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