High End “Point and Shoot” Digital Camera
Written: Oct 08 '04 (Updated Apr 10 '07)
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Pros: Well made with quality lenses.Functions well. Infrared remote and can be mounted on a tripod.
Cons: Expensive. No longer made.
The Bottom Line: Pricey but it will be difficult to find a better made “Point and Shoot” camera. It has Panache.
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| eddiey18's Full Review: Contax TVS Digital Camera |
This Contax TVS digital camera is the digital version of Contax TVS 35 mm film camera. Both cameras are expensive but have superior optics. The lenses are made by Carl Zeiss. Zeiss is a German company famous for producing quality optics. Both cameras have titanium body and have a solid feel. Hold one in your hand, and you know it is a Quality product.
I am surprised that this Contax TVS Digital camera was not rated high by some of the online camera reviews. May be most of the reviews by publications always take price into account? At $899.95 list ($995.00 Black body), this is not a bargain. A closer look at the reviews by users showed a different story. All users that own one gave this camera very high scores. The users that gave low scores do not own one.
Style
This Contax is one of the better looking “Point and Shoot” 5 megapixel camera available if not the best looking. It is relatively compact (it is not as compact as the Minolta DiMAGE series) but I can carry it in a coat pocket or put it in my glove compartment in my car. The body is smooth and the buttons are well placed. The lenses retract completely into the body and have a build in lenses cover like the T3 35 mm camera. In fact this TVS Digital looks more like a T3 35 mm camera (current) than the TVS 35 mm camera (discontinued). The TVS 35 mm is bigger and much heavier. The TVS Digital body does not have the black rubber finger grip pad that the 35 mm camera has. Use the waist strap as much as you can, this way you would not have a heart attack if this camera slips out of your hand. A picture of the TVS 35 mm camera and the TVS Digital camera can be seen here.
http://home.socal.rr.com/eyee/images/2TVS.jpg
Control and Function
This is one area that Contax beats other “Point and Shoot” cameras. This TVS has some manual controls that others lack. It can be shoot automatic or shoot it with aperture priority mode. It does not have shutter speed priority mode. That is not a big deal as depth of field is control by aperture not by shutter speed, and I can vary the shutter speed by adjusting the aperture. I like to have direct control of the depth of field. Depth of field controls the sharpness of your subject’s background. The smaller the aperture the clearer is the background. If you want your subject to stand out, you might want to open up the aperture as much as possible, the background would be blurred.
There are 2 modes for Auto Focus, spot and wide. It also can be manually focused. There is 3X optical zoom which is about normal, I never bother with the digital zoom features as it just magnify the picture but reduces the clarity. The flash intensity can be adjusted to High, Normal or Low. The Metering system has Matrix, Center-weighted or Spot modes. There is a Macro mode that you can shoot object as close as 6 inches. This TVS Digital has the famous T* Vario Sonnar lens from Carl Zeiss. This F2.8-F4.8 lens is equivalent to 35 - 105 mm on a 35 mm camera. There is an option to choose ISO from Auto, 80, 100, 125, 160, 200, 250, 320 and 400 as if this were a film camera.
The TVS Digital has a 1.6" LCD which is used to display the picture taken and as a viewfinder. It is quite sharp and viewable outdoors. The optical viewfinder has a diopter correction knob to adjust the focus. This would help people who wear glasses. Most people would just use the LCD for convenience. However, if you are running low on battery, it helps by if you turn off the LCD and use the optical viewfinder. There are still more controls and adjustments. In general this camera gives you more control than the normal “Point and Shot” Cameras. The most important quality for a “Point and Shot” is how easy the camera can be used. This Contax is user friendly. I did not read the manual and setup the camera while it was still charging (I just could not wait). I only read the manual to figure out what all those little icons on the LCD meant. There is a histogram that can be display on the LCD, which is completely useless to me. I have no use of it. It is suppose to show how bright the picture is.
It takes about 4 seconds for the camera to be ready to shoot after I pressed the tiny power-on button. The shutter release is smooth and responsive with little lag. I like to use the color LCD as it display all the information that I need to know. There is another tiny LCD (Black and White) displace on top the camera which can be used when the Color LCD is turned off.
There is a function that is rather useful if you are not sure if the settings are correct. The camera can be set to take 3 consecutive pictures with different settings. So just keep the one you like best. This camera also comes with an infra red remote and a nice leather case.
Picture Quality
If you read reports from some of the publications on Contax TVS, you’ll find that it performs average no better than other cameras. Read carefully, you’ll find that testing of most cameras is at extreme settings which normally most photographers never use. The pictures that I took were sharp and clear, the colors do not look artificial. Both indoor and outdoor pictures are good. The flash gives a decent coverage, nothing special but adequate. This is a 5 megapixel camera and the pictures can be printed into 11x14 inches. I normally printed at 4x6 inches, so I can not really fault anything with the quality of the prints.
Get a large capacity SD card. The SD card that was packaged with this camera is not enough; it is only 16 MB. It is not unique as most digital cameras come with small capacity memory cards. I placed a 128 MB SD card in from another digital camera and proceeded to order another SD card with higher capacity. By the way, saving picture to the SD card was surprisingly fast considering that the picture files are well over 2 MB of data. .Jpg is the only format that this camera supports. It does not store the data in .Tif or raw format. This probably reduces the size of the pictures and fastens the storage time to the SD memory.
Movie mode
This camera will shoot a movie clip for 30 seconds in 320x240 resolutions or 120 seconds in 160x120 resolutions. It also records sounds. It is recorded in AVI file. I have no use of this feature, why would I shoot video with a picture camera. I guess, it is available should I need it.
Software
The software that comes with the camera is not much use. I loaded it and it works and that is about it. When the camera is connected to the computer, the computer looks at the camera as another hard disk. Moving pictures in and out is a matter of dragging them into folders. Just like most digital cameras, one can delete the picture on the camera with the computer. Since this TVS uses SD memory, it is just as easy, by removing the SD card and put it into a SD card reader without using the USB connection. I also use my Toshiba e755 Pocket PC (http://www.epinions.com/content_137787117188) to view the image on the SD card when I do not have my notebook or desktop with me. The Toshiba e755 Pocket PC is ideal to view the images as while the color LCD on the camera is clear it is still rather small.
Battery
This battery is 3.7v 1500mAh lithium-ion rechargeable. The manual said that it would shoot 260 frames without flash and back LCD on. It would shoot130 frames with flash. This is more than enough for my use. A back up or replacement Contax battery cost about $50.00.
Price
At $899.95 list at the time of release it is expensive, but then I paid over $1,000.00 for my Contax TVS 35 mm camera with data back. The street price for this TVS digital has dropped to about $700.00 which is still quite expensive. When I was searching for information on this TVS digital camera, I noticed that there is a used market for the TVS 35 mm camera. People are still paying a minimum of $350.00 and above to get the 35 mm camera. I have even seen a store in New York that is selling a new TVS 35mm camera for about $1,100.00. So I would assume that this digital camera might have some residual value.
Important Tips
Use ISO 80 or 100 to shoot pictures when there is ample light. This is the same for using slower film on a 35mm. The grain/pixel would be much finer and the picture would be much sharper than a high speed film (ISO 400). The picture gallery of Contax’s web site has some fine pictures taken by this TVS. All of them were taken in ISO 80 setting. The detail of these pictures is amazing. Take a cue from those Pros, unless you are shooting action or in dim light, use ISO 80 or ISO 100 as much as you can.
Conclusion
This camera gives you more control than a normal “Point and Shoot” camera. I have a 2 megapixel Minolta Dimage X which is quite adequate and easy to carry. I was debating if I should get this TVS Digital when I found mine at a price of less than $400.00. It is refurbished but I have no problem with this camera at all. I could probably re-sell this without any lost. I would buy this even if I did not found my refurbished one at such a good price. This camera might not be for everyone as there are cheaper alternative. I did not say better value as this Contax is very well made. You do get what you paid for. I double if you find a better made “Point and Shoot” camera on the market. The Zeiss Lenses are coated, sharp and capture pictures with great colors. Some of the high end Sony uses Zeiss Lenses also.
Contax cameras are like Patek Phillippe watches. While they are expensive, they are well made, function well and retain their value. People who know about camera will recognize your Contax. Those who do not know do not count anyway. If you are in a market for a 5 megapixel digital camera and you want to spoiled yourself or someone (if you looking for a gift), check this Contax out. This camera is worth the money (it can be bought at below the list) regardless of some of the magazines might say.
Update 04/09/2007
I am not sure if anyone is going to read this review as Contax is no longer being made and there are smaller and more capable cameras on the market now. However, I came across a posting that provided a link to a Contax TVS firmware update. This firmware version is 1.05. I followed the instructions and sort of figured what to do and updated my firmware. So I might just as well post this here, in case someone with a Contax TVS needs this.
Here is the link http://www.kyocera.co.jp/prdct/optical/support/firmware/tvsd_dl.html
This link is in Japanese and I do not read Japanese but it was not hard to figure out with the aid of Web language translation service.
Here are the simple instructions for updating the firmware. Do it on your own risk and I am not responsible if you mess up.
• Check your firmware. If you have version 1.05 there is no need to do this. Mine was version 1.02. Press the “C Menu” and “D Menu” buttons down and at the same time power on. Hold the power on for about 2 seconds and the display screen will show your firmware version.
• Charge up you camera. This is a must, because if you loose power in the middle of the update, you might mess up your camera.
• Download the exe file.
• Put it in a folder on your computer, double click and it is self extracting.
• Get an empty SD card (minimum 8 MB). I have an old 16 MB one that I am not using anymore and I format it in the camera. Not sure if it was necessary but I did it anyway.
• Drag the extracted file folder/file to the SD card.
• Place SD card in camera.
• Power on camera.
• Go to D Menu, select Mode Reset, and Execute.
• The screen would now show a new line asking if you want to update firmware.
• Select Yes or Execute.
• The indicator led would bling orange for about a minute. After it stops, you are done.
• Remove the SD card and replace it with your regular SD card.
P.S I am using a Sandisk Extreme III 1GB SD card and this card seems to be faster than the others that I’ve tried.
BTW. I am still using this Camera regularly with good results. There are smaller and lighter cameras available but this Contax TVS can be mounted on a Tripod and I find the Infra Red remote is really useful. If you find one for sale at a reasonable price, buy it. No, I am not selling mine. I am keeping both of my 35mm and Digital Contax TVS.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 363.00
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Flexible Enough for Enthusiasts
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Epinions.com ID:
eddiey18
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Member: Edward Yee
Location: Southern California
Reviews written: 20
Trusted by: 1 member
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