Contax G1 First Impressions

First roll on my (new to me) Contax G1 | Kodak Gold

My purchasing of a camera is the fastest and most chaotic evolution going head first down a deep rabbit hole, watching every youtube video review ever created, adding every listing of a camera on eBay to my watchlist and scrolling the webs for any and all information I can find on a camera. Convincing myself that this is the camera that will finally fill the empty void in my pursuit of the one camera that can satisfy all my creative desires. All this happening within a 1-2 week span before hitting the purchase button. My family is a big fan of my instantaneous obsession with gear across all of my hobbies.

Anyways, last week I bought a Contax G1.

I don’t remember who’s image I came across before going down this rabbit hole, but I remember seeing the image, looking down at the caption and seeing the tag for the Contax G1. I clicked on it, and I just started seeing beautiful image after beautiful image. Every photos I scrolled past was just perfect and tack sharp. And up until this point I had never even heard of the Contax G1.

There is a bit of justification for my impulsiveness. My wife and I will be celebrating 10 years of marriage this year, and we are planning a big trip later this year. I already had in mind finding the perfect travel camera for this trip. Sure, any of my current cameras would have done just fine, but I had some features in mind that would make using a camera on a trip more desirable. I wanted something that was portable, something I could fit into a sling and carry a camera, maybe a 2nd lens and some film without feeling bulky. I wanted the ability to shoot with a reliable internal meter and not have to think about pulling out my light meter every time to setup a photograph. And auto-focus would be a nice bit of icing on the cake. This camera checked all those boxes and more!

I found a perfect bundle for this camera on eBay that came with the Contax G1, 3 lenses (28mm, 45mm, 90mm) and a flash. The seller also included a roll of Kodak Gold with the camera that was a nice touch. I received the camera and was able to start test shooting it immediately.

This is the first roll I put through the camera, but I actually put 3 rolls through the camera over the last week before developing. This roll was a quick neighborhood walk around the neighborhood just to get through and make sure the camera was functioning. But I also had some events and a wedding over the following weekend that I put some more film through. (Will share those in future posts)

I finally breathed a breath of relief when I pulled this spool of film out of the tank after developing to see I had images! And before I even started scanning I was happy to see that exposure looked well balanced and I could see things were sharp.

After seeing some images I am excited to start shooting more with this camera and also start using this camera for some of my engagement and wedding photos. A reoccurring mention about this camera is just how great and how sharp these lenses are and I was definitely not disappointed.

All images in this roll were taken using camera’s light meter and set to Aperture Priority, and it did a pretty good (and reliable) job. The auto-focus definitely has a bit of a learning curve, but as you can see, it did not miss focus once on this entire roll.

Ill be posting a more in-depth review of this camera once I get some more rolls through it, but for now, I am completely satisfied with every aspect of the Contax G1 and can’t wait to go out and shoot some more.