Contax Zeiss Survival Guide

[scott devitte]

Thank you Nick for your words !
I wish I could share more, but right now I'm more into techies job than been creative for myself.
You know one for the bred one for the reel. I'm into a bred period.
Anyway just geting ready to make sing the 100/300 and the extender tonight for the super moon.
I'll be probably really shitty for my trailer job tomorrow morning but I can't wait 20 more years for the next phenomenon.
Cheers

B.

To anybody having, building or contemplating getting a set of contax lenses- the 100-300 is an absolute must. It is the most addicting render in any lens that I have used. I bought two recently, with the idea of keeping the best one. I will never sell either.

 

[Oscar Stegland]

Has anyone found a good extender solution for Leitax'd lenses? From what I understand the Mutars are pointless unless the original C/Y-mount is in place? Has anyone tried with Canon's extenders? Or do they work against the Contax mojo?

 

[Nick Morrison]

@ Nick:

Do you have any idea how the Contax N 70-300mm compares to the Y/C 100-300mm?

It can be found much cheaper, and since my A7S get's more an more use as a B-cam these days, I'm considering buying one.

TIA

Uli, I have no experience with the 70-300, but quick peek at MTF Chart suggests it's VERY, VERY good!

http://www.zeiss.com/content/dam/Ph...r/contax_n/vario-sonnar4-0-5-6_70-300mm_e.pdf

 

[Nick Morrison]

Has anyone found a good extender solution for Leitax'd lenses? From what I understand the Mutars are pointless unless the original C/Y-mount is in place? Has anyone tried with Canon's extenders? Or do they work against the Contax mojo?

You know what? This is a great question. I've been meaning to get some Canon extenders (for this very reason), and never got around to it. Curious to know myself!!

 

[Oscar Stegland]

You know what? This is a great question. I've been meaning to get some Canon extenders (for this very reason), and never got around to it. Curious to know myself!!

You'd think that with the craze you started, at least ONE Contax owner would also own a Canon extender haha. But I imagine it would raise the contrast a whole lot and kind of eliminate part of the vintage magic, judging by how Canon's glass performs in general.

 

[Uli Plank]

To answer my own question regarding the Contax N 70-300mm, here is a copy from the discussion at Conurus, who make the conversion for using them on Canon:

"Unlike the other 8 lenses in the N line-up, the Vario-Sonnar 70-300/4-5.6 has very wide quality variations. A good copy can be really good but a bad copy can be pretty bad. If you contemplate buying one, make sure you test it on a Contax N camera body immediately for optical quality and return it for a refund if you get a lemon.

I have had at least 3 customers who are unhappy with their 70-300 lenses, which were just not sharp enough wide open. Now I know there are also many customers who are happy and got really good wide open performance, but I think I am somewhat obliged to point out that the 70-300 may turn out to be a risky investment and everyone needs to be very careful.

There are also a small percentage of samples autofocusing unreliably or very slowly. Some samples would get stuck in the middle of the focusing range, e.g. at 3m or 8m.

We just converted every incoming 70-300 assuming they are good, but if it turns out to be a lemon, we are very happy to transfer the mount and the circuit board, free of charge, to a different 70-300 that you are responsible for procuring. However, there is nothing we can do to improve the optical quality of a lemon, other than sending it to Contax Japan for a fix-up.

I personally would choose the 70-200 over the 70-300 simply because of the consistent quality. If you get a good sample of the 70-300 it will perform just as good optically as the 70-200 and maybe even more reliable, with a very useful macro mode and a more metallic construction to boost, but if you do not have the opportunity to cherry-pick from a batch, the 70-200 is the much safer choice."

Plus, it doesn't have any good spot for a tripod collar.

So, i'll stay away from these and wait for a reasonable price on a 100-300mm C/Y…

 

[Brice Ansel]

Hello Contax freaks.

It was my first moon eclipse and I have to admit I am under expose.
Had to change strategy during the eclipse and perform extra black shading.
The good thing was the presence of other Red User on Facebook experiencing the same phenomenon.
Personaly it did kept me awake for the whole night.

A frame from the 100/300 with Mutar X2

Cheers
B

 

[Chris McKechnie]

Hello Contax freaks.

It was my first moon eclipse and I have to admit I am under expose.
Had to change strategy during the eclipse and perform extra black shading.
The good thing was the presence of other Red User on Facebook experiencing the same phenomenon.
Personaly it did kept me awake for the whole night.

A frame from the 100/300 with Mutar X2

Cheers
B

SAWEEET!

 

[Ben Scott]

The Huracan video I shot the other day.

I wish I'd had another 2-3 days on the grade as as well as matching some of the secondaries and tracking are a bit sloppy and needed to be refined but we ended up uploading a master just before it was meant to go live...

99% the exterior stuff 'passing shots' is Contax Glass. Drive bys and tracking shots are 28-85 and 80-200. I think there was a Canon 70-200L on the FS700 for those and I think they stand out quite a lot. Close up and details are primes - usually the 35mm f1.4 and the 50 f1.7

Sony FS7
Sony FS700 with Odyssey 7Q
GoPros
Canon 5D
Blackmagic 4k Studio camera for studio shots

 

[Barry Reid]

You know what? This is a great question. I've been meaning to get some Canon extenders (for this very reason), and never got around to it. Curious to know myself!!

You will not be able to use the EF extenders with the vast majority of contax lenses. Like the Zeiss Mutar II and Mutar III they have a projecting front element. The difference being the EF extenders project even further. The pdf at the link below shows the lenses that can accommodate the Mutar III, which would be the base set for testing.

Mutar III Data Sheet

There are more flexible options out there from Teleplus etc.

 

[Nick Morrison]

You will not be able to use the EF extenders with the vast majority of contax lenses. Like the Zeiss Mutar II and Mutar III they have a projecting front element. The difference being the EF extenders project even further. The pdf at the link below shows the lenses that can accommodate the Mutar III, which would be the base set for testing.

Mutar III Data Sheet

There are more flexible options out there from Teleplus etc.

Awesome points! The protruding element of Canon extenders was something I've been wary of, and I've been eyeballing these third party extenders...anyone have experience with them?

http://www.amazon.com/Kenko-1-4X-Te...+3mKi5L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160,160_

http://www.amazon.com/Tamron-Teleco...UTF8&qid=1443802071&sr=8-10&keywords=EOS+1.4x

http://www.amazon.com/Tamron-Focus-...UTF8&qid=1443802071&sr=8-12&keywords=EOS+1.4x

 

[Nick Morrison]

Ben, this is amazing. It this the new Top Gear? Sure looks like it!!!

The Huracan video I shot the other day.

Sadly we simply didn't have enough time to grade fully to match cameras but we got enough nice shots for the showreel - I wish I'd had another 2-3 days on the grade as as well as matching some of the secondaries and tracking are a bit sloppy and needed to be refined but we ended up uploading a master about 3mins before publication was due Ah well.... Sort of using it as proof of concept of what we COULD do if we had more time and used all the same cameras and glass and removed bloody 5Ds from the video completely!

99% the exterior stuff 'passing shots' is Contax Glass. Drive bys and tracking shots are 28-85 and 80-200. I think there was a Canon 70-200L on the FS700 for those and I think they stand out quite a lot. Close up and details are primes - usually the 35mm f1.4 and the 50 f1.7

Sony FS7
Sony FS700 with Odyssey 7Q
GoPros
Canon 5D
Blackmagic 4k Studio camera for studio shots

password: lambo

 

[Nick Morrison]

Hello Contax freaks.

It was my first moon eclipse and I have to admit I am under expose.
Had to change strategy during the eclipse and perform extra black shading.
The good thing was the presence of other Red User on Facebook experiencing the same phenomenon.
Personaly it did kept me awake for the whole night.

A frame from the 100/300 with Mutar X2

Cheers
B

Ps Brice. You rock.

 

[Craig J Marshall]

The Huracan video I shot the other day.

Sadly we simply didn't have enough time to grade fully to match cameras but we got enough nice shots for the showreel - I wish I'd had another 2-3 days on the grade as as well as matching some of the secondaries and tracking are a bit sloppy and needed to be refined but we ended up uploading a master about 3mins before publication was due Ah well.... Sort of using it as proof of concept of what we COULD do if we had more time and used all the same cameras and glass and removed bloody 5Ds from the video completely!

99% the exterior stuff 'passing shots' is Contax Glass. Drive bys and tracking shots are 28-85 and 80-200. I think there was a Canon 70-200L on the FS700 for those and I think they stand out quite a lot. Close up and details are primes - usually the 35mm f1.4 and the 50 f1.7

Sony FS7
Sony FS700 with Odyssey 7Q
GoPros
Canon 5D
Blackmagic 4k Studio camera for studio shots

Nice work Ben! I'll go further and offer a more formal critique after I've watched it a few more times. For most of my professional career in SD Betacam SP production, I shot and cut television commercials for Toyota for about ten years. I also owned and raced a Ferrari 308 GT4 and as a BBC Top Gear fan, I feel I'm well qualified to comment on this video.

Rather than watch it on Vimeo, I downloaded the half gigabyte 1080P MP4 version and played it via a USB drive on our calibrated fifty five inch Sony 'client monitor', a 2014 X9005B 4K Bravia. This TV 'takes no prisoners' as it up-rezzes all HD material to 4K so any imperfections in the material is exaggerated.

All in all, the up-rezzed MP4 looked excellent with some truly good looking scenes with crisp, clear audio quality. I would have liked a 'super' on the presenter to let me know who he was. Is he anyone special? He spoke well and held my attention to the end but I'm afraid there's only one Jeremy Clarkson! There were some noticeable differences in 'sharpness' and contrast between some scenes, easily discernable at 4K. Some shots were dramatically sharp and jumped out of the screen at you whilst others seemed disappointingly 'soft' by comparison. Possibly a bit too much jitter on the interior/exterior camera/s but getting them rock steady is not easy. As a sheep farmer here in Australia, I'm no fan of Scotch Thistles ready to shed their seed but only I would comment on that! I'm no fan of high shutter speeds either but that's a personal preference.

All in all, a very professional production and worthy of high commendation. I'm sure Ben if you were to submit it to Amazon TV as a reference for a DP position on the new Top Gear, you'd be in with a win.

 

[Nick Morrison]

As a massive Top Gear fan (I've done promos for both Top Gear UK and Top Gear USA), I can def say I was impressed with Ben's piece! Not just cuz it was shot on Contax!!

 

[Ben Scott]

Thanks for kind words chaps and I agree with everything you say Craig.

I've been pushing to have continuity of cameras on the shoots because for me the quality leap is huge between them and content of this type only suffers when suddenly you're using the cheaper cameras that aren't as sharp or that don't stand up to a certain level of grading. I would also ban GoPros in a heartbeat. Hate them!

Tends to be a crew of two plus the presenter and we're running flat out - usually literally- across the road up hills down hills whatever capturing stuff but it's all good fun, although myself and my colleague (neither of us are in-house for XCAR) are really trying to push to get them to up the quality and show them what they could achieve with a bit more time/thought. That goes from the production to the edit and the grading, which previously was just a Magic Bullet look plonked all over it.

My next mission is to get them to start using ND on the windows for the in-car pieces to camera!


This was a video for XCAR - https://www.youtube.com/user/XCARFilms/featured or xcar.com, and they have hundreds by now. Lots of fun ones on there although I have only shot on a few. The presenter, Alex Goy, is a very knowledgable chap and won British automotive journalist of the year twice running I believe.

Doing the new Mclaran in a couple of weeks in Portugal will will try to take lessons learned from this one forward.

 

[Uli Plank]

@ Nick: Kenko has horrible optical quality. Tamron used to build some nice ones, I own one for a vintage macro with Adaptall mount, but I don't know the newer ones.

 

[Brice Ansel]

The Huracan video I shot the other day.

I wish I'd had another 2-3 days on the grade as as well as matching some of the secondaries and tracking are a bit sloppy and needed to be refined but we ended up uploading a master just before it was meant to go live...

99% the exterior stuff 'passing shots' is Contax Glass. Drive bys and tracking shots are 28-85 and 80-200. I think there was a Canon 70-200L on the FS700 for those and I think they stand out quite a lot. Close up and details are primes - usually the 35mm f1.4 and the 50 f1.7

Sony FS7
Sony FS700 with Odyssey 7Q
GoPros
Canon 5D
Blackmagic 4k Studio camera for studio shots

You are having fun hein ?

I'm not playing with a lambo but enjoying my last aquisition a 18 AEG
I need to find the time to compare it with the 19 Leica R !

Cheers
B.

 

[Samir Patel]

Finally have a 21 heading my way... :drool:

Ben that was a great video BTW!

 

[Nick Morrison]

Finally have a 21 heading my way... :drool:

Congrats!!!!!