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

Contax T3

Kyocera · Fixed lens · 24×36mm on 35mm film, hinged back · 2001

via machine translation — corrections welcome

Also known as: CONTAX T3 · Contax T3 Data Back · Contax T3D · Contax T3 70 Years · コンタックスT3

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
T3 titanium silver 35mm compact 2001 — No figure published
T3 titanium black 35mm compact 2001 — No figure published
T3 70 Years Limited Edition 35mm compact 2001 — No figure published. Sold as a limited commemorative model; the limit itself has never been printed
T3 with Data Back 35mm compact 2001 — No figure published
  1. There is no separate camera called the T3D. Kyocera's instruction manual for the T3 covers the date-imprinting back under the heading Contax T3 Data Back, as an accessory back on the same body, and no document from Kyocera consulted here uses a T3D designation at all. The name is trade shorthand: Japanese dealers write plainly that a T3 fitted with the data back "is called the T3D", and the same D suffix turns up on dealer descriptions of the TVS and TVS II. Treat it as a description of the back, not a model.
  2. No production figure has been published for the T3 in any finish, and none for the 70 Years edition either, despite that camera being sold as a limited run. Kyocera published no numbers before it left the business and has published none since.
  3. Kyocera announced on 12 April 2005 that it would terminate the Contax camera business, stating that shipment of Contax-branded cameras would end in September 2005 and that of the 645 system in December. Production had already stopped at the end of March 2005. That fixes the outside edge of any T3 production run, whatever the start date.
  4. Vintage Technology Archive lists the T3's finishes as champagne silver, black and gold plated. No Japanese dealer source consulted here records a gold T3, and gold and platinum were T2 finishes. The gold T3 should be treated as unconfirmed until an example or a price list turns up.
  5. The autofocus is described as passive by English Wikipedia and as using phase-detection sensors by Ming Thein — the same mechanism under two names, and in either case not the active infrared system of the T2. No Kyocera document reachable here states the type, and no source gives a step count for it, which is worth noting because the contemporary Nikon 35Ti has its AF steps argued over in public and the T3's have never been printed at all.
  6. The 1/1200 s shutter is the T3's most-quoted specification and it is routinely oversold. It is not the fastest leaf shutter on any 35mm compact: EMULSIVE, testing the camera, records that the Canon Z115 and Z135 reach the same 1/1200. It is not available across the camera either — 1/1200 belongs to program AE, aperture priority tops out at 1/500, and 1/500 is the fastest speed the lens will give wide open. The comparison that does hold is the one against its own class: the Ricoh GR1 stops at 1/500 and the Konica Hexar AF at 1/250.
  7. Kakaku.com's database records the T3 with a release date of 8 August 2002, against 2001 everywhere else. A price-comparison site's listing date is not a manufacturer announcement, but it is the likeliest origin of the 2002 introduction date that circulates in some English write-ups.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Synthetic sapphire over the shutter button and over the finder and autofocus windows on the front — the T3's signature detail. No source consulted here records it on any other compact, but none states that it is unique either, so this is an identifier rather than a claim of a first
  • 1/1200 s at the top of the range — but only in program AE. In aperture priority the shutter stops at 1/500, and 1/500 is also the fastest speed available at f/2.8
  • 105 × 63 × 30.5 mm and 230 g without battery: smaller in every dimension than the T2
  • Inside the film chamber, the take-up spool has either a single tooth or a double tooth. Japanese dealers call these the early type and the late type, and the change is the only documented running revision to the camera
  • A combined power, aperture and program wheel on the top plate, with the exposure modes reached through a menu rather than a dial

T3 titanium silver:

  • Natural titanium finish; top plate engraved CONTAX T3 in the modern capitals

T3 titanium black:

  • Black-finished titanium, otherwise identical to the silver body

T3 70 Years Limited Edition:

  • The top plate reads Contax T3 in the old pre-war Contax script rather than the standard CONTAX T3 capitals — the single most reliable way to identify one
  • A commemorative logo engraved on the body

T3 with Data Back:

  • A date panel and its own CR2025 cell in the film door, with a small LCD on the back

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film, hinged back
Finder
Reverse-Galilean bright-frame finder with a synthetic sapphire cover; focus distance and shutter speed shown alongside the frame · no rangefinder image
Shutter
Double between-the-lens leaf shutter, electromagnetically controlled — the name Kyocera's literature and the dealer spec tables both use · 1/1200 at the top, and reached only in program AE: aperture priority stops at 1/500, and 1/500 is also the ceiling at f/2.8. The slow end is disputed — 16 s on kakaku.com's spec table, 180 s on submin.com, EMULSIVE and Vintage Technology Archive. See `disputed` · self-timer
Film advance
motorised: automatic loading, advance and rewind
Back
hinged; also catalogued with a factory Data Back
Meter
Silicon photodiode cell, EV 1 – 18, program and aperture-priority automatic with exposure compensation of ±2 EV in 1/3 steps. DX coding reads ISO 25 – 5000; non-DX cassettes default to ISO 100. There is no manual ISO override.
Weight
230 g
Dimensions
105 × 63 × 30.5 mm
Country
Japan
Original price
98,000 yen for the titanium silver and 108,000 yen for the titanium black at the 2001 launch, per Ishii Camera; 118,000 yen for the 70 Years edition, per Camera no Naniwa. Vintage Technology Archive gives the US price as about $1,000. (today ¥110,000)

Where sources disagree

Speeds, slow end
  • 16 s (kakaku.com's specification table, which prints the range as 1/1200~16)
  • 180 s (submin.com's T3 page, "1/1,200 second to 180 seconds"; EMULSIVE, "180 – 1/1200s"; Vintage Technology Archive, "180 – 1/1200s")

Better supported: 180 s, on three sources against one

A factor of eleven at the slow end of a camera whose shutter is the thing people quote about it. The likeliest reconciliation is that the two numbers describe different modes — an automatic ceiling and a long-exposure setting — but no source consulted says so, and Kyocera's printed specification page could not be read. Recorded rather than split.

Minimum focus distance
  • 0.35 m (Hamish Gill at 35mmc, and the spec table on kakaku.com)
  • 0.4 m (Ming Thein; contax-camera.com repeats it)

Better supported: 0.35 m

Both are quoted as the camera's own figure rather than a measured one. The 35 cm value appears in a Japanese spec table, which is the likelier route back to Kyocera's own literature; 0.4 m may be a reviewer rounding what the lens will actually hold. Either way the point stands that the T3 focuses half as close as the T2's 0.7 m.

70 Years edition, year of release
  • November 2001, at 118,000 yen (Camera no Naniwa)
  • 2002 (Ishii Camera)

Better supported: Unresolved

The anniversary itself falls in 2002 — Zeiss Ikon launched the Contax name in 1932 — which argues for the later date, while the only source that gives a month and a price gives November 2001. A camera announced in late 2001 for a 2002 anniversary would reconcile the two, but no source says that.

Introduction
  • 2001 (Ishii Camera and Sunrise Camera, both with yen list prices; Casual Photophile; Vintage Technology Archive, which gives the run as 2001–2005)
  • 8 August 2002 (kakaku.com's product record)

Better supported: 2001

Weight of evidence is heavily on 2001, and the yen prices attached to it are the kind of detail a listing date does not carry. Recorded because the 2002 date is in circulation and a buyer comparing two write-ups will meet both.

What reviewers say

History

The T3 is the last camera in a line that began in 1984, and it is the one that finally went smaller. Where the T2 carried a 38mm f/2.8 Sonnar that would not focus closer than 70cm, the T3 carries a recomputed 35mm f/2.8 of six elements in four groups that focuses to 35cm, in a titanium body of 105 × 63 × 30.5mm and 230g. The leaf shutter runs to 1/1200 s, which is very fast for the type and is not quite the unique distinction it is usually sold as — the Canon Z115 and Z135 reach it too, and on the T3 it belongs to program mode alone. The shutter button and the front windows are cut from synthetic sapphire. Kyocera charged 98,000 yen for the silver and 108,000 for the black.

What a buyer actually has to sort out is which of four things is in front of them, and one of the four does not exist. The finishes are titanium silver and titanium black. The 70 Years edition, marking seventy years of the Contax name, is identifiable without opening the box: the top plate is engraved Contax T3 in the old pre-war script instead of the modern CONTAX T3 capitals, and there is a commemorative logo on the body. The fourth is a T3 with the factory data back fitted, which Kyocera’s own manual calls the Contax T3 Data Back and documents inside the standard T3 instruction book, as an alternative back rather than a different camera.

That fourth thing is sold constantly as the T3D, and it is worth being blunt: no Kyocera document consulted here uses that designation. Japanese dealers are candid about where it comes from — one writes that a T3 with the data back on the rear door “is called the T3D” — and the same D suffix appears on dealer listings for the TVS and the TVS II. A T3D is a T3 with a date back. There is no separate model, no different lens, no different shutter, and no reason for a price premium beyond the back itself.

Two smaller identification points sit underneath the finishes. The take-up spool inside the film chamber has either one tooth or two; Japanese dealers treat the double-tooth spool as the later type and the single-tooth as the earlier, and it is the only running change to the camera anyone has documented. Kyocera never published when the change happened, how many cameras fall either side of it, or what was wrong with the first arrangement — the dealers who trade on the distinction say only that it does not usually move the price.

And there are no numbers. Not for the silver, not for the black, not for the 70 Years edition that every listing calls strictly limited, and not for the data-back version. Kyocera announced on 12 April 2005 that it was terminating the Contax camera business, having stopped production at the end of March, and the last shipments went out that September. Whatever the T3’s total was, the company that knew it published nothing before it closed the division, and nothing since.

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.

Example photos

Sample photo taken with the Contax T3
Shibuya at night — shot on a Contax T3 (Guwashi999) — Guwashi999 from Tokyo, Japan, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
Sample photo taken with the Contax T3
Takano River, Kyoto — shot on a Contax T3 (Keng-Yu Lin) — Keng-Yu Lin, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Contax T3? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $3,500 across 88 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $3,000–$4,000). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 3 days: up 3% from $3,400.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$3,500$3,000–$4,00088
2026-09-10$3,500$3,000–$4,00088
2026-09-06$3,400$3,000–$4,00095

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

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Listings updated 2026-09-11. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Contax TVS · Contax TVS III · Fujifilm Klasse S

Sources (13)

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.