Contax N Digital
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The Contax N Digital was a digital SLR camera produced by Contax in Japan. The camera was announced in late 2000, and began to be sold in spring 2002. It was noteworthy for being the first full frame digital SLR—a camera for a 35mm lens system that has an imaging chip the full size of a 135 film frame. All previous dSLRs had a sensor smaller than that giving a cropped view (see magnification factor). The imaging sensor used was from Philips and a similar model had been used in medium format digital backs; however, its characteristics made for an ultimately unsuccessful camera, since at sensitivities higher than 100 ISO—or with exposures longer than 1 second—it showed noise in its images to a degree many photographers considered unacceptable in comparison to the competition.
Other problems reported included very poor battery life (on the order of 80 shots), poor flash metering, and poor autofocus performance.
Photographers able to work within the camera's limitations found it produced excellent results for certain types of work (well-lit studio photography, for example).
The camera was quietly withdrawn from the market by Contax within a year of introduction.
[edit] References
- Contax N Digital: A Non-Review by Michael Reichmann of The Luminous Landscape, retrieved on October 10, 2005. Details the unwillingness of Contax to provide review samples of the N Digital to journalists, and Michael Reichmann's opinions of why this was so (i.e. the camera's poor performance).
- Contax N Digital: An In-Depth Review by Irakly Shanidze, published at The Luminous Landscape. Retrieved on October 10, 2005.
