Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/03/03

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Subject: [Leica] OT: Contax ceased production of 35mm cameras, digital to follow
From: rlbunting at lucent.com (Bunting, Roger L (Roger))
Date: Thu Mar 3 08:46:26 2005


-----Original Message-----
From:   Bunting, Roger L (Roger)  
Sent:   Thursday, March 03, 2005 10:22 AM
To:     'lug@leica-users.org'
Subject:        [Leica] OT: Contax ceased production of 35mm cameras, 
digital to follow

> According to the BJP Contax has pulled the plug on all 35mm film
> cameras and will do the same with digital cameras by the end of the
> year :-(

> http://db.riskwaters.com/public/showPage.html?page=210204 
> <http://db.riskwaters.com/public/showPage.html?page=210204> 

> Sad day.

> Simon.


Simon,

The Contax T3 and/or Canon S60 are my travel backups. These two P&S cameras 
offer me a lot of flexibility. I've often had business trips where I'm very 
heavily loaded and the P&S cameras are the only "extras" that I can get in. 
Not so long ago the T3 was my only camera for a two week stint in Asia. It's 
taken some of my best shots. The lens quality reminds me of my 35mm 
Summicron. The controls on the camera allow for simple P&S operation through 
aperture preferred metering. You can manually focus the lens (electronic 
scale focus) and most of the user options are sticky so you can reconfigure 
the camera for near manual defaults, especially hyperfocal shooting so there 
is no shutter delay. In fact you can do that with the S60 also. The lens in 
the T3 put it in a special category. I much prefer handing either of these 
cameras rather than my M6 to a passerby to take a shot of my spouse and 
myself.
This not only signals a passing era for Contax, but I think I've read that 
the Olympus Stylus Epic has also stopped production. Now Contax, who knows 
what Leica will keep on the books, but I wouldn't expect the film P&S 
cameras to stay in the lineup. By my counting, that really is the end of the 
quality film P&S era. For P&S, digital makes more sense to me from the mass 
market sense, I wonder if we will begin to see the specialized "quality" 
lens entries as that market matures. One could hope.
I have close friends who use the Contax SLR system. For those who have a 
large investment in those quality products this must really come as a blow.
Regards,
Roger


Replies: Reply from scott at adrenaline.com (Scott McLoughlin) ([Leica] OT: Contax ceased production of 35mm cameras, digital to follow)