Any suggestions?
Anders Hald
I'm also getting used to mine. Sadly, this is my 5th switch over the past 2 years looking for the right medium format system for me.
The Contax' ergonomics and handling are wonderful--just great.
I, too, would love a larger grip, and my hands aren't particularly large, and finer control of shutter speeds--1/3 would be great but even 1/2 would do.
I'd like it to be a lot less power hungry, mostly because I go into the field where I can't access a lot of batteries, and it is a hassle to carry a lot of them (already need to do so for the back).
In particular with the 350, I've noticed signficant shutter vibration. To the point where telephoto shots are not critically sharp at intermediate shutter speeds like 1/15. (The vibration is pretty huge, actually. I wouldn't sell any of the shots undampened shots I've made as a large print, for example.) This is actually the biggest issue I have with the setup at the moment; I've been testing for a couple of days now to try to learn how to eliminate this. I've tried a lot of things, and weighting my tripod with my backpack has yielded the best results so far, but still not 100% consistently eliminating the problem. So I'd add a much lower vibration shutter mechanism to my hypothetical wish list.
AF has actually impressed me. Ok, it's crazy slow--I don't think of it as AF so much as a 'cheat' for MF. It's still faster than my doing it myself (but not by a lot). So, if it's so slow, why has it impressed me? It's accuracy. Wow--dead-on balls accurate. No other system I've ever owned (small or medium format) was this accurate. I did a studio shoot the other week where I focused on the model's eyes (and had to focus & recompose, due to the central AF sensor). Not a missed focus shot in the entire session (much better than I can do focusing manually) and the shots consistently put the plane of focus on the model's eye--peak focus was consistently where here eyelashes exit her eyelid--that is just ridiculous. Crazy good.
I'd appreciate any tips folks might have on dampening vibration for telephoto work--that situation is a bit ugly for me at the moment. I'm assuming for the moment that this is solvable.
Other than that (I can't believe I'm saying this) I don't think I'd change a thing!
-Brad
P.S. Aha! Just found something serious to complain about: the shutter button is a mushy--the point between 1/2 press and full press isn't very distinct. So there, Kyocera!
P.P.S. Like many shooters, I move my AF to the rear button. It would be nice to have the AF mode (single vs continuous) independent of the location (shutter button vs rear button). The way Contax 'overloads' the control, you can put single or continuous on the shutter button, or single on the rear. Still, I tend to use single shot AF almost exclusively, and that's what the Contax provides, so I'm really scraping the bottom of the barrel here...
P.P.P.S. Props to Kyocera for their hood system. Petal-shaped bayonet hoods with a strong detent. Even mounting and reverse mounting them can be done in a single fluid movement, if you do it from "behind" the camera. Nice not needing an extra hand or having to do a flip of the gear in the field. Usually when I'm doing a lens change I could use about four extra hands. This is a nice little touch.
