 11 blades. I think that is a record. The Konica Hexar RF lenses all have 10 since the Japanese love bokeh.

Having more blades makes out of focus lights look roundish and is much nicer for the overall bokeh.

So why do some manufacturers use less blades? I don't know. My TVSIII has 5 blades too! While my old TVS has 7. All my Mamiya 7 lenses have only 5 blades too! I have seen a $7000 Hasslelblad lens, which is their sharpest. It is the Zeiss Superachromat 350mm f5.6. That too has only 5 blades! And they say it is great for portraits that blur the background. Yet it has a terrible bokeh. Why did Zeiss put on 5 blades on their top of the line lens?

Anyway I thought 5 blades was the minimum, until today I say a Minox 35 GTE, which has TWO blades!!! Wow!

Mike

-- Mike Foster (mike567@acgecorp.com), July 12, 2001.

The reason for the small number of blades on Hasselblad lenses, and other single lens reflexes, is for speed of operation. More blades = more friction, making it difficult for the iris to close fast enough for SLR operation. This is especially important on wide aperture and long lenses with their large iris openings.
If you've ever operated a large process lens with 12 or 13 blades, you'll know how that friction builds up!

I believe (I might well be wrong) that the Minox, like many compacts, has a 'shutterture', where the shutter and iris are combined. At higher shutter speeds, the two shutter blades are only partly pulled open, leaving a diamond shaped aperture formed by two 'V' notches in the blades. In this way; one simple timing circuit can control both the aperture and the shutter speed over a wide range of exposure settings.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), July 12, 2001.

Pete,

I can understand your agrument about the speed. But as you said that would apply to SLR's only. In other cameras the aperture does not move unless you change it.

So my argument still applies to the Contax T3, TVSIII, Mamiya 7, etc..

As for the Minox 35, no the two blade thing is not the shutter. Since as you move the aperture ring you can control the two blades and see the aperture open and close, while behind it you can see the shutter clearly.

Mike

-- Mike Foster (mike567@acgecorp.com), July 12, 2001.

Kyocera claimed that 7 blades of T2 was 'computer designed' to give near round shape. Why T3 reduced the blades ? Yes, older camera has more blades. My 80 years plus Goerz Tenax 6x9 Dogmar lens has ten blades. In out of focus area, five blade lens generate pentagram shape blur

-- martin tai (martin.tai@capcanada.com), July 12, 2001.

Thanks Mike. I did say that I might well be wrong about the Minox. I didn't know you had manual control of the aperture on that model. I thought the GT series were all auto-exposure.
BTW, I've just seen a CCTV camera lens with a 3 bladed aperture!
I'm not convinced about this 'bokeh' crap. It might be interesting to drop some wierd shaped waterhouse stops into one of my old process lenses, to see exactly what effect the shape of aperture has. However, with the price of 5x4 film, I'd have to get a bit more curious than I am at the moment, or make an adapter for 35mm.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), July 13, 2001.

Pete,

Regardless if you believe in the bokeh "crap", you cannot deny the fact that any out of focus bright point WILL appear as a triangle in a 3 bladed diaphram or as pentagon in a 5 bladed diaphram. Ideally it should appear as a circle. If not then as close to it as possible.

Look at our eyes, it is the best aperture! Fully round no matter what it is stopped down to!

Anyway I for sure DO like more blades.

Mike

-- Mike Foster (mike567@acgecorp.com), July 13, 2001.

Minox 35 camera indeed has two blades. However, the two 'blades" has V shape cut out, so that two of them forms a diamond shape with four sides, only one side lens then five blade diaphrams-- quite a smart design.

Nothing beat Waterhouse stops-- simply perfect round holes

-- martin tai (martin.tai@capcanada.com), July 14, 2001.

Any one knows who designed the styling of T3?

Contax T and T2 both has very elegant styling, designed by Germany Porsche Design Group.

T2 won design awards

T3 looks like designed by inhouse engineer.

-- martin tai (martin.tai@capcanada.com), July 14, 2001.

Mike. I'm short sighted, so I only need to take off my spectacles to see out-of-focus highlights. Otherwise, I find it extremely difficult to look directly at something and throw it out of focus.
Anyway, what I see with the naked eye when I look at a defocused specular highlight, is not a nicely round gaussian blob, but little radial sparkles, something like spiral-galaxy arms. Sometimes there is a halo effect, which changes as I blink, and this is all due to the liquid film covering my eye.
In other words, it's actually nothing like the nice circular 'bokeh' that someone has decided that a lens ought to exhibit.

Photography has been practised for over 150 years, and during that time, a huge number of wonderful pictures has been taken. No-one, to date, has ever looked at a great photograph and said "This would have been a masterpiece, ...if only the bokeh of the lens had been better."
That's why I say 'bokeh' is crap.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), July 16, 2001.

T2 was not designed by Porsche Design only the original. Bokeh surely is more important for longer lenses 50mm+ than a wide angle lens? Adding to the original question; another observatin is the T3 also has a lot more plastic, with a plastic 'chassis' . Feature wise it has compensated by adding in extra features for those it removed from the T2, so on balance the T3 is better endowed?

-- Kwen Wan (kwen@fucx.co.uk), July 21, 2001.

Not that relevant to the thread, but had to add that I'm looking at a Russion Jupiter 9 (85/2.0) with 15 blades. This one is for Leica screw mount, but I believe it's also available in various SLR mounts.

FWIW.

-- John Treat (john.treat@writeme.com), September 03, 2001.

Contax has cut some pretty good corners to include the improvements of smaller size, sharper lens with no vignetting, faster shutter speed and more user customizable functions than the T2 or just about any other P&S available.

Poplar Photography calls it the sharpest P$S that they have ever tested. I love the bokeh in the images rendered by mine. Havn't noticed any pentagrams.

-- Phil (plpb@earthlink.net), September 06, 2001.

Ok folks... What's the hooooopla about the ceramic pressure plate on the T2???

The T2 is NOT designed by FA Porsche Design group, though it does show lines originated in the T. I too admire the design of the T2 and may even collect one for the hell of it, but I must say... Contax did a wonderful job with the T3. I like better than my G1, which isn't easy on the eye. ;~}

-- Niki (Cadenza_7o@yahoo.com), November 01, 2001.

We all know that Leica, Contax and other cameras are made by German elves from the Black Forest.

In the case of Contax, these elves have Japanese work permits, and work in the ancient cultural capital of Kyoto in Japan. Reports indicate that the elf responsible for the Contax T3 has been deported back to Germany, where he will be duly beaten by Santa Claus with a birch stick.

Footnote: As you all know, according to the legend, in Germany, Santa whacks naughty kids on Christmas day, he saves the lumps of coal for other countries. Come to think of it he doesn't even look like the jolly Claus he is in America, more like a grumpy, thin old fella whom it is best to steer clear of. Nevertheless, he will give us Leicas if we are nice.

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), November 05, 2001.