Contax Aria Film Camera

This is pretty much the perfect camera for one to actually learn photography with. Sure Digital is cheaper to shoot and print, but the learning photographer will never learn to conserve his shots that way. You can have your favorite processing lab scan the film to disk instead of printing or mounting, so yes, you can still use photoshop with this camera. I am a died in the wool Nikon Fan yet I feel camera is better made than any Nikon in my collection and I have at least 1 or 2 of every Nikon made. If this camera had Auto Focus and was still in production I'm sure Nikon and Canon sales would suffer. When you press the shutter release there is a very quite shutter and mirror sound and very, very quite sound of the film winding to the next frame.The interchangeable focus screens are a boon and very handy if you can still find the ohe you want.
Film loading and rewind are a snap and fast with the camera's help. I have really big hands, some camera's are pretty difficult to handle for me. The Aria is a small camera, but is shaped such that I can comfortably grip it and use it one handed. The controls are clearly marked. even with my old near sighted eyes I can read the settings without using a magnifying glass of magnifier to see the settings. And when looking tru the veiw finder, exposure information is brightly and clearly seen on the right side. In my tests I would estimate 95-98% of the actual frame is in view. This is a better help than most imagine. When you take that great photo of your relative you'll see exactly what's in the background. Nothing is worse than a photo of the ones you are trying to portray with a trash can spilling over in the background. And beleive me this camera with a Zeiss lens mounted on it can bring capture everything in perfect clarity. If you open the aperture and cut down the depth of field it will help some. But I think most will use this camera in P mode and depth of field should be remembered.
Bottom line - You can't go wrong with an Aria. It it will never fail and if you do your part and you've mounted a Zeiss lens on it this camera will produce images to be proud of.
I highly recommend this camera and if you find one here on eBay buy it before I see it, because I want another and I will do my darndest to get it.