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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Contax Zeiss Survival Guide

Chris McKechnie said:
Thanks for the shout out Nick, and compliment Jordan. :-)
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You deserve it Chris. I've always said that one of the virtues of Contax is that there are TWO lineups of PRIMES. The bigger, more expensive and faster primes (1.4 and f2s). And then the "STANDARDS", the smaller (travel friendly) 2.8 primes that are superb optically...and as you have demonstrated...IDEAL for lightweight setups like MoVI.

As technology values smaller and lighter more and more, these STANDARD Contax Primes are going to really show their worth.
 
Thanks so much for the help Ben! Really appreciate it.

Tommaso, that is the 85mm in daylight with heavy ND and Pol filter.

Thanks Nick, here is a few more.

All shots straight out of camera, I like setting my looks on location as much as possible.

Shot a couple of fashion films this week finally putting the Contax's to use after finishing my mods on them. Love them Love them Love them. Shots below are using the 28mm f2 // 50mm 1.4 // 85mm 1.4 all in natural light with heavy ND's (1.2) plus a circular pol filter so shot around wide open or stopped one stop down depending on the light intensity. Video to be edited sometime soon, will post later.


50mm 1.4


28mm f2


50mm 1.4


85mm 1.4


50mm 1.4
 
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Hi Tommaso,

Been loving the lenses, been great having a complete set to work with!

hope all is well with you!


Tommaso Alvisi said:
13607800573_a3fd4aa061_c.jpg


Hi Roy,
hope all is well and you enjoy my lenses!!! ;)
what focal length did you use for this?
I really like it!
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Jake Wilganowski said:
Hey nick any comments on the sigma 18-35 cutting with mmj contax speeds?
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If you go back a bit, or search for my previous posts, you will eventually find where I talk a bit about cutting sigma 18-35 with Contax.

In short, it is amazingly close! I was really really pleased! All of my glass is MMJ, and the sigma cuts perfectly. Of course, the sigma is a little sharper, lol.
 
Thanks Nick, and thanks to you for turning me on to these gems. I just had to pull the trigger, couldn't spend too long to find the best deals around but they were worth every red cent, love them, look forward to expanding the set beyond what I have eventually as well, got a few more shoots lined up here in LA before heading out so I will be posting more grabs very soon. Especially now that Ben has taught me how to insert images! :sifone: Thanks Ben.

Anyone here hitting NAB? I will be there Sun / Mon / Tue
 
Jeffrey T. Morgan said:
If you go back a bit, or search for my previous posts, you will eventually find where I talk a bit about cutting sigma 18-35 with Contax.

In short, it is amazingly close! I was really really pleased! All of my glass is MMJ, and the sigma cuts perfectly. Of course, the sigma is a little sharper, lol.
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Hey Jeffrey, how's the focus ring on the Sigma? I was in NY for a couple of days last week, but forgot to check it out at B&H...

cheers.
 
Finally got my 28mm Hollywood back. I'd say the work done on it has left it ever so slightly looser than it was, but it's still by far got the stiffest focus of my Contax lenses.

That said I'll never use that particular shop again as overall they had my lens for a month and first time around I'm not entirely convinced they did what I paid for them to do.

In other non Contax news getting an ifootage Shark Slider delivered tomorrow. Pretty much off the back of one photo :)

Daniel Kelly Brown said:
I have used both the stage zero and stage one for some time now to shoot motion control time lapse with SLR's. Stage one is the lightest and most airplane friendly travel solution out there. Unfortunately the stage one is not solid enough for the Epic, not sure about scarlet. The stage zero is, but is not good for hand held moves. I have come to conclude that I am going to motorize my Kessler Cineslider for motion control time lapse/video with the Epic. It can handle the weight and will be better for faster moves.

Going to give my Emotimo TB3 a shot with the Epic on the cineslider with their stepper motor kit: http://store.emotimo.com/stepper-motor-pod-for-kessler-p47.aspx
For sure pushing the weight of the Epic on the TB3, but must give it a shot, its just so easy and fun to use. The repeatability aspect is really badass: http://vimeo.com/69393387

Will post results after I get it all dialed in and take some worthy shots.

Lastly a friend of mine got one of these sliders recently, its very sold, smooth, cheap, and comes with a bomber case...now to get it motorized:) http://www.ifootagegear.com/en/shark-slider-s1/

We put my epic on there with heavy config and it can handle the weight:
redshark2.jpg
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it does look cool, and what the repair house we should not go to?
 
All the videos look amazing for it but only ever show it being used with DSLRs so I was pretty pleased to see an EPic in a heavier config than I tend to use making use of it. Will certainly report back.

EDIT: And the place I used was Camera City in London just by the British Museum. They seem nice enough but frankly if someone pays £200 to have something fixed and you've already taken 2 weeks to do the job, then the fix doesn't stick I'd be working around the clock to make it right whereas they kept it for another two weeks and only when I started chasing it up and getting grumpy done the phone did their technician suddenly finish it up.

In their defence the lens does appear to be working fine now :)
 
Maybe not the place to discuss it, but........

The just announced Sony A7s with 4k would make a lovely accompaniment to our collections of Contax lenses.
 
Okay so while we are off-topic :)

iFootage Shark slider feedback.

Beautifully made and very quick to set up and incredibly smooth and dampened moves great. the extension rods work fine too with no noticeable bump as the carriage crosses the join. Can't wait for the upcoming motor to go with it. A lovely portable piece of kit.

With a DSLR or AF100-type camera it could handle anything you could throw at it weight-wise I reckon. Did a quick Red test and had my Manfrotto 509HD head going into a bowl-to-flat-base adapter with the Scarlet on a dovetail on that with v-mount and monitor attached and the 28mm Hollywood on the front. It dealt with it admirably and the moves were nice and smooth but I think that's getting pretty close to the limit, especially if using the extension rods for the full length slides.

Now going to look for a lightweight flat-base head that can still pan and til with the Scarlet on it. The Manfrotto 502 appeals because it is inexpensive, can share the dovetail plate on my slider, is low profile and doesn't appear to weigh much which means I can put more crap on the camera :)


EDIT: I see the motorised pan tilt module was being demoed at NAB

JJEqLyW.jpg
 
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Not to drive people mad (ala Ahab), but the elusive WHITE WHALE appears to have materialized! A 28mm Hollywood that's an MM! One is on sale now at KEH. I already have a modded Hollywood, so can't bring myself to pull the trigger, no matter how rare and alluring this may be:

28 HOLLYWOOD "MM" AT KEB!
 
Haha I just saw that MMG on KEH a few minutes ago. Thought about pulling the trigger myself to compare to my AEG. Just missed it. By the way has anyone run a test between the MMG and AEG? I feel that is probably the one lens they did not make many of and am wondering if the aperture change did carry over.

BTW thank you whoever bought it. I need to stop buying more contax lenses.
 
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