The Contax N Digital was a six-megapixel digital SLR camera produced by

Contax Contax (stylised as CONTAX in the Kyocera era) began as a German camera model in the Zeiss Ikon line in 1932, and later became a brand name. The early cameras were among the finest in the world, typically featuring high quality Zeiss intercha ...

in Japan. The camera was announced in late 2000, and began to be sold in spring 2002, after several delays. The camera received mixed reviews from the press, and was withdrawn from the market within a year of its introduction. It was noteworthy for being the first full-frame digital SLR, with an imaging chip the full size of a

135 film 135 film, more popularly referred to as 35 mm film or 35 mm, is a format of photographic film used for still photography. It is a film with a film gauge of loaded into a standardized type of magazine – also referred to as a casse ...

frame. All previous digital SLRs had a smaller sensor, giving a cropped view (see

magnification factor In digital photography, the crop factor, format factor, or focal length multiplier of an image sensor format is the ratio of the dimensions of a camera's imaging area compared to a reference format; most often, this term is applied to digital ...

). The imaging sensor was a Philips FTF3020-C, which had previously been used in the Jenoptik ''Eyelike'' medium format digital back. Pentax also planned to use the sensor in a full-frame digital SLR, the Pentax MZ-D, but abandoned work on the prototype in late 2001. The sensor featured ISO settings as low as ISO 25, but the reviews noted that it had a relatively high noise level above ISO 100. The next full-frame digital SLRs were the Canon EOS-1Ds of late 2002, followed by Kodak's DCS Pro 14n in 2003. Nikon and Sony introduced full-frame models in 2007 and 2008 respectively. The N Digital was based on the short-lived

Contax N Contax (stylised as CONTAX in the Kyocera era) began as a German camera model in the Zeiss Ikon line in 1932, and later became a brand name. The early cameras were among the finest in the world, typically featuring high quality Zeiss intercha ...

range of 35mm film SLRs, and used the

Contax N-mount Contax (stylised as CONTAX in the Kyocera era) began as a German camera model in the Zeiss Ikon line in 1932, and later became a brand name. The early cameras were among the finest in the world, typically featuring high quality Zeiss intercha ...

lens system. Nine lenses were produced for this mount, by Carl Zeiss. There were three Contax N-Mount cameras – two 35mm film SLR bodies, plus the N Digital – all of which are now discontinued. Contax's parent company Kyocera withdrew from the digital imaging market in 2005.

References

Contax DSLR cameras Contax N-mount cameras Full-frame DSLR cameras {{camera-stub