Contax TVS Digital Review

The screen display in the Program AE record mode. Icons across the top indicate auto red- eye reduction/night portrait flash, image size is 2560x1920, quality is Fine and we have enough space left on the CF card to take 3 more pictures. The battery condition icon is in the lower left corner and the AF area is marked by the white brackets in the center.

When the shutter release is half-pressed the exposure is calculated and the shutter speed and aperture value are displayed. The auto focus, if successful, is indicated by the green "dot" icon.

Pressing the DISPLAY button will regulate the amount of overlay data on the LCD monitor and one of the display modes is a live histogram.

The other still image capture mode is Aperture priority and depending on the selected focal length the aperture values range from f2.8 to f6.7 and are selected with the 4-way controller.

Using the buttons around the 4-way controller you access the camera and exposure options.

The C.MENU button accesses the Camera functions:

Remote/Selftimer - Off, 0s, 2s, 10s
AF - AF area: Wide or Spot
Metering - Matrix, Center-weighted or Spot
ABC - AE Bracketing: 0.0=Off or 0.3, 0.5 or 1.0 step
Drive - Single or Continuous
LT - Long Time shutter: 1, 2, 4 or 8 seconds
Flash Compensation - High, Normal or Low

The D.MENU button accesses the Digital functions:

Color - Color, B&W, Sepia
Resolution - 2560x1920, 1600x1200, 1280x960 or 640x480
Quality - Fine or Normal
WB Bracketing - White Balance Bracketing: On or Off
Sharpening - Image sharpening +3 to -1
Saturation - High, Normal, Low

The "± WB ISO" button accesses the:

Exposure Compensation - Override the metering ± 2.0EV in 0.3EV steps
White Balance - Auto, Sunny, Incandescent, Cloudy, Fluorescent, Preset
ISO - Auto, 80, 100, 200, 320, 400

Manual focus gives you the ability to preset the focus distance for 0.6m, 0.7m, 0.8m, 1.0m 1.5m, 2.0m, 5.0m or infinity.

Macro focus mode covers the range of 0.15m to 0.6m

Movie mode records motion video at 320 x 240 resolution with audio up to 30 seconds per clip. The smaller size 160 x 120 movies have a maximum length of 120 seconds per clip.

Movie mode options:

Remote/Selftimer - Off, 0s, 2s, 10s
AF - AF area: Wide or Spot
Sound - Record audio On or Off
Color - Color, B&W, Sepia
Resolution - 320x240 or 160x120
Exposure Compensation - Override the metering ± 2.0EV in 0.3EV steps
White Balance - Auto, Sunny, Incandescent, Cloudy, Fluorescent, Preset