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

Contax N1

Contax (Kyocera) · Contax N mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film, DX-coded, hinged back · 2000

Also known as: Contax N1 · CONTAX N1 · Contax N-1 · Kyocera Contax N1 · Contax N1 body · Contax N1 AF · コンタックス N1 · コンタックスN1 · CONTAX N1 ボディ · 京セラ CONTAX N1

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
N1 (2000–2005) Contax N 2000–2005 — No figure published
  1. The weight is 795g without battery by camera-wiki, kakaku.com and Casual Photophile, all of which reproduce Kyocera's specification sheet; Mike Eckman's 854g is his own figure for the body and does not say whether the 2CR5 was fitted. His 1,446g with the 24–85mm is 592g more, which matches the lens on its own.
  2. The US prices rest on Mike Eckman alone. kakaku.com lists no maker's price for the body in Japan, and Kyocera's archived product pages were not reached.
  3. No serial table has been published. The number is on the base plate (Mike Eckman). Casual Photophile's reviewer paid about $400 for a mint body with the 24–85mm around 2018.
  4. Two X-sync figures circulate. Kyocera's specification, as camera-wiki and Casual Photophile reproduce it, lists X at 1/125 and the direct X shoe contact at 1/250 and slower; Mike Eckman describes a dedicated 1/250 X position on the mode collar. The flash figure in the shutter table follows the specification.
  5. The metering modes are listed as matrix, centre-weighted and spot by camera-wiki and Casual Photophile; Eckman notes that the spec sheet he read names only centre-weighted and spot while the camera has a mirror-box switch for spot, average and matrix.
  6. Focus A.B.C., the bracketing of focus a step in front of and behind the chosen point, is Japanese Wikipedia's description; camera-wiki calls the same feature three-step AF compensation.
  7. kakaku.com holds twelve user reviews averaging 4.36 of 5 (66% five-star, 16% four-star, 16% three-star); the individual reviews were not read.
  8. Eckman reports that one of his two bodies locked up with an EEEE error on about every sixth frame and that other owners describe the same fault; no fix is recorded.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • No pop-up flash and a 1/8000 top speed on the dial: the NX has a built-in flash and stops at 1/4000 (camera-wiki; Mike Eckman)
  • Film door on the back where the N Digital carries an LCD monitor; 795g against the N Digital's 990g (camera-wiki; PHILE WEB)
  • Ten electrical contacts in the bayonet and no aperture-coupling levers: a C/Y lens will not mount, and a Contax 645 lens on the body means the NAM-1 adapter (Mike Eckman; Casual Photophile)
  • Shutter-speed dial left of the prism and compensation dial right of it, the reverse of most SLRs (Casual Photophile)

N1 (2000–2005):

  • Matte black finish with rubberised panels on the grip, film door and sides; no built-in flash, which is what separates it at a glance from the NX (Mike Eckman)
  • Shutter-speed dial on the left of the prism with a mode collar engraved P, Av, Tv, M, X, B, ISO and CF; exposure-compensation dial on the right with half-step marks on one side and third-step marks on the other, and the A.B.C. bracketing collar beneath it (Mike Eckman)
  • AF-point joystick, focus-lock switch and AF-mode switch on the back; infrared AF-assist lamp on the front above the exposure-check button; PC sync socket on the side (Mike Eckman)
  • Ten gold contacts inside the N bayonet; data-back contacts under the film gate; serial number on the base plate (Mike Eckman)

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film, DX-coded, hinged back
Finder
Fixed eye-level pentaprism with hot shoe, built-in dioptre adjustment from −3 to +1, interchangeable focusing screens; five AF marks lit in red on the screen and a green LCD readout along the bottom · 0.73× magnification · 95% coverage · no rangefinder image
Shutter
vertical-travel metal focal plane, electronically controlled, electromagnetic release with a release socket · 32s–1/8000 in program and aperture priority; 4s–1/8000 in shutter priority and manual; B; X · flash sync Direct X contact on the hot shoe at 1/250 and slower (camera-wiki; Casual Photophile); the dial's X setting is given as 1/125 by camera-wiki and as a dedicated 1/250 position by Mike Eckman — see disputed · self-timer
Film advance
built-in motor: single frame or continuous at up to 3.5 frames/s, automatic loading, DX reading, motorised rewind; custom function 16 leaves the leader out after rewind (camera-wiki; Mike Eckman)
Back
hinged, with electrical contacts under the film gate for the D-10 data back
Meter
TTL silicon photodiode: matrix and centre-weighted average, EV 0–21, and spot, EV 3–21 (camera-wiki; Casual Photophile). Program, aperture priority, shutter priority and manual; exposure compensation ±2 EV in half or third steps; A.B.C. bracketing at 0.3, 0.5 or 1 EV; TTL off-the-film flash metering; an exposure-check button reads the meter without firing; up to 20 custom functions. DX ISO 25–5000, manual ISO 6–6400 (camera-wiki; Mike Eckman).
Motor drive
Not compatible — Advance and rewind are built in, so no separate winder or motor drive exists for the N bodies (camera-wiki; Japanese Wikipedia). The P-8 power pack adds four AA cells on a cord.
Weight
795 g
Dimensions
152 × 116.5 × 69, 795g without battery (camera-wiki; kakaku.com) mm
Country
Japan
Original price
About $1,300 body only and about $2,100 with the Vario-Sonnar 24–85mm, at release (Mike Eckman, who dates the release 2001 and notes street prices about 25% below list). No Japanese list price was found: kakaku.com's record carries none. (today $2,300)
Accessories
D-10 data back, imprinting shooting data on the film leader and between frames (camera-wiki; Japanese Wikipedia) · Focusing screens FX-1 (split image), FX-2 (matte) and FX-3 (grid) (camera-wiki) · P-8 power pack, four AA cells on a cord (camera-wiki) · FE-1 LCD viewfinder, shoe-mounted (camera-wiki) · Cable switches LA-50 (50cm) and LA-500 (5m) for the release socket (camera-wiki) · NAM-1 adapter for Contax 645 lenses with autofocus; with the MAM-1 stacked on it, Hasselblad V lenses in manual use (camera-wiki; Casual Photophile)

0.73× with a 50mm lens at infinity (kakaku.com; Mike Eckman). Screens: FX-1 split image, FX-2 matte, FX-3 grid (camera-wiki). The five AF points sit on the diagonals of the frame, placed for composition rather than clustered at the centre (Japanese Wikipedia).

Where sources disagree

First
  • 20 September 2000 — kakaku.com's product record; the American Photo preview and December 2000 advertisement that Mike Eckman cites; 2000 — Casual Photophile
  • 2001 — camera-wiki, Mike Eckman

Better supported: 2000

The Japanese release came first; 2001 reads as the year the camera reached export markets and the English-language press.

Weight (grams)
  • 795g without battery — camera-wiki, kakaku.com, Casual Photophile, from Kyocera's specification
  • 854g — Mike Eckman

Better supported: 795g

Flash sync
  • X at 1/125, direct X shoe contact at 1/250 and slower — camera-wiki, Casual Photophile
  • A dedicated 1/250 X-sync position on the mode collar — Mike Eckman

Better supported: 1/250 at the direct contact

Both numbers are probably on the camera, as on the Contax 645: a dial setting and a contact rating.

Meter (modes)
  • Matrix, centre-weighted and spot — camera-wiki, Casual Photophile
  • Spec sheet lists centre-weighted and spot only; the body has a switch for spot, average and matrix — Mike Eckman

Better supported: Matrix, centre-weighted and spot

What reviewers say

History

The N1 was Kyocera’s answer to the autofocus systems Canon and Nikon had been selling for a decade: a professional 35mm SLR with an entirely new electronic bayonet, ten contacts and no mechanical coupling, that takes none of the Contax/Yashica lenses of the previous twenty-five years. It went on sale in Japan on 20 September 2000 by kakaku.com’s record, was previewed in American Photo that winter and reached the English-language press in 2001, at about $1,300 for the body and $2,100 with the Vario-Sonnar 24–85mm that most were sold with. Nine Zeiss N lenses were made for it, and the NAM-1 adapter mounts the Contax 645 lenses with autofocus intact.

The specification is a flagship’s. The vertical-travel shutter runs from 32 seconds to 1/8000 in program and aperture priority and 4 seconds to 1/8000 in shutter priority and manual, with the direct flash contact rated to 1/250. Five AF points sit on the diagonals of the frame rather than in a central cluster, chosen with a joystick on the back, with focus bracketing a step either side of the chosen point as a Contax peculiarity. The meter reads matrix, centre-weighted or spot, the pentaprism shows 95% at 0.73× with interchangeable screens, and the built-in motor runs to 3.5 frames a second. The body weighs 795g without its 2CR5 by Kyocera’s figure, 854g by Mike Eckman’s, and is larger than a Nikon F4 in every dimension. What makes it a Contax is the control layout: a shutter-speed dial on the left of the prism and an exposure-compensation dial on the right, the reverse of nearly every other SLR, with the mode collar and the A.B.C. bracketing collar beneath them.

The two long reviews agree on the pictures and divide on the camera. Casual Photophile’s reviewer, who assembled seven of the nine lenses, calls it a solid instrument that gets the job done, competent in single-shot AF and unable to track fast subjects in continuous, and names the 50mm and 85mm Planars as the standouts. Eckman scores it 11 of 15: excellent photographs, nothing the competition did not do as well, and a body that locked up with an EEEE error every sixth frame, a fault other owners report and nobody has traced. His verdict is that the N1 was a victim of timing, launched too late for film and too early for digital, and the record bears him out: the same shell became the N Digital of February 2002, at ¥800,000 the first full-frame digital SLR, and Kyocera withdrew the whole Contax line in 2005.

Identification is simple, because there is only one model and no special edition is recorded. The N1 has no pop-up flash and a 1/8000 top speed, which separates it from the NX; it has a film door where the N Digital has a monitor. The serial number is on the base plate, and no serial table has been published. Prices on the used market were low for a decade after the system died, with Casual Photophile’s body and zoom at about $400 in 2018, while the lenses, which fit nothing else without adapters, have climbed well past the bodies.

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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.

Live listings

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 2026-11-02. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Contax NX

Lenses for this body: Makro-Sonnar T* 100mm f/2.8 (N) · Planar T* 50mm f/1.4 (N) · Planar T* 85mm f/1.4 (N) · Tele-Apotessar T* 400mm f/4 (N) · Vario-Sonnar T* 17–35mm f/2.8 (N) · Vario-Sonnar T* 24–85mm f/3.5–4.5 (N) · Vario-Sonnar T* 28–80mm f/3.5–5.6 (N) · Vario-Sonnar T* 70–200mm f/3.5–4.5 (N) · Vario-Sonnar T* 70–300mm f/4–5.6 (N)

Sources (7)

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.