It's rare. In limited uses, it has really excellent image quality with a nice look to it. It's sharp and uprezzes very nicely. Oh, and it takes some very nice Zeiss lenses.
It had SO much potential. It's shame Kyocera threw in the towel after only it's first attempt. It could have grown to be great -- just displaying my bias ;-)
There are two things that stick out in my mind about the N Digital: the awesome WB button and the inability to see RAW captures on the LCD. These days this camera is a cult classic. If you buy one, make sure you get a good deal because it's going to be hell to sell it after you quickly become disappointed with its performance compared to today's latest models.
And one doesn't have to be biased to agree with Lotus. Despite all of the faults in the N lineup, this camera had so much potential. It's too bad it never really took off as well as it should have.
I saw many pictures taken with the camera, and they had certain characteristic I can't name.
The color is...different from either Canon or Nikon.
Also, the black & white pictures from the camera were awesome.
Paul Yi wrote:
I saw many pictures taken with the camera, and they had certain characteristic I can't name.
The color is...different from either Canon or Nikon.
Also, the black & white pictures from the camera were awesome.
That's all a result of photographer skill. The N Digital wasn't a consumer camera bought by hack photographers. Most photos we see from this camera have a skilled photographer behind them.
I have quite a few 13"x19" prints from the 1D Mk I as well. Lovely machine.
I think the size of the pixels matter when making enlargements. Then again, that's just my guess. I recall printing the same size from both the 20D and 1D and having preferred what I got from the 1D.
StevenPA wrote:
There are two things that stick out in my mind about the N Digital: the awesome WB button and the inability to see RAW captures on the LCD.
Another great thing about the camera was it's great handling and wonderful ergonomics. It worked like you expect a camera to work -- everything was where it should be, all the main controls were readily accessible and intuitive. A great user interface (especially if you liked using Contaxes over the last decade or so). You didn't need to study the manual for a few hours before you would use the camera. And yes, it had a functional aperture ring on the lenses. AF was VERY precise, if not particularly fast (there are trade-offs here). Then there was the innovative focus bracketing based on the DOF of the lens.
Other issues with the camera were small buffer, and inadequate software. These like not being able to review raw images on the LCD were small annoyances that could have been easily fixed. Kudo's to Adobe for including the N Digital in it's camera raw -- after the camera was essentially discontinued by Kyocera. This gave it a big step up in usability compared to the poor RAW conversion software provided by Contax. (this was something that Contax/Kyocera should have farmed out to Adobe or Phase One rather than try to develop this from scratch internally.
The other problem was noise. Noise in the shadows, even at lower ISO's, could make the camera unusable in many situations. The camera could not really go about 400 ISO.
Paul Yi wrote:
I saw many pictures taken with the camera, and they had certain characteristic I can't name.
Yes, exactly. Hard to put words on, but it produced images with a unique and lovely look to them. The look was much more of what we expect from medium format digital. This and the limited ISO range are due primarily to the fact that the camera used a chip similar to those used in MF camera, the Dalsa (née Philips) chip in subsequent iterations continues to serve as the sensor in many MF digital backs
This camera with a current generation chip (with perhaps a few other recent advances) and a few firmware tweeks would be great. I would be first in line to get one, as would many others.
Oh lord yes.... give me a 12MP Contax ND with decent ISO 1600 and I am done with Canon and Nikon
But if the powers that be are listening, right about now, I am ready for a Contax G3 Digital Rangefinder - would be very happy with just a 10MP RF that can use the G lenses.
