RIP Contax?

On April 12 2005, Kyocera announced that they would terminate the famous Contax brand.

With this press release, one of the oldest and most renowned cameras became history.

The first Contax cameras were produced by Zeiss Ikon in 1932.

It was inspired by the famous Leica, but never regarded as merely a copy.

Zeiss had decided to and succeeded in producing a camera that was better than the Leica. For instance, the camera had a much faster shutter. After a poll among employees – the camera was named Contax.

Contax became famous in the segment of 35mm cameras for professional photographers.

Over the years, famous photographers like Robert Capa have used Contax.

A small, portable camera with great image quality and shutter speed was ideal for Capa, who photographed many wars.

Some of his most famous photos were taken in Normandie when the allied forces entered the beach in order to fight back the Germans.

Capa brought two Contax cameras and a bag of film to the beach were he took photos of soldiers that ran into gunfire.

Capa died in a war in Asia, rumours suggest that he had a Contax in his hands when he became history.

About 50 years later, Contax also left the business of photography.

Let’s take a look at what happened to Contax in the shift to digital imaging.

Contax joined forces with the Japanese firm Yashica in the 1960s. Ever since, the camera has been a Japanese product, though the name was still licensed from the German company Zeiss.

This constellation was bought by the electronics giant Kyocera in 1983.

Up until the rise of digital imaging, Contax remained a stable and profitable (yet small) actor in the camera industry.

In the 1990s, Contax went into the medium format segment of the industry.

This segment used larger film and was dominated by small high-end players like Hasselblad, Mamiya, Pentax and Bronica.

The Contax 645 had autofocus, a feature that created a competitive advantage in this part of the camera market.

Before the revolution, medium format cameras could be made digital by removing the film magazine and instead attach a digital back which contained an image sensor.

These backs were mostly provided by firms with little past experience in the camera business.

Leaf…

Imacon…

Phase One…

Kodak also made some digital backs…

Given that other actors lagged behind with autofocus, the 645 helped to establish Contax in the medium format segment.

Strangely enough, Contax then decided to move away from the medium format segment and instead compete in the SLR market with firms like Canon and Nikon.

The solution with a digital back was heavy, expensive and inconvenient. Maybe it was better to produce a SLR that was lighter, cheaper and good enough?

Unlike many other medium format companies, Contax decided to go for the SLR solution.

The camera was actually announced in 2000 - prior to the great digital revolution.

But the Contax Digital N wasn’t launched until 2002 after severe delays.

However, the problems did not end there, it was just the beginning…

The following story from Luminous Landscape gives a good illustration:

“As soon as the N Digital started shipping I contacted Contax and their PR department, explained that I wanted to review the camera for both one of the magazines that I write for as well as this web site. I was told that they would get me a camera for review as quickly as possible. That was more than six months ago. When a camera failed to show up I would call every few weeks and was assured that as soon as one became available I would receive it. But over a half year and after a dozen phone calls and e-mails one never showed up.”

“After a time I simply lost interest and gave up. But, I didn't forget about it. Two things struck me as being strange. First that I knew that there were cameras sitting on dealers shelves, and secondly that I wasn't seeing reviews anywhere else, either online or in magazines. Strange.”

“Two things happened in early November 2002 that lead me to question what was going on. The first was a chat with some senior executives from Contax at the PhotoPlus Expo show in New York, and the second was the appearance in the French magazine Chasseur d'Images of a full review of the N Digital.”

“At the show I was aggressive with the Contax brass, asking them why I hadn't been provided with a review sample. In fact, I asked, why had I not seen any reviews in an American magazine, though the camera had been in the retail sales channel for a half a year? The answers were the worst bit of evasive baffelgab that I've ever heard. They were non-answers. I walked away from the Contax booth shaking my head in disbelief.”

“Then a couple of weeks later I bought the current issue of Chassier d'Image, in part because it featured a review of the 1N Digital. After I read the review I started to understand what was going on.”

“On a scale of 1 to 5 Chasseur d'Images gives the 1N Digital a 1, the lowest possible rating. The magazine likes the handling and build quality (always Contax strong points) but strongly criticizes the digital side. They write that the image is very noisy, especially at 200 and 400 ISO. Images are clean at ISO 25, 50 and 100, but as they point out that only really leaves ISO 100 as a usable speed.”

“They are also critical of the buffer, claiming that it is both too small and too slow, and the batteries — four AA cells, which they say are woefully inadequate. They feel that the resolution is good, but really no better than many much less expensive cameras. Also one can't set the colour space, the post-processing software is lacking, and so on and so on. They have almost nothing good to say about the digital side of the camera. In fairness, they do like the ergonomics, the viewfinder and the metering. And of course, the Zeiss lenses.”

“The bottom line for the Contax N Digital. Too little, too late, too expensive, badly marketed.”

In addition to this, the Contax N Digital consumed a lot of batteries which made the camera very annoying.

An expensive and severely delayed project had generated a product that was an embarrassment to Contax and the company now tried to be as silent as possible about this.

Rumours suggest that it was very difficult to build a SLR based upon the Philips sensor. Pentax tried the same thing but withdrew from this.

Needless to say, the Contax brand generated huge losses for Kyocera now since the old analogue models were dying rapidly.

When Canon and Nikon kept launching better digital SLR cameras it was obvious that Contax couldn’t compete in this segment either.

One year after the launch of the Contax N Digital, the product was withdrawn from the market. Contax had been one of the first players off the blocks and into Digital SLR, but had to leave as soon as they had entered.

Given that this camera was supposed to keep Contax alive and pave the way into the digital era, the situation became desperate.

After the collapse of this model, Contax launched a couple of compact cameras.

But the Contax TVS was too late into the already overpopulated segment for compact cameras and did not have any competitive features.

No more ace to play.

In 2005, Kyocera terminated the Contax camera business.

Since Zeiss is still the owner of the Contax brand (though they haven’t used for many decades), it may rise from the dead in the future.

But until then:

RIP Contax

Given how early Contax entered digital imaging and the fact that Kyocera had a competence base in electronics, the demise of Contax is a bit puzzling.

Maybe imaging and photography did not have a high priority at Kyocera.

Maybe it was bad project management not killing or changing the project earlier.

Maybe Contax did not possess the right competence in terms of software and image processing.

Maybe there wasn’t room for another big player in the SLR segment. In order to survive, it seems that you need to be big, innovative and committed, like Canon and Nikon. In such an industry, there is no room for an unfocused and diverse company like Kyocera.

Contax has never been a mass market brand and being so seems to be crucial in order to get the economies of scale that are needed in a fast-moving industry.

I don’t know.

Sources Luminous Landscape Luminous Landscape Dpreview.com

Image attributions

Christian Sandström is a PhD student at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. He writes and speaks about disruptive innovation and technological change. www.christiansandstrom.org christian.sandstrom@chalmers.se