Contax T
Kyocera · Fixed lens · 24×36mm on 35mm film, removable back · 1984
Also known as: Contax T · Kyocera Contax T · Contax T (1984) · コンタックスT
Variants & identification
| Variant | Mount | Years | Serial ranges | Production |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contax T, titanium silver | 35mm compact | 1984–1987 | — | No figure published |
| Contax T, black | 35mm compact | 1984–1987 | — | No figure published |
- No production figure has ever been published for the Contax T — not a total, not a per-finish split, not a serial-based estimate. This is the ordinary condition of the premium compact segment rather than a gap peculiar to this camera.
- Gold-plated Contax T bodies turn up in trade listings from time to time. No written source consulted documents a factory gold T; the gold and platinum finishes that are documented belong to the T2, six years later.
- The dedicated flash is a two-piece proposition and it is not optional in practice: the camera's own metering cell becomes the flash sensor when the unit is attached. Kyocera's specification gives the flash a guide number of 14 at ISO 100 in metres, 58 × 66.5 × 32.5 mm and 70 grams — a third again as much depth to carry, on a camera bought for being small.
- Two silver-oxide SR44 cells (or alkaline LR44) run the whole camera. Power is switched by the front cover, so a T with its drawbridge closed draws nothing but the frame counter's memory.
How to tell them apart
- A fold-down front door — a drawbridge, hinged at the bottom — that carries the lens out with it and switches the camera on. The T2 and T3 replaced it with a sliding cover
- A coincident-image rangefinder with a diamond-shaped patch: the T is focused by eye, not by motor
- A green 8 on the aperture scale and a green dot on the distance scale — the zone detent that gives roughly 1.7 m to infinity in one setting
- A shutter release made of synthetic ruby
- A seven-blade diaphragm and no filter thread
- No built-in flash and no ordinary accessory shoe: the dedicated flash bolts to the camera's left side on its own terminal
Contax T, titanium silver:
- Bare titanium skin over the aluminium chassis
Contax T, black:
- Black-finished titanium
- Contax T, titanium silver: One of two finishes, and the pair are the whole variant table. Nothing mechanical is documented as changing across the run.
- Contax T, black: submin.com's collection page records eBay results for a black body separately from the silver, which is the only evidence consulted that the market prices them apart at all.
Specifications
- Format
- 24×36mm on 35mm film, removable back
- Finder
- Reverse-Galilean finder with an Albada bright-line frame, combined with a coupled coincident-image rangefinder
- Shutter
- leaf shutter behind the lens, electromagnetically timed · 8 s – 1/500 s, stepless, aperture priority only — there is no manual shutter speed · flash sync X contact through the dedicated flash terminal; synchronises at 1/125 s and slower · self-timer
- Film advance
- lever, 120° throw with a 10° stand-off; rewind by crank
- Back
- removable, released by a knob on the base; the film runs under a swing-up pressure plate
- Meter
- SPD cell on the front of the lens, aperture-priority AE. Metering range EV 0 to EV 17, film speed set by hand from ISO 25 to 1000, backlight compensation of +1.5 EV. No exposure lock.
- Designed by
- Porsche Design — exterior design; submin.com credits the camera jointly to Porsche, Carl Zeiss and Yashica, and no individual designer is named in any source consulted
- Weight
- 270 g
- Dimensions
- 98 × 66.5 × 32.5 (lens retracted) mm
- Country
- Japan
- Original price
- Over US$1,000 at launch, per Casual Photophile. No list price from a Kyocera document was found, and no Japanese yen figure at all.
- Accessories
- T14 Auto dedicated flash, guide number 14 at ISO 100 in metres, mounting on the camera's left side · Leather ever-ready case with a tripod bush
Not parallax-corrected. The display carries the frame, the focusing zone, a self-timer lamp and four exposure LEDs, one of which doubles as the flash-ready signal.
Where sources disagree
- Dedicated flash, model designation
- T14 Auto (35mmc; and Kyocera's own specification table as reproduced by submin.com, whose viewfinder-display list names the T14 AUTO flash-ready indicator)
- A14 (English Wikipedia)
Better supported: T14
Two sources against one, and the two include a transcription of the manufacturer's specification sheet. The Wikipedia article gives the letter without a citation at the point of claim.
- Minimum focus
- 1 metre (Kyocera specification via submin.com, and Casual Photophile's buyer's guide)
- roughly 1.7 m to infinity in one setting (the f/8 zone detent, 35mmc and Casual Photophile)
Better supported: 1 metre
Not a real contradiction, and it is recorded because listings routinely quote the second figure as though it were the first. One metre is what the rangefinder will focus to; 1.7 m is where the zone detent's depth of field begins when the camera is not being focused at all.
What reviewers say
- Casual Photophile (blog) — Praises the lens without reservation — five elements in four groups, "incredibly sharp, virtually distortion-free" — and rates the finder bright and vivid, but is blunt about the ergonomics: the controls are small and stacked so closely that precise adjustment is difficult, and the dedicated flash "nearly doubles the camera's size" and is made of plastic. Recommends the f/8-and-the-green-dot setting as the way the camera actually wants to be used.
- grain_frame (35mmc) (blog) — Reads the T as the one member of the family a photographer focuses rather than trusts: a diamond-shaped coincident-image patch, a stepless 8 s to 1/500 s shutter under aperture priority, +1.5 stops of backlight compensation and an ISO dial that stops at 1000. Notes that the T2 and T3 abandoned the drawbridge front for a sliding cover and the rangefinder for autofocus, which is what separates this camera from the two that made the name famous.
- Hern Tan (35mmc) (blog) — "Silent, pocketable, rangefinder" — his final word in pocket cameras, with a diamond focusing patch that stays visible in hard sun. The folding pressure plate makes loading error-prone and frame spacing uneven even when done carefully, and the ISO 1000 ceiling rules out pushed HP5.
- Ken Rockwell (blog) — "You can't go wrong with the CONTAX T": a bright, contrasty rangefinder, a Sonnar with no visible distortion and little falloff even at f/2.8, and 40 frames from a 36-exposure roll. The 1 m close focus he finds stifling, the A14 flash syncs no faster than about 1/250 and adds little, and he would rather have a Nikon 35Ti at the same money.
History
The Contax T does not autofocus. That has to be the first sentence, because the T2 and the T3 do, because the three cameras share a name and a design language and a maker, and because the market talks about “the T series” as though the 1984 camera were simply a slower version of the two that followed. It is not. The T is focused by eye through a coupled rangefinder — Kyocera’s own specification calls it a coincident rangefinder of the image-merging type, and 35mmc describes the diamond-shaped patch a photographer lines up in the finder. There is no motor and no infrared beam anywhere in it.
What the camera does have is a way of not focusing, and that is the detail worth knowing before buying one. There is a green 8 on the aperture scale and a green dot on the distance scale. Set both and the depth of field runs from roughly 1.7 metres to infinity, which is how the T is used when it is used as a snapshot camera. Focused properly, it goes to one metre. Listings routinely quote the 1.7 as the minimum focus distance, which is wrong in a way that matters: it is where the zone setting starts working, not where the lens stops.
The rest of the camera is a set of decisions about size. The lens is a five-element, four-group Sonnar T* of 38mm and f/2.8, with a seven-blade diaphragm and no filter thread, and it folds back into the body behind a front door hinged at the bottom — a drawbridge, which the T2 and T3 both replaced with a sliding cover. Opening the door switches the camera on. The shutter is a leaf unit behind the lens, running stepless from eight seconds to 1/500 under aperture priority and offering no manual speed at all. Metering is an SPD cell on the front of the lens, EV 0 to 17, film speed set by hand and stopping at ISO 1000, with a backlight button worth 1.5 stops and no exposure lock. The whole thing is 98 by 66.5 by 32.5 millimetres and 270 grams, and it runs for years on two SR44 cells because the front cover is the power switch.
The flash is the compromise. There is no built-in unit and no ordinary accessory shoe: a dedicated T14 Auto bolts to the camera’s left side and takes over the metering cell, and it adds 70 grams and another 58 millimetres of width to a camera whose entire argument is that it fits in a pocket. Casual Photophile’s verdict on it — that it nearly doubles the camera’s size and is made of plastic — is not a minority view. English Wikipedia calls the same unit an A14; 35mmc and the specification table reproduced at submin.com both call it a T14, and the specification table is a transcription of Kyocera’s own sheet, so this entry follows it.
Two things nobody has published. The first is any production figure: not a total, not a split between the silver and black finishes, not so much as a serial study by a collector. The second is an end date that comes from Kyocera rather than from an encyclopedia summarising another encyclopedia — 1987 is what the reference sites say, and it is carried here for want of anything better, not because a document supports it. The gold Contax T bodies that surface in trade listings are a third absence of the same kind: gold and platinum Contaxes are real, but the ones documented in writing are T2s.
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.
Example photos
Sample photo wanted — shot with a Contax T? We'd love to feature it (with credit).
Live listings
Asking price, USD: a median of $700 across 5 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-08 (middle half $590–$1,000). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: up 19% from $590.
By day
| Date | Median | Middle half | Listings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-08 | $700 | $590–$1,000 | 5 |
| 2026-09-06 | $590 | $450–$700 | 6 |
Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.
- CONTAX T 35mm film camera 38/2.8 lens, Good Condition
- 【Near MINT in BOX w/ Flash】 Contax T 35mm Film Camera Sonnar 38mm F2.8 T* Japan
- Contax T 35mm Film Camera Carl Zeiss Sonnar 38mm f/2.8 Lens and Flash - Black
- Rare [Top MINT+++ w/ Case] Contax T Silver 35mm Film Camera T14 Flash From JAPAN
- 【NEAR MINT+ in Box 】 Contax T Silver 35mm Film Camera w/ T14 Flash From JAPAN
eBay links are affiliate links. If you buy through one, Glass Bodies earns a small commission from eBay at no cost to you. It does not change which listings appear, their prices or their order — those come from the search and the sort described above.
Listings updated 2026-09-08. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.