Contax 645 Problem

[biggles3]

Film is definitely more forgiving and of course, the camera and lenses were designed purely with film in mind although the Contax 645 works perfectly with digital backs. I use an old Hasselblad Ixpress 528C 22Mp back and although there's a bit of cropping, the subsequent images have an amazing depth of colour. When tethered, you can operate the back with 4 passes for unbelievable levels of detail. Truly great for fine art recording!

If you decide to persist with the Contax, you might consider getting hold of the TLA360 flash gun which integrates fully with the camera. I have quite a few of them and on the odd occasion that I take a lot of flash images, I add the PS220 Power Pack which extends the battery life of the flash and really boosts recycling times. The PS220 is getting hard to find (it wasn't that common back in the day) but you can pick up the flash for a fraction of its original price and it's quite widely available; you get full TTL flash metering - it works a treat.

 

[pfharrison]

It is interesting that you have a mirror problem, I had a similar issue with one of my 645's when I bought it. The mirror had slipped. If you want to use the 645 with flash it is worth looking at the Contax TLA system components, you can connect up to 3 contax flashes cabled together in TTL mode. I use TLA 30's which are available cheaply, you need cables and a multi-connector. to use multiple flashes.

 

[dirk]

Hi Chris,

hope you are fine again after the accident. Glad to see that some of us still going into the work of film development. Digital only is sometimes boring. But it is time consuming. Ths is why I do not do it at the moment...

Best wishes