Nice size, excellent viewfinder and great control layout.

No flash built in.

A great camera to enter the world of Zeiss lenses with. Highly rated by magazines ie. Photo Techniques Magazine Top 25

Customer Service

Good e-mail response about warranty question.

Similar Products Used:

Nikon F60
Canon Elan IIE

Cheap for Contax, very lightweight without feeling cheap, good feature set, fairly typical Contax control layout.

No mirror lockup, probably not as durable as my RTSIII, but just as durable as any nonpro camera.

I bought it for the low weight in combination with the new 28-70 lens. In situations where you want Contax quality but have to carry it a long way, the Aria is in a class by itself. Even so, I've been impressed by the feeling of quality and the quality of the zoom lens as well. If I am closer to the car I'll use the RTSIII, but the Aria comes a close second. It's cheap for a Contax, but still a pretty expensive camera.

Customer Service

None needed thus far.

Similar Products Used:

RTSIII, RTS, Minolta 600si, Minolta XK, Minolta XE-5, Minolta 8000i, Minolta 7000

It is light, easy to use, full of features and quality

No mirror lock-up.

If only it has a mirror lock, it would be the perfect camera (for me). It is the only camera you know what it is doing in evaluative-mode becouse you see in the viewfinder an indication about the compensation based on the center weighted meter.

Customer Service

Poor in Spain.

Similar Products Used:

Nikon FE-10, Praktica BX-20, Nikon F801s

Light, good design, well manufactured, works very well, it's a true Contax quality body.

No problems.

A very good camera which offers Contax "look&feel" / quality and Zeiss lenses top quality at a resonable price.

Customer Service

Very good in Italy (Contax and Zeiss are imported by FOWA).

Similar Products Used:

Yashica FX 3 Super2000 and Pentax ME Super.

Light Weight, easy film loading.

Needs a more user friendly manual.

I bought this camera for my wife and fell in love with it myself. The user manual is a little confusing for a beginner especially when trying to change from AF to manual. The camera will get more user friendly after Carolyn uses it for awhile.

Customer Service

n/a

Similar Products Used:

Nikon FTN
Leica M3 & 4

* Manual Focus
* Slick Engineering/Features
* Light weight/size
* Zeiss lenses
* 'analog' controls

* Light weight/size
* slightly slow wind
* somewhat limited Zeiss lens line

The Aria is the camera I kept hoping that Nikon would build: small, light, autowind, analog controls, fully compatible with both 25-year-old lenses and today's, and with all the modern conveniences (2nd-curtain flash, auto-bracketing, variable-pattern meter). It lured me into the Contax/Zeiss line.

I love being able to turn real dials to set shutter speeds, f/stops, exposure mode and compensation, autobracketing. These are common features on all Contaxes - but the Aria manages to do it for under $1000. And I love the brilliant but unexpected ideas that Contax engineers pull out of their hats - a frame counter that also counts off the seconds for the self-timer and 'bulb' exposures; a frame counter in the viewfinder (everybody does it now, Contax did it a decade ago); autobracketing built-in instead of as an expensive and bulky add-on; Matrix metering that tells you when it's giving a different exposure than center-weighted would (and by how much).

The Aria is very well designed. It is built on the same platform as the G1/G2 rangefinders (note the battery hidden inside the film-takeup spool, the infrared-diode sprocket-hole counter, the data-back contacts - all identical) with SLR viewing added.** It is plastic on the outside, to save weight. This doesn't concern me much, because Kyocera (parent of Contax/Yashica) is primarily a materials engineering company (artificial sapphires, ceramics, etc.) If anybody knows how to build with plastics, they do. And the weight savings allow the Aria to have a solid glass viewfinder prism, instead of cheap, dark mirror-prisms like most entry-level SLRs.

[**by the way, this is exactly how the original Nikon F SLR got started - built on an extended Nikon SP rangefinder chassis, with the same similarities as the Aria/G2.]

But in my case the Aria fell victim to several interrelated problems: the size and weight of the all-metal Zeiss SLR lenses and their limited lineup, and the existence of the Contax G rangefinders.

The Aria is SO small and light that it becomes somewhat uncomfortable to use with lenses longer than 85mm. It is a question of the lens's size, not the weight, so that the heavy 85 1.4 feels OK, while the lighter-but-longer 135 feels very unbalanced and front-heavy. And several of my preferred focal lengths/speeds (35 f/2, compact 21mm f/2.8) were not available in the Zeiss SLR line, only for the G2.

Ultimately it made more sense, for me, to use G2s for lenses 90 and under, and get a heftier RX for the longer focal lengths.

But if you only work with lenses in the 18mm-85mm range, must have SLR viewing, and don't want to carry a brick around, the Aria is very, very capable, and I can strongly recommend it based on the quality of the Zeiss lenses and the quality of its design and manufacture. You can go for fast photojournalism with 85 1.4, 35 1.4, and 25 2.8 lenses, and the light weight of the Aria will help ease the (shoulder) pain of all that glass. Or you can go superlight with the 85 2.8, 50 1.4, 35 2.8 and 28 2.8 lenses that are extremely sharp.

I'd avoid the 28-70 zoom packaged with the Aria - it's not one of Zeiss's better efforts, and there are lots of good lenses than work well with the Aria.

Feature for dollar, an excellent value, and extremely well thought out and built, so I give it 4 stars each way.

Customer Service

Reps at "Contax days" very helpful.

Similar Products Used:

Actual use: Contax G1/G2, Contax ST/RX, Nikon FM2/8008s. Store comparison: Nikon N80, Leica R system.

bright view screen
great size esp from an Olympus user

None

A very bright split image screen
good meter
everthing works very well
very close metering to my hand held Gossen

Similar Products Used:

None

Light weight, uses contax/zeiss lenses, manual focus, fairly quiet.

None

I used an OM 1/OM 2sp for 17 or 18 years and wanted to upgrade the system. When I saw the current prices and lenses I decided it was wiser (cheaper?) to switch systems. I started by trying several bodies in various stores (nikon, pentax, minolta). I didn't rule out auto-focus cameras but I wanted a nice manual focus system (most mid-range auto-focus camera do not have manual focus friendly view finders). I tried the Aria quite by accident (not really knowing the contax name) and liked the feel immediatly.

I'm fairly happy with the camera and I think the optics are very good. However, outside the 28mm to 85mm (+135mm) things get very pricy (for example 21mm is 1500). Also for a body costing > $550 several simple features are missing that are found on my $200 17 year old om-2sp.

I am truly amazed at the feature rich OM system and would like some more up-to-date system to include these features. Because I have this ancient camera to compare the Aria to I must rate it accordingly. Please note that most modern camera lack these features I find 'basic' on the om-2sp and would suffer if I were to rate them. This does not mean I am unhappy with the Aria, but if it had these features (otf and prefire and easier to focus in dim light) I would give it a 4/5 rating.

One thing to keep in mind (if you are considering a contax manual focus camera). It is unclear (to me) if contax will continue this line now that they have introduced the N1 (an auto-focus camera with new mount)

Customer Service

None required

Similar Products Used:

om-1, om-2sp, konica s2, canonett GL-III (last two are similar being manual cameras but are range finders)

Everything for good photography is there; spot metering / evaluative and center weighted metering, multi exposure, motor-drive, second curtain flash sync.exposure compenstion, auto bracketing, some customizable functions and more.
The handling of the Aria is very smooth and the camera is well built in a lightweight and compact body.

The price.
In Holland, the price of contax bodies increased with 40 % within 2 years. Similar for Zeiss lenses.

I always use this camera with primes 28/2.8, 45/2.8 and 135/2.8. In future, I will expand with a 85/2.8 lens.
Blame yourself if your photo's are not good because this camera does its job!. Even under rough conditions; up to 5500 meters in the Karakoram (Northern Pakistan) during a climbing expedition and in the Sinai desert/ Egypt.

This is a lightweight, but well built, easy to handle camera which delivers beautifull photographs. For me, the Contax Aria is a great camera. (but at what price ?)

Similar Products Used:

Minolta X300 and X700
Olympus OM4
Yashica T5
Nikon F70

No shake, fast and softest depress, smooth as baby's skin, absolutely sleak and silent.

cost of flash.

If the N1 is as excelent as this then I'll trade off my Minolta for the N1 and use my ARIA as back up. I will never part with the ARIA it is the best I have ever laid my hands on.

Customer Service

No Need so far

Similar Products Used:

Pentax MZ10 MZ5
Maxxum9
Minox 35mm
Yashica 2000