Contax N1 and Vario-Sonnar 24-85
Intro
This test covers the body and the lens and some remarks. The camerabody specs are known I suppose, if not, the short list covers the now standard features of all top-end cameras:
speeds till 1/8000, three exposure modes, all kinds of exposure compensation and bracketing in several steps, 5 sensor AF module and a manual override for most of the automatic functions. While the features are sufficient for all kinds of user interaction and photographic support, they lack the high tech features of Nikon and Canon, (sophisticated flash metering and AF control and speed).
The body is very heavy and has a chunky but elegant design, a bit like a Range Rover. It is of excellent build and high class engineering, but not the superb quality we expect from Zeiss. The design is very well thought out and all buttons and wheels are easy to use and conveniently placed. The design reflects the sturdy and powerful characteristics of the camera.
Its use is quite intuitive, and while I do not can think of any aspects that are missed for serious photography, and generally the camera is very pleasant to use and handle.
There are also a number of minus points, which in my view limit the attraction of the camera.
The viewfinder is only 90% of the film area and relatively dark and coarse grained. It is difficult to focus manually in dim light. And this is unfortunately needed as the AF system is quite fast (but not with the lighting speed of N and C) but not very accurate. In many cases I had to manually adjust the focus plane to suit my needs.
The quite interesting focus bracketing feature does work (I could check this with a resolution chart: focus manually and then use AF bracketing: the image becomes soft), but is in practice of marginal use as the first focus is approximate. This is (and now I will be killed) my experience with many AF cameras: the focus plane is often not precisely focused where the sensors say it should be. AF is fine but not always. Just as the human eye can be fooled so too the AF mechanism.
Disregarding the Af accuracy and speed, the rest of the functions works tops: exposure, the bracketing, the compensation, all work fine.
Where is the N1 positioned?
Between the fully manual cameras like FM3a and R8 and the high tech overloaded feature cameras like F100 and EOS3. But its added value to both types of cameras is limited (not enough high tech to impress C/N users) and no significant advantages for manual camera users.
It is true, the AF is faster than you can do it manually, the automatic exposure control is very functional, but often not needed, and the quality built into the body is very impressive but not superior.
The digital version if it arrives (Pentax has just withdrawn the Photokina prototype of the Philips ccd) is an additional camera. You have to buy a new one and can not upgrade the current N1.
If you wish a moderate and very functional suit of automatic functions in a finely engineered high quality body, the N1 is a serious contender. But the amount of lenses is very limited
The lens:
This zoom lens is designated as an allpurpose lens. It focusses to 0.5 meter at all focal lenghts, has low distortion (2% at the 85 setting and 3% at the 24 setting). It has been established that users will hardly see a distortion till 0.5%, barely notice till 1%, notice it till 2% and find it troublesome beyond 3%.
The lens is clearly designed to provide a homogeneous image quality at all focal lengths and over the most of the image field. This has been accomplished. At the wider apertures and from 24 to 60mm focal length there is high contrast and crisp rendition of quite fine detail till about 16mm image height. The 85 position is somewhat softer overall and has low microcontrast. The lens exhibits the sparkle and smooth highlight rendition we are expecting from Leica but it lacks the bite and crisp reproduction of the fine textural details.
Comparison pictures (yes I do take pictures!) with the 90AA and the 24 A do show a quite visible difference of the light box between slides with the VarioSonnar and the Leica lenses, all at f/4. I was myself surprised that even at f/4 you could see a significant improvement in the definition of very fine detail in the pictures with the Leica lenses.
The Contax lens has a very good colour fidelity, and a surprisingly effective flare reduction. Here is as good as if not better than the Leica lenses.
Overall the VarioSonnar is an excellent lens that is way ahead of many Japanese lenses. It is built in Japan. Its design may be Japanese, but Zeiss notices that the quality is up to the usual Zeiss image quality standards.
The unsharpness definition is smooth, but given the max aperture of about 4 is is difficult to compare tp lenses that have f/2 as max aperture.
The Zeiss lens gives quite impressive imagery. As with the camera, its performance is not enough to pull you from your seat.
This is a pity: the Contax engineers have come up with a very fine camera and lens that is pleasant and easy to use, has effective support for most photographic tasks and excellent performance, but the whole package is just not convincing to switch if you ahve a high end system and for a startup it is too expensive and limited in scope. It is designed for a user who knows his craft and wants specific automatic support, but with override capabilities as he does not want to trust the automatic process. This is a limited segment and one that looks with one eye to the best manual cameras and with one eye to the best high tech ones. The middle ground may be the best of both worlds but could be the killing field.