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Hello and welcome to my first ever blog post. Today I am presenting to you the premium compact camera Contax Tvs ii. I’ve owned this superb camera for 4 years now and I’ve decided to share my thoughts about it.
I must confess, when I started looking for a Point & Shoot camera, I didn’t research a lot about them, especially on film Point & Shoot. I’ve read an article comparing various such devices and I was immediately hooked on the Contax Tvs, albeit a bit biased. Why you ask? Because I already knew about the Contax T series and my eyes were watering over the prices on Ebay! I always told to myself : “I’ll never own a Contax camera!”, but you know what they say: “Never say never!”. I have read on the internet that the Contax T2 is some sort of crown jewel in terms of Point & Shoot cameras so I have compared it to the much more affordable Tvs. I have come to the conclusion that TVS ii is a fair bit different to the T2; the T2 has a fully retractable lens, has a fixed focal length but what we already have, I believe is better implemented on the Tvs ii. So in the end, I have decided to buy the Contax TVs ii (mostly because of the price), believing that in the future, it will become a hidden gem.
If you are one passionate about the nitty gritty techy stuff, I’ll post the camera specs right here:
Lens: Zoom 28-56mm
Aperture: F3.5-6.5
Shutter Speed: 16s – 1/700s
Exposure Control: Aperture Priority and P mode
Film Speed: DX Coded – 25 to 5000 ISO
Focus: Auto + Manual
Film Winder: Auto
Flash: Built-in
Exposure Comp: +/- 5 stops in 1/3 steps
Battery: 1 x 3V CR123A
Size: 124 x 67 x 41.5mm
Weight: 400g with battery
Build & Handling
The Contax Tvs ii is entirely made out of titanium , padded in strategic places with rubber for easy holding. Even though the camera is dense and has weight to it, it can be used single-handed. The camera came with a data back and even though the rubber on the camera itself is nice to the touch and grippy, the rubber on the data back is of a lower quality and due to the passing of time, it’s beginning to disintegrate and is very sticky now! Instead, it offers a better thumb grip. The camera is bulky, but it doesn’t feel uncomfortable in the hand and you can't really fit it inside your jeans pocket.
User interface layout
The button layout of the Contax Tvs ii is very minimalist in it’s design as you don’t have to do much to take pictures with this camera. Everything is automatic. Well, except when you use it in aperture priority mode.
On the top plate, you will find, from left to right:
Exposure compensation dial, which doesn’t require much force to use, is very responsive and there is no risk to accidentally change the value once set.
The large LCD screen which shows you the flash mode currently in use, exposure compensation value and a battery symbol which will only trigger if battery is low
The flash button, which will toggle between each flash setting.
Moving on to the right side, you will see the most recognizable button on every camera, the shutter button.
Timer toggle which is always set to 10 seconds, just don’t forget to toggle the timer off when you don’t want a 10 second delay between taking pictures, as there is no way to cancel this action.
The second, smaller LCD display will show you the frame counter and is always on, with no way to turn it off except by removing the battery. The value will change when you depress the shutter button to confirm the focal range in use, which is a very handy feature.
The focus dial. When set on AF, the focus is automatic, when you turn the dial out of AF, you enter the manual focus mode. Just be careful, that the dial is very sensitive and you can easily change the value accidentally.
Moving on to the lens itself, you can change the aperture by using the dial at the base of the lens. It requires quite some force to dial in the aperture, but rest assured, you can never accidentally change this value once set. You can change the focal range by twisting the outer dial. As there is no indication of the focal range on the lens, you can only confirm the value by depressing the shutter button and the value will be shown on the smaller LCD screen. You turn the camera off by retracting the lens entirely until the lens cover appears.
Performance
The Contax Tvs ii comes equipped with an excellent Carl Zeiss Vario Sonnar 28-56 mm lens, hence it’s name. From my understanding, this compact camera offers the widest field-of-view out of all the cameras in the T series, but sadly not the brightest aperture, as it’s widest is 3.5. Still, if we take a look at the Contax T2, for example, with it’s widest aperture of 2.8, the difference of light between them is only 2/3rds of a stop. You can easily overcome the loss of light by using ISO 200 film instead of 100, or 800 ISO film instead of 400. The camera has a great flash attached and will do just fine in a low light situations. If you are looking for a creamy and beautiful subject separation though, the Contax Tvs ii is not for you. In fact, none of the premium compacts from Contax is for you. They were designed to take snap shots and they are doing a great job at it!
Unlike it’s predecessor, the viewfinder of the Contax Tvs ii is large and bright and a joy to use. It will only show you the essential information without overwhelming you. From left to right you will only see:
Exposure compensation mark, but not the exact value, only – if your picture is underexposed or + if it’s overexposed
Flash mode
Focusing indicator showing you the direction you need to move the manual focus dial and a full dot when you achieve perfect focus.
Programmed mode as ‘P’ when you set the Aperture to auto
Shutter speed value which shows an hyphen ‘ when the value is in seconds (for example 5’ means 5 seconds) or a full value if it’s a fraction (250 as 1/250 or 500 as 1/500 ).
Even if the camera was marketed as a rangefinder, you don’t actually get the rangefinder experience. You are not going to see two images that you have to overlap. You usually use this camera in auto focus. You only have to set the circle in the middle in a high contrast zone and the only indication shown that you have achieved perfect focus is the dot at the bottom. If you use the camera in manual focus, the arrows that appear will show you the direction you need to move the focus dial. When the dot appears, you have achieved perfect focus.
I will leave you with some sample photos and thank you for reading!
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