Contax T2-Golden Opportunity?

[dee]

I have just bought a Contax T2 in gold anodised for £2 among the dross in a box of cameras in my local Charity shop.

A day or two before I had rescued a working Pentax K1000 with clean 50mmf2 for my K10d and a clean 50mm Canon just 'cos it was there,both for £5.
I am supposed to be clearing cameras,but rather like having a bayonet Pentax to go with the Spotmatic.

To my amazement the battery of the T2 was not quite dead, so it switched on and the flash operated in the shop [ a worry as it may have given the game away at to it's condition].
It's not mint-the finish is worn on the top plate with a minor dint, but i reckon it's a keeper to complement my Contax/Kiev.

Prices still seem to be keen for these little gems.

dee

 

[jsrockit]

That's a GREAT deal.

 

[Paddy C]

Congrats. Great find.

 

[BlackXList]

Fantastic find! well done

 

[dee]

..I am now trying to find out something about this camera-I remember that it was popular and expensive, but something about not opening out to f2.8 under certain conditions...
Could be worth a punt on new battery and out dated film though.
Neat to be be able to select aperture on that neat little lens.
I opened the back and it wound on when I closed it,so another concern covered.
Gold is kinda growing on me LOL...

 

[helen.HH]

lucky You, Great Find, Fab Price
yummy good camera
here's one with the T2


Untitled by helenhill_HH, on Flickr

 

[thejameskendall]

Worth a punt? It's agruably the best film compact camera ever made (though I prefer the size of the mju:II).

 

[dee]

Thanks everyone-I love that shot HH.

 

[xyz3450]

I have just bought a Contax T2 in gold anodised for £2 among the dross in a box of cameras in my local Charity shop.

A day or two before I had rescued a working Pentax K1000 with clean 50mmf2 for my K10d and a clean 50mm Canon just 'cos it was there,both for £5.
I am supposed to be clearing cameras,but rather like having a bayonet Pentax to go with the Spotmatic.

To my amazement the battery of the T2 was not quite dead, so it switched on and the flash operated in the shop [ a worry as it may have given the game away at to it's condition].
It's not mint-the finish is worn on the top plate with a minor dint, but i reckon it's a keeper to complement my Contax/Kiev.

Prices still seem to be keen for these little gems.

dee

2GBP!!! That is impressive & a great find. It is an outstading P&S!! 38mm FL, rather than 35mm. Lots of manual control. And the size is good to work with. I had one and sold it for the black T3 (slight regrets --should of kept both). The latter T3 is more 'boxy' and less intuitive control than the T2. But is smaller and has a nice zeiss lens too. Actually, very nice.

In the US Tocad of NJ will deal (excellently) with any repair issues if required (not sure if that helps you, but if it turns out to be near DOA it might be worth knowing that there is a repair path.) And yours is gold... surely worth posting a pic 🙂 Again, congratulations -- a stunning find and I hope it works out well for you. Out of interest a quick search found his gold Contax t2 at $400+ http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rare-Contax...450166363?pt=Film_Cameras&hash=item1c46fe785b

And what charity shop in the UK does these deals??? :angel:

 

[David Hughes]

... And what charity shop in the UK does these deals??? :angel:

Hi,

All of them, you just have to be patient and/or lucky.

Anyway, congrats dee. When are we getting a photo of it and then some from it?

Regards, David

 

[btgc]

Worn finish...I hope you asked for a minus 50% ? 😀

But seriously...sometimes I think all those rare, minty and sought after precious apparatus will end up in bins...so hurry up folks! It's time to use them now!

 

[David Hughes]

Hi,

I've noticed that they used to put cameras in the IKEA display cabinet and nowadays they fill a box to overflowing and dump it in a corner. No prices on the cameras and you have to empty the box to get the camera and manual and lens cap etc. And no prices on them, because cameras are a pound is the policy.

Luckily there are still a few shops that treat them well and even test them and take the dud batteries out.

I'm not sure which is the best way of doing it, from our point.

Regards, David

 

[peterm1]

When I shot film my T2 was a favourite compact. It was a gem. Particularly the lens which rendered brilliantly and was crazy sharp. About the only flaw I can recall is that the flash tended to over expose (an acknowledged flaw with this camera) but as I seldom used flash (and you could in any case exposure compensate) it was not really an issue. While some say the T3 is even better I found it a little small for my hand and in any event I liked the manual switches on the T2 which made operating it a joy.

 

[rjbuzzclick]

I also have a T2 I recently found in a thrift store (in a plastic baggie with another Kodak P&S) for a great price. It was quite a surprise! Check Butkus' site for the manual.

The deal with f/2.8 is that you can't force the T2 to shoot at f/2.8, that's the auto setting. Only f/4 and beyond can be set manually. At f/2.8 (auto mode) the camera uses the shutter blades to control the aperture, and they won't open completely unless the lighting conditions allow it. It also means that you get a different aperture shape in auto mode (square) than you get when setting the aperture manually (round).

 

[hamish_gill]

It does err toward shooting at 2.8 though if the lighting is low. A lot of compacts (Ricoh gr1, all the Fujis I have ever used...) will favour opening the shutter for longer over using 2.8.
The contax t2 is a great camera! Just a little heavy ...

 

[hamish_gill]

... Here, if your really bored, I wrote a load about it on my blog http://www.35mmc.com/22/11/2013/the-contax-t2-its-chunky-but-its-good/
There is a bit about when it chooses f2.8 vs other cameras

And good work on the find, I paid something like 125x what you did for mine ... Which is slightly depressing if I'm honest!

 

[Gregoris]

found this listing from 21 Feb. contax t2 sold for: 1 Euro!

is that even possible?

http://www.ebay.fr/itm/Contax-T2-Ka...o_Camcorder_Analogkameras&hash=item27f993360a