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Limited edition for Contaxinfo members

Dear members,

because of reasons we can not disclose now, more information about this limited edition will be posted only in a few weeks.

Please be patient and bear with us. Sorry for this inconvenience.
 
Hello Dirk,

Did you ever manage to get either a SL300RT or U4R produced as a special edition? I still use the SL300RTs regularly along with my i4Rs; I freely admit that I prefer the older 3.17Mp SL300RT to the 4Mp U4R even though the lens remains the same. The black SL300RTs still look great though none of the Contax digital models look as good as the i4R in piano black... It's quite funny walking out with my Fuji GFX 50S or Hasselblad/Contax 645 with a digital back and then pulling out the i4R to grab a picture; just a slight contrast in size! :)
 
biggles3 said:
Did you ever manage to get either a SL300RT or U4R produced as a special edition?
Click to expand...

Not really. They produced one prototype of the SL300T for demonstration purpose, which I lend to Zeiss, so they could show it in an exhibition in Oberkochen. Unfortunately they lost it. :mad:

Shortly after, Kyocera decided to leave the photomarket. Unfortunately. I am pretty sure they could have had success, as long as they do not try at that time to reinvent the wheel with fullframe sensors of Medium Format cameras. That was a bad strategic decision at that time. An APS-C sensor would have been goood enough for most Contaxians. At a time almost everybody had only APS-C sensors.

Does actually anybody know, that the Contax ND was the first fullframe DSLR worldwide? Even before the Canon?

I am still missing the old Contax days...
 
Yes - the Contax ND was famous (infamous) for being the first full-frame DSLR but there is always a risk when you are first to do something... Everyone watches to see what issues you encounter and then they refine what you have worked so hard to make and steal the market from you. The sensor in the ND was not fit for purpose as it overheated so easily and produced too much noise. It was a brave attempt but was never supported properly by Kyocera; it needed more financial support in the development of the sensor and the system. With so few lenses, even using the 645's glass via the adapter, it was never going to get a buy-in from professionals which were the target audience for the ND. I don't think Zeiss were confident about the future which might explain the poor number of prime lenses available for the system - where were the wide angles or ultra-wide angles? I think they got their fingers burnt with the decision by the new Yashica/Contax owners Kyocera to abandon the Contax 137AF back in 1982/3 after Zeiss had spent a lot of effort in designing and producing three AF lenses for the new Contax system, which was still able to use the old C/Y mount. Ah, what might have been... It is such a pity that Contax was bought by a company with no history in photography - but at least they produced the Contax 645. I can forgive them a lot for that.
 
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