Contax 645 is a terrific choice in term of cost, quality and flexibility, except its sync speed is less attractive. I use P45+ on my Contax 645 bought when it first became available till now and my sync speed is no longer good at 1/125, I can do it only at 1/60 or slower with studio flash. But image quality is never a problem even compare to the newest system. On the other hand, I also use Hy6 with Sinar e75LV and have to remind you not to miss the Sinar offering especially it is so far the only system offer true German optic (some may argue this), and highest sync speed, and room to grow, in case sensor size continue to grow, and the revolving adapter.
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Like all cameras the contax has it's good and bad.
Good
well built, right angle grip, dual battery system, (it needs it), zeiss lenses, good lens range, can adapt other lenses to it, look professional, waist level finder (if you can find one), a lot of lenses are for sale used, with the only difficult ones to find is the 55mm and the 350.
Everything else you can pretty much buy in any major to semi major market in the world.
Rentals depend. A lot of places still carry them, most rental studios have them, some rental companies have moved on the the older h-1 and h2 blads.
Autofoucs is very good, but you have to learn how to work it.
Build quality is tank like. I've never had it break unless I did something to it, (like stick my thumb through the shutter.
It's cheap to buy. Ebay prices are inflated but KEH and most dealers will sell it low, almost anything for less than what they're asking.
It's analog in it's design. real f stops, real shutter speed and takes about 4 seconnds to learn.
It has a digital interface so there is no cords to the lenses and with the Phase it's the most bulletproof camera I've ever owned, except for the original 1ds.
All the lenses are tack sharp. I know some people pull ouut charts and stuff, but I've never seen a soft image.
It sounds like a camera, not an electronic device and doesn't make that clap slap sound of a lot of medium format cameras.
Mirror bounce is non existant. I've hand held at a 1./60 to 1/30th with no issue
Bad
The viewfinder with a cropped sensor can be challanging. Nothing like an RZ though and I've tried all the workarounds and for me the best thing to do is just not worry about it and focus and either manual or auto I'm as realiable with it as any camera.
The waist level finder is kind of a downer, only because it shows you how big the focusing area really is without the prims. Downside to this is it's only going to work horizontal. Upside is horizontal is the new vertical.
The upside of the prism is unlike the blad it doesn't bend the image so what you see is what you get.
The only other downside is it's rare to walk into a dealer and they have a contax back in stock. They must order it.
For the money, it's probably the best deal around.
It does sync at 125th, though the x sync is 1/90th.
at 125th depending on the flash you will some some graduated falloff to the right of the frame, but it doesn't show in complicated shots, only can be seen in medium grey, or white.
I just don't think about that too much as we're always cleaning white backgrounds anyway.
JR
