Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

Contax 645

Contax (Kyocera) · Contax 645 mount · 56 × 41.5mm on 120 or 220 film (Kyocera manual) · 1999

via machine translation — corrections welcome

Also known as: Contax 645 · Contax 645 AF · Contax 645AF · CONTAX645 · Kyocera Contax 645 · Contax 645 AE · コンタックス 645 · コンタックス645

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Contax 645 (1999–2005) Contax 645 1999–2005 — No production total is known to have been published. Production of the 645 system ended at the end of April 2005, the same month as the Contax/Yashica-mount system (Digital Camera Watch, reporting Kyocera's announcement of 12 April 2005); Kyocera's release says 645 shipments to a few markets continued until December 2005 (Imaging Resource).
  1. No production total and no serial-number table is known to have been published. A body numbered 007495 sold on Yahoo! Auctions Japan on 10 October 2026 for ¥424,050. Ray Rapkerg (Emulsive) says the serial is on the bottom of the body, within the silver baseplate; he looks for numbers above 10,000 in the hope of a body made late in the run, and has used three in the 12,000, 15,000 and 17,000 ranges, but gives no evidence that anything changed at 10,000.
  2. All three new prices include the Planar 80mm f/2. Only the B&H outfit price ($3,999 with body, AE prism, back and insert) comes from period documents; the ¥598,000 is a kakaku.com database record whose contents beyond the lens are inferred (see derived), and the 25,000 francs is a collector site's figure with the contents unstated.
  3. Kyocera's English manual and English repair manual share two slips on their specification pages: 'DX code' where the repair manual's own feature list and the Japanese manual say bar code (Fuji's), and 'Sectioned Matte (Standard)' where the English manual's own text and the Japanese manual make the all-matte MFS-2 the standard screen; MFS-3 is the sectioned (grid) screen.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • CONTAX on the front of the prism; CONTAX 645 small on the left side of the body beside the mount (Kamerastore listing photos)
  • Exposure-mode selector, coaxial with the shutter-speed dial, engraved AV, TV, M, X and B, with ON and AEL on the main switch around the release (Wikimedia Commons photo; Kyocera manual)
  • Gold contacts below the film gate where the back couples, and at both ends of the finder bay (Kamerastore listing photos; Adorama)
  • Focusing-screen frame engraved KYOCERA and JAPAN (Kamerastore listing photo)
  • A Hasselblad V lens on the body means the MAM-1 or a third-party adapter; Contax 645 lenses on another camera mean the NAM-1 (Contax N), Leica's S-Adapter C or a GFX adapter

Contax 645 (1999–2005):

  • CONTAX in large letters on the front of the AE prism and on the body cap; a small CONTAX 645 on the left side of the body beside the mount, above two round sockets (Kamerastore listing photos); the bulb-cable socket, marked B, is on the grip end (Wikimedia Commons photo)
  • With the finder off, the focusing-screen frame reads KYOCERA and JAPAN, and gold contacts sit at both ends of the finder bay (Kamerastore listing photos)
  • Exposure-compensation dial engraved −2 to +2, with the A.B.C. bracketing selector (0, 0.5, ±1) beside it (Kamerastore listing photo)
  • No external sign is known to separate early from late bodies: the early-production circuit changes are internal, and the repair manual gives no serial number for them (Kyocera repair manual)

Specifications

Format
56 × 41.5mm on 120 or 220 film (Kyocera manual) · 16 on 120, 32 on 220 (Kyocera manual) exposures
Finder (AE prism finder MF-1)
eye-level pentaprism with its own centre-weighted metering sensor, LCD readout below the image, eyepiece shutter and an accessory shoe with direct X and TLA flash contacts · 0.8× magnification · 95% coverage
Finder (waist-level finder MF-2)
folding hood with flip-up magnifier; image reversed left to right
Shutter
vertical-travel metal focal plane, electronically controlled; mirror and shutter cocked by one coreless motor (Kyocera repair manual) · 32s–1/4000 in aperture priority; 8s–1/4000 in shutter priority and manual; B; X (1/90); a mechanical bulb setting · flash sync 1/125 and slower through the direct X contact on the prism's shoe, with a sync terminal on the side; TLA flashes set up to 1/125 automatically, and the X setting, for flashes without TLA contacts, fixes 1/90 (Kyocera manual) · self-timer
Film advance
built-in coreless motor in the film back: single frame or continuous at about 1.6 frames/s, automatic wind to frame 1, motorised wind-off with mid-roll rewind, multiple-exposure lever on the back (Kyocera manual and repair manual)
Back
interchangeable two-part back: the MFB-1 film back holder, carrying its own microcomputer, motor, Fuji bar-code reader, data imprinter and counter, takes a removable MFB-1A insert for 120 or 220 or the MFB-1B 220 vacuum insert; the MFB-2 Polaroid back and digital backs replace the holder. A dark-slide interlock locks the shutter while the slide is in, and the back cannot be taken off until the slide is fully inserted (Kyocera manual).
Meter
TTL spot metering in the body, EV 3–18, available with either finder; the AE prism adds centre-weighted metering, EV 1–21 (both at ISO 100 and f/2). Aperture priority, shutter priority and manual, no program mode; compensation ±2 EV in 1/3 steps; A.B.C. bracketing of three frames at 0.5 or 1 EV; AE lock; TTL direct flash metering with pre-flash TTL auto and manual modes. Film speed read from Fuji bar codes (ISO 25–5000) or set by hand (ISO 6–6400)
Weight
645 g
Dimensions
141 × 99 × 73 body only, 645g without battery; 141 × 138.5 × 145.5 and 1,370g with AE prism, film back holder and 120/220 insert, without battery or lens (Kyocera manual) mm
Country
Japan
Original price
$3,999 at B&H for the '645 AF Outfit' (body, Planar 80mm f/2, back and insert, AE finder) in Outdoor Photographer's February 2000 issue, and the same at B&H in April, May and December 2000 and at Camera World in May 2000; B&H listed the body alone at $2,030 in May and December 2000, and one dealer offered the outfit at $3,399 in December 2000. In Japan kakaku.com records a maker's list price of ¥598,000 for the 'CONTAX 645 Planar T*80mm F2付' released in January 1999; collection-appareils puts the camera with the Planar 2/80 at about 25,000 francs in France in 1999. (today $7,280)
Accessories
AE prism finder MF-1; waist-level finder MF-2 with MFW-type dioptre lenses; FM-type dioptre lenses and the F-6 eyecup for the prism · Focusing screens MFS-1 (split image and microprism), MFS-2 (all-matte with AF frame, standard) and MFS-3 (10mm grid) · Film back holder MFB-1; 120/220 insert MFB-1A; 220 vacuum insert MFB-1B, which works in Av, Tv, M and X but not B; Polaroid back MFB-2 for 8.5 × 10.8cm pack film, 400g; back cap MK-FB · Battery holder MP-1, a vertical grip with its own release and focus button taking four AA cells and one 2CR5 together, switched between them, 330g; external power pack P-8 with four AA cells on a 1.5m cord · TLA360 flash with automatic flash setting when on the prism's shoe; flash bracket MSB-1; Quick Shoe Adapter; cable switches LA-50 and LA-500 and shoe adapter AT-1 (camera-wiki; the manual names only the 'LA type' cable switch) · Auto extension tubes 13, 26 and 52mm; auto bellows · MAM-1 adapter for Hasselblad V lenses: stop-down metering in Av or M, centre-weighted only; Novoflex, Zörk, Kindai and Fotodiox made alternatives · NAM-1 adapter, putting the 645 lenses on the Contax N1 (Contax advertisement, December 2000) · Digital backs that replace the MFB-1: MegaVision (6 MP, by 2000), Kodak DCS Pro Back 645C (2002), Leaf Valeo 6 and 11 (2003), Phase One P20 and P25 (2004) and later P-series, IQ2 and Leaf Credo backs in Contax mount; a Leaf Aptus-II 5 used on a Contax 645 by a kakaku.com reviewer in 2013; Hasselblad's Ixpress i-Adapter kit and the Sinarback eMotion 75's Contax 645 AF adapter

0.8× with the 80mm lens at infinity and −1 dioptre; built-in dioptre adjustment −2 to +1, extended with FM-type dioptre lenses; a lever on the prism switches between spot and centre-weighted metering (Kyocera manual). The repair manual lists the prism's own metering sensor, display, eyepiece shutter and shoe; Jason Schneider places the green-lit LCD readout below the viewing area. He gives 87% and 0.76× for the finder instead of Kyocera's figures; see disputed.

Fitting it switches the camera to spot metering. It has no shoe, so flash goes on the MSB-1 bracket. The magnifier is −1.5 dioptre as supplied, with MFW-type replacement lenses from −3 to +2 (Kyocera manual). Kyocera's 95% field of view is printed for the interchangeable finder system with no separate figure for the MF-2; Schneider's 100% for it is not confirmed by Kyocera.

Figures we worked out rather than found: That kakaku.com's ¥598,000 set includes the AE prism and film back is inferred from its listed 1,370g and 141 × 138.5 × 145.5mm, which are Kyocera's figures for the body with prism, back holder and insert; the record names only the Planar 80mm. · Schneider's 4 lb 4.6 oz with 80mm, prism, back and batteries is about 1.94kg; Outdoor Photographer's 22¾ oz is about 645g, matching Kyocera's body-only figure. · The repair manual carries the service-department codes 1AU991020 and 1AU991026; if, as the pattern suggests, they encode 99-10-20 and 99-10-26, the manual and its list of early-production board changes date from October 1999.

Where sources disagree

First
  • January 1999 — kakaku.com's product record, with the ¥598,000 list price
  • 20 February 1999 — camera-wiki, repeated by Shoot It With Film

Both agree on early 1999 after the Photokina 1998 showing; neither is a Kyocera document. German Wikipedia's 'offered from 1998' probably reflects the Photokina showing.

0
  • 95% field of view and 0.8× with the AE prism — Kyocera manual
  • 87% and 0.76× with the prism, 100% with the waist-level finder — Jason Schneider, Adorama 2006

Better supported: 95% and 0.8×

Flash sync
  • Direct X contact synchronises at 1/125 and slower; the dial's X setting is 1/90 — Kyocera manual and repair manual; American Photo (1/125); Fstoppers (1/125)
  • X sync at 1/90, up to 1/125 only with dedicated TLA flash — Jason Schneider, Adorama 2006; Shoot It With Film gives 1/90 in one place and 1/125 in another

Better supported: 1/125 and slower, with X at 1/90

Kyocera's specification rates the direct X contact at 1/125 and slower; its instructions set TLA flashes automatically to as fast as 1/125 and give the X setting, 1/90, for flashes without TLA contacts, which is close to Schneider's reading. Both numbers appear on the camera, which is why reviews disagree.

Shutter (fastest in medium format)
  • 1/4000 'the first to appear in the middle-format camera market' — Kyocera repair manual
  • The fastest focal-plane shutter in medium format, with 1/125 sync also the fastest — American Photo, July/August 2000; Japanese Wikipedia
  • The Mamiya 645AF, released in Japan in September 1999, also runs to 1/4000 with X at 1/125 — camera-wiki

The Contax reached 1/4000 some months before the Mamiya, so Kyocera's 'first' can stand; by 2000 the Mamiya matched both figures, so 'fastest' was a tie.

Meter (exposure compensation)
  • ±2 EV in 1/3 steps — Kyocera manual; the dial on the camera is engraved −2 to +2
  • ±3 EV — camera-wiki

Better supported: ±2 EV

Speeds (slowest in aperture priority)
  • 32 seconds — Kyocera manual and repair manual
  • 30 seconds — camera-wiki

Better supported: 32 seconds

Film advance (frame rate)
  • About 1.6 frames/s — Kyocera manual; Outdoor Photographer, June 2000
  • 2.5 frames/s — Outdoor Photographer's pre-launch news item, December 1998

Better supported: About 1.6 frames/s

Battery life
  • About 30 rolls of 120 per 2CR5, about 8 on four AA alkalines and 12 on NiCd in the MP-1 — Kyocera manual
  • 10–15 rolls per 2CR5 in a body in reasonable condition; about 5 means something is wrong — Ray Rapkerg, Emulsive
  • 15–17 rolls per 2CR5 without autofocus, and AA cells in the grip lasting three times as long — Jen Golay, Shoot It With Film
  • About four rolls of 220 per 2CR5 — users reported by Philip Greenspun

Every owner's figure is below Kyocera's, and Golay's view of the AA grip contradicts Kyocera's own table, though the MP-1 can hold a 2CR5 and four AAs at once and switch between them.

Data imprint
  • Shutter speed, aperture, compensation, exposure mode, lens and film type, no date — Kyocera's English and Japanese manuals and repair manual
  • Also date and time — Philip Greenspun

Better supported: No date

Original price
  • $3,999 for the outfit and $2,030 for the body, 2000 — B&H advertisements in Outdoor Photographer
  • About US$2,400 new, the same as the Pentax 645NII — Ray Rapkerg, Emulsive

Better supported: The 2000 advertisements

Historical significance (firsts)
  • The first medium-format camera 'to feature autofocus lenses' — Kyocera's Financial Times advertisement, 18 March 1999
  • Pentax made 'the world's very first 6x4.5cm autofocus SLR. Contax and Mamiya quickly followed' — American Photo, July/August 2000
  • 'Hailed as the first modular, medium-format, autofocus SLR' — Jason Schneider, Adorama 2006, reporting the claim

They describe different things: autofocus motors in the lenses, autofocus at all, and autofocus with interchangeable finders and backs.

What reviewers say

History

The Contax 645 is the only medium-format camera Kyocera made under the Contax name; American Photo called it “the first and only non-35mm Contax” in 2000. Kyocera showed it at Photokina in 1998 and put it on sale in Japan early in 1999, in January by kakaku.com’s record, which lists ¥598,000 with the Planar 80mm f/2, or on 20 February by camera-wiki’s. It is a 6×4.5 autofocus SLR built as modules with no mechanical coupling between them: body, lens and film back each have their own microcomputer and talk through gold contacts. The back carries its own transport motor, Fuji bar-code reader, data imprinter and frame counter; each autofocus lens carries its own focusing motor, and every lens a stepping motor that sets the aperture in eighth-stops (Kyocera’s repair manual). A Kyocera advertisement of March 1999 called it the first medium-format camera “to feature autofocus lenses”, and Philip Greenspun put the distinction more exactly: the first medium-format camera with its autofocus motors in the lenses rather than the body. It was not the first medium-format autofocus SLR. American Photo credits Pentax with that, adding “Contax and Mamiya quickly followed.” The camera was made in Japan, and the focusing-screen frame is engraved KYOCERA and JAPAN.

The shutter is a vertical-travel metal focal plane, 32 seconds to 1/4000 in aperture priority and 8 seconds to 1/4000 in shutter priority and manual. Kyocera’s repair manual claims 1/4000 as a first in medium format, and American Photo called it the fastest focal-plane shutter in the format, though Mamiya’s 645AF, on sale in Japan from September 1999, also ran to 1/4000 with 1/125 sync (camera-wiki). Kyocera rates the direct X contact on the prism’s shoe at 1/125 and slower, and TLA flashes set up to 1/125 automatically, while the X setting on the mode selector, meant for other flashes, fixes 1/90; reviews quote both numbers and both are right. Spot metering is built into the body and works with either finder, and the AE prism adds centre-weighted. The modes are aperture priority, shutter priority and manual, with no program. Compensation runs ±2 EV in thirds on a dial engraved −2 to +2 (camera-wiki’s ±3 is wrong), and A.B.C. brackets three frames by a half or a whole stop. Autofocus is phase detection on a 250,000-pixel CCD, set on an M/S/C dial with a separate focus button. Kyocera calls the override “dual focusing”: once single AF has locked, turning the focusing ring fine-tunes it without changing modes. The motor advances at about 1.6 frames a second, not the 2.5 the 1998 preview promised. There is a mirror-up button, a depth-of-field preview button, a 2- or 10-second self-timer and a multiple-exposure lever on the back. Shutter speed, aperture, compensation, mode, lens and film type are printed outside the frame. Three custom functions (bracketing order, AE-lock behaviour and the autofocus area) can only be changed by a Kyocera service station. The body weighs 645g, and 1,370g with prism, back and insert.

Six Carl Zeiss lenses came at launch: the Distagon 35mm f/3.5 and 45mm f/2.8, the Planar 80mm f/2, the manual-focus Apo-Makro-Planar 120mm f/4, and the Sonnar 140mm f/2.8 and 210mm f/4. The Tele-Apotessar 350mm f/4 and the Mutar 1.4× followed in February 2000, the Distagon 55mm f/3.5 in February 2002 and the Vario-Sonnar 45–90mm f/4.5 in August 2002 (Kyocera USA). There are two finders, the MF-1 AE prism and the MF-2 waist level, and three screens. The back comes in two parts: the MFB-1 holder takes either a removable MFB-1A insert for 120 or 220 or the MFB-1B vacuum insert. The vacuum insert pulls 220 film flat against the pressure plate for each exposure; it cannot work through 120’s backing paper and does nothing on B. The MFB-2 back takes Polaroid pack film. Because the back is a self-contained electronic module, a digital back simply replaces the holder and talks through the same contacts. MegaVision offered 6-megapixel backs by 2000, and Kodak announced the DCS Pro Back 645C in February 2002. Creo announced a Leaf Valeo for the Contax in February 2003, Phase One made Contax versions of its P20 and P25 in 2004, and the user guides for Phase One’s IQ2 and Leaf’s Credo backs still carry Contax 645 chapters, although Phase One’s later XF manual says the IQ series cannot be ordered with the Contax mount. Kyocera’s MAM-1 adapter put Hasselblad V lenses on the body with stop-down metering, centre-weighted only. The NAM-1 went the other way, putting the 645 lenses on the 35mm Contax N1.

There is one model, and the variations are inside it. Kyocera’s repair manual lists seven circuit changes made as stop-gaps in early production: extra boards for film-back power and for winding at low temperature, one on the RISC CPU, one for the second curtain, a wire against static discharge, one for the bar-code reader, and a filter board in the prism finder for metering accuracy. Each was later built into redesigned boards. Old and new boards interchange, Kyocera supplied only the new type for service, and the manual gives no serial number for the change, so nothing on the outside is known to tell an early body from a late one. No special or limited edition and no Kyocera digital version has turned up. The body itself is engraved CONTAX 645 in small letters on its left side beside the mount, and the prism says only CONTAX. Sellers often write “Contax 645 AF”, as B&H and the digital-back makers did; one Japanese seller listed a body with prism and Planar as “CONTAX 645 AE”.

The weakness, by reputation, is the electronics, though not every long-term owner has met it: John Bramaan’s body needed no service in about twelve years. Ray Rapkerg (Emulsive) counts 72 gold contacts between body, back, battery, prism and lens and says the camera switches off if any one of them stutters. Jen Golay (Shoot It With Film) calls it notorious for shutting down and averse to heat, cold, humidity and sand, and a former dealer told Japan Camera Hunter’s readers that Kyocera’s electronics were poor. Test a camera on a fresh 2CR5, because Camera Legend’s erratic focusing turned out to be a weak battery. Check that the spot meter agrees with the centre-weighted reading and that the speeds are right, since a Japan Camera Hunter reader had a body with both faults. Push the insert home on both sides until it clicks: Rapkerg traces frames sharp on one side and soft on the other to an insert that only seemed seated. Golay blames worn insert springs for film-flatness faults, and her test is the silver wheel on the side of the insert, which needs service if it turns both ways. The vacuum insert is only for 220, and another reader had backing paper caught in one damage the shutter. The camera will not fire with the dark slide in; that is the interlock, not a fault. Kyocera rated a 2CR5 at about 30 rolls of 120, but owners report 10 to 15 (Rapkerg) or 15 to 17 without autofocus (Golay). Kyocera’s own table gives four AA alkalines in the MP-1 grip only about 8 rolls, against Golay’s experience that AAs in the grip last three times as long as a 2CR5; what the manual does promise is that the grip holds a 2CR5 and four AAs at once and switches between them, with a vertical release. Production stopped at the end of April 2005, and Kyocera kept shipping the 645 to some markets until December. It stopped taking repairs on 30 April 2015, and its support page now sends owners of Contax film cameras to Repair Service Suwa, which was still servicing them in 2026: a Yahoo! Auctions seller had a body, the 80mm and the 45mm checked there before sale. A repairer told Rapkerg that he cannot get replacement shutters.

Used prices fell well below the new price and then climbed past it. B&H sold the outfit, body, AE prism, back and Planar 80mm, for $3,999 in 2000. In 2006 Adorama’s used department had one for about $1,500, which Jason Schneider called roughly a third of its original selling price. Camera Legend’s Sam paid $1,200 in 2008 and saw $3,000 to 3,500 by 2016, and Golay put body, back and prism at about $3,000 in 2022, or $5,000 to 6,000 with the 80mm. Bramaan (Fstoppers) called prices “totally outrageous” in 2020 and says he is told retro-minded wedding photographers drove them up. On Yahoo! Auctions Japan in October 2026 a working body with its back holder made ¥424,600 and a body with prism, back and Planar 80mm ¥751,518, above the ¥598,000 list price kakaku.com records for 1999.

Expand Collapse

This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Photographs

Contax 645
Contax 645 with the AE prism finder, MFB-1 film back holder and Planar 80mm f/2 — Tom dl, via Wikimedia Commons (CC0 1.0)

Live listings

Asking price, DKK: a median of DKK 18,000 across 3 fixed-price listings on 2026-10-30 (middle half DKK 13,500–DKK 18,000). First day tracked.

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

Buying from Yahoo! Auctions outside Japan. It is a domestic marketplace: sellers ship within Japan, and most will not register an overseas buyer. A proxy service bids on your behalf, receives the item and forwards it, for a fee and a wait. Buyee, Jauce and ZenMarket each accept a Yahoo auction number directly. Listed alphabetically for information — none is recommended over another, and none of these is an affiliate link.

Listings updated 2026-10-30. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Mamiya 645 AF / AFD · Pentax 645 · Hasselblad H1

Lenses for this body: Distagon T* 35mm f/3.5 (Contax 645) · Distagon T* 45mm f/2.8 (Contax 645) · Distagon T* 55mm f/3.5 (Contax 645) · Planar T* 80mm f/2 (Contax 645) · Apo-Makro-Planar T* 120mm f/4 (Contax 645) · Sonnar T* 140mm f/2.8 (Contax 645) · Sonnar T* 210mm f/4 (Contax 645) · Tele-Apotessar T* 350mm f/4 (Contax 645) · Vario-Sonnar T* 45-90mm f/4.5 (Contax 645)

Sources (37)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this camera, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.