The D850 is a dramatic upgrade from the D610: Nikon finally got their color issues sorted, and the 46 MP sensor resolution equals or betters any affordable used back for medium format.

Beyond 400, you're wasting your time: these old CCD backs were meant for bright sunshine or studio flash, not available light shooting.įor the amount of money you might risk on an old used Contax-compatible digital back, you could buy a new Nikon D850 to replace your D610 and achieve similar (if not completely identical) results. If you set ISO to a modest 200, picture quality degrades noticeably, with ISO 400 being even worse. Also, they are limited almost exclusively to ISO 50 or 100: not ideal for the handheld shooting most Contax owners prefer. Repairs can cost as much as the entire back itself, and require shipping to the country where the back was first made. Buying one of these orphaned older backs used on eBay is a risk: you might get a good deal, but if the slightest thing goes wrong with the back it will be incredibly expensive to fix. These backs originally sold new for the price of a Mercedes Benz automobile, and were marketed to professional photographers who could afford to buy or lease from a franchised specialty dealer who would support and maintain the backs. Note that older digital backs made for medium format cameras like your Contax were never intended for 'consumer' or 'amateur' use. Leaf and Phase both use the excellent Capture One raw file software to maximum benefit. If you see a nice Leaf back in Contax mount, consider that as well. Many prefer the 'fat pixel' colors and tones over other sensor designs, but they are very prone to moire issues when shooting fashion or portraiture. But they have the larger 'fat pixels' which are good in some ways and bad in others. P25 and P25+ are the cheapest 'full frame' models, with sensors closer to 6x4.5 film frame. Other models in that Phase lineup are also good, with the P30 being especially popular with Contax users. The Phase P45 recommended by coronawithlime is excellent, if you can find it and afford it. Backs for Hasselblad V, Hasselblad H and Mamiya/Phase mount are far more common in much greater variety to choose from. Unless you get lucky and find exactly the back you want when ready to purchase, you'll probably need to 'settle' for whatever back becomes available to you in Contax mount at a reasonable price. Good model digital backs (even not-so-good models) with Contax 645 mount are in very high demand but very limited supply.

Contax 645 digital back phase one