Film camera with LCD screen to preview exposure

Many (20?) years ago, I posted a question on this site asking why film cameras couldn't have a rear screen to preview composition and especially exposure, in the way digital cameras do, and I got sensible answers to the effect that there were just too many other variables involved for any preview to be useful/reliable in practicality.

Just today I came across an old marketing leaflet for the Contax N1 autofocus SLR, mentioning the optional "Contax FE-1" LCD display for previewing composition and exposure. It could be mounted to the camera's hotshoe, but also seemingly usable separate from the camera, as a kind of (wired?) remote release.

It seems my suggestion all those years ago was maybe not so crazy after all. I know of course why, ~20 years ago, digital photography took over from film photography, but I'm curious if this FE-1 device was any good, and why other camera manufacturers never explored this innovation in their last-ditch efforts to sell film bodies to the masses.

I seen to recall reading about an APS film camera that could display the last photo taken on a rear LCD screen.

Does anyone remember which camera that was?

The 2001 “Kodak Advantix Preview” had a rear screen to display your last photo taken.

It is not a preview, but you can review the photo you just took to see if is okay or needs to be retaken.

No wonder it wasn't embraced by the market

It's not obvious to me what clear flaw you see. Can you elaborate?

Many (20?) years ago, I posted a question on this site asking why film cameras couldn't have a rear screen to preview composition and especially exposure, in the way digital cameras do, and I got sensible answers to the effect that there were just too many other variables involved for any preview to be useful/reliable in practicality.

 

Just today I came across an old marketing leaflet for the Contax N1 autofocus SLR, mentioning the optional "Contax FE-1" LCD display for previewing composition and exposure. It could be mounted to the camera's hotshoe, but also seemingly usable separate from the camera, as a kind of (wired?) remote release.

 

It seems my suggestion all those years ago was maybe not so crazy after all. I know of course why, ~20 years ago, digital photography took over from film photography, but I'm curious if this FE-1 device was any good, and why other camera manufacturers never explored this innovation in their last-ditch efforts to sell film bodies to the masses.

All those cables...

A nice write-up on that APS camera that Mike mentioned...

A Quirky Guy with a Camera: Digitalesque: The Kodak Advantix Preview

That Contax contraption is basically just a low rez compact digital camera - minus any storage - stuck on top of a film camera and peering through its viewfinder.

Will it detect potential over or under exposure? Probably not.

From Contax's manual:

"The brightness range that can be displayed on the LCD is narrower than that of the film, so the displayed data is not the same as the film's."

All the disadvantages of early digital sensors combined with all the disadvantages of film then. Sounds like a winner.

All the disadvantages of early digital sensors combined with all the disadvantages of film then. Sounds like a winner.

Well, I get that this accessory LCD viewfinder was pretty rudimentary, but it was an interesting exploration I think, and certainly could have been improved.

I don't really get the comment about the disadvantages of film though. Don't you think there was any merit in choosing film over digital in 2001 or whenever this came out? Some attempt towards being able to preview exposure sounds like a worthy innovation to me - even if this FE-1 was not it. Side note... I often feel a bit perplexed and disillusioned when I read users on a film photography forum basically dismissing film.

Well, I get that this accessory LCD viewfinder was pretty rudimentary, but it was an interesting exploration I think, and certainly could have been improved.

 

I don't really get the comment about the disadvantages of film though. Don't you think there was any merit in choosing film over digital in 2001 or whenever this came out? Some attempt towards being able to preview exposure sounds like a worthy innovation to me - even if this FE-1 was not it. Side note... I often feel a bit perplexed and disillusioned when I read users on a film photography forum basically dismissing film.

Seriously? Kyocera/Yashica was painfully out of step with a fast changing market. The N-1 was their belated effort at a Contax AF system in 2000--15 years after Minolta rolled out its AF cameras and lenses. There was a digital N camera that never apparently found a market. There was also a grave incompatibility issue with MF/AF systems that stranded Contax MF loyalists. Kyocera ditched the Contax line in 2005. With some research, you'd see that end-of-days film cameras from major makers betrayed a misreading of the uptake speed for their digital offerings. Nikon's F6, arguably a fluke that fell flat and far short of the usual F series standard, came in 2004 when digital was already fast eclipsing film.

Reality is that while film is now a stable residual market, film cameras aren't sold new online or storefront but rather scrounged second-hand off eBay and local social media

I just don't have much time for the fabulism and magical thinking that often seep into discussions of film photography in 2022.

"I don't really see the relevance of anything you just wrote."

Figures...Cheers. And thanks for making my points!

My dream is that the Morgan Plus-8 with a V-8 ford engine and a wooden car frame will be reissued:rolleyes:

I'd take a 3Wheeler any day. BTW, the chassis is mostly steel/aluminum with wood for the bodywork support.

As I remember, in 2001 digital was still either ridiculously expensive or only good enough for photojournalism. The various 2 and 3.2 meg P/S cameras that were touted as making "high quality 8x10 prints" were only capable of that if your tolerance for low resolution and high noise was considerable. I still remember the first sub $1000 digital Canon DSLR that had a top ISO of 800 and Fuji 800 color negative film looked infinitely better than the results from that Canon. Film, in 2001, was still a very competitive image making process if high quality was needed.

IIRC both Pentax and Contax had prototypes with 6 meg full frame chips in the early 2000's that never came to market. If they had, the camera world might look very different today. My understanding is that the rejection rate for large chips at that point was very high, leading to very expensive cameras that probably wouldn't have found a market.

My understanding is that the rejection rate for large chips at that point was very high, leading to very expensive cameras that probably wouldn't have found a marke

Yes, that's sort of true, except that the chips weren't necessarily rejected. Rather they could be sold in different grades, at different prices. (All high-priced, I presume cuz of low volumes)

I was involved in the building of a ground-up digital camera about that time, so have some behind-the-scenes knowledge. We had partnered with a fledgling hardware group with previous digital camera manufacturing experience. What they recommended was... buy the lowest grade sensors available - these were significantly cheaper. They had multiple column defects, including side by side. Our view was that these would not be suitable for a usable camera. Our hardware partner's response to this was, yes, but... the sensor manufacturer will not have enough bad sensors to fill our orders, and will thus have to complete the order with higher grade sensors. So the net cost per sensor, even after discarding sensors, would be less. Fwiw, the standard price of these sensors was about $6,000 US/each, in small quantities. At the time, digital backs using the same sensor were selling for around $25,000.

Today these prices are seen as very expensive. But at the time, this was just the business cost of getting into the new technology. No one else was getting it cheaper. If one considered the cost of operating a full-time portrait studio, seven days a week, including rent and labor, etc., a $25,000 digital camera was not that significant - simply part of the cost of doing business with advanced technology.

Kodak DCS Pro SLR

The prices of the early digital cameras (e.g., $27,481) were more appropriate for big-scale journalism and the Defense Department

EOS DCS 1 3,600,000 131 $27,481 $1.590 $43,695 EOS DCS 1 - Canon Camera Museum

EOS DCS 3 1,980,000 131 $15,115 $1.590 $24,032 EOS DCS 3 - Canon Camera Museum

EOS D2000 1,980,000 131 $15,115 $1.590 $24,032 EOS D2000 - Canon Camera Museum

EOS D30 358,000 131 $2,733 $1.590 $4,345 EOS D30 - Canon Camera Museum

The prices of the early digital cameras (e.g., $27,481) were more appropriate for big-scale journalism and the Defense Department

The chain outfit where I worked actually had, in 1995, some "experimental" portrait studios using a digital studio camera developed for us by Sony. It was called the DKC-ST5, was based on a 3-chip broadcast camera, and sold for around $25,000 to $30,000. We eventually had about 3 dozen of these in operation (no, I was not involved with those studios.) These were actually full-digital studios, using Sony dye-sub printers. (There was not much point in having an expensive digital camera without the ability to make prints; if you had to mail CDs to a lab for printing then it might as well have been shot on film.)

The real reason that cameras like this did not proliferate further in the portrait world is that digital camera prices began falling rapidly within a couple of years. I don't mean that these prices were unaffordable (to higher end studios) but rather that the learning curve was steep - by the time someone could learn to deal with the technology the camera prices had fallen to well under $10,000, or so.

The early (expensive) DSLRs weren't used for portrait work, not because of the cost, but because the quality (resolution) was not good enough. But for newspaper work, yeah, great. Images were even small enough to transmit via a relatively slow modem.

Well, I get that this accessory LCD viewfinder was pretty rudimentary, but it was an interesting exploration I think, and certainly could have been improved.

 

I don't really get the comment about the disadvantages of film though. Don't you think there was any merit in choosing film over digital in 2001 or whenever this came out? Some attempt towards being able to preview exposure sounds like a worthy innovation to me - even if this FE-1 was not it. Side note... I often feel a bit perplexed and disillusioned when I read users on a film photography forum basically dismissing film.

Yes 35mm film was better than digital in 2001. I have here the Nikon D1x which was around that time and sure enough it's images are not as good as what I can get with 35mm film.

The early (expensive) DSLRs weren't used for portrait work, not because of the cost, but because the quality (resolution) was not good enough.

You'd think so wouldn't you?

Some of the Kodak and other early expensive digital were actually surprisingly high-resolution for their time -- 6MP, 36-bit color. Canon actually specifically recommended some of them for studio portrait work.

You'd think so wouldn't you?

Some of the Kodak and other early expensive digital were actually surprisingly high-resolution for their time -- 6MP, 36-bit color. Canon actually specifically recommended some of them for studio portrait work.

Hi, yeah, I would say that 6 MP was enough for general purpose studio portraits. For years we sorta saw that as the holy grail of digital - the point at which we (the portrait chain) could actually make the jump from film to full digital. For us, a high-quality 8x10 inch color print was the minimum requirement, and a 6 MP camera could do this.

You (JDM) are probably not familiar, but our headquarters was practically in your backyard (I know from posts where you're from). We were a bit north of you, city across the river. If you know any of the photo professors from your local university, they'd be familiar (back then we always had summer interns from their photography degree programs). Anyway, it was a substantially large operation, and we probably saw near every viable camera option. To help make this point I sat in on presentations from Phase One, Megavision, and even Foveon with a proposed studio camera. As a large user of Kodak, Konica, and Fuji paper they made sure we had the opportunity to look at any cameras in their bailiwick. I mostly did the initial screening.

Essentially, none of these early cameras (nor the ones suggested by JDM) were suitable. For our purposes. The EOS DCS 1 had enough resolution, at 6 megapixels, but... wanna see your images? Download to a your computer vis SCSI, then use an image processing program to view. Whatayoudo if someone blinked? Usher the family back into the camera room? I guess you could. The digital backs had enough resolution, and could tether. But... no blur filter so moire out the wazoo. Unless you knew specifically how to avoid it for specific fabrics, etc. And if you can't keep your sensor protected from dust, well... everybody knows what happens. This sort of stuff is sorta OK if you do low volume hi-price work and can afford the retouch time. But for mass market portrait work, with appointments booked all day... no good.

These are the things that initially kept early digital out of "busy" portrait studios, not the high cost of the camera.