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

Contax TVS III

Kyocera · Fixed lens · 24×36mm on 35mm film, hinged back · 1999

via machine translation — corrections welcome our own finding

Also known as: CONTAX TVS III · Contax T-VS III · Contax TVSIII · Contax TVS-III · コンタックスTVS III

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
TVS III titanium silver 35mm compact 1999 — No figure published
TVS III titanium black 35mm compact 1999 — No figure published
TVS III 2000年記念モデル (Year 2000 commemorative) 35mm compact 2000 — No figure published. Sold as a limited commemorative model; no limit has ever been printed
  1. No production figure has been published for the TVS III in any finish, and none for the Year 2000 commemorative model either. Kyocera announced on 12 April 2005 that it was terminating the Contax camera business — production had stopped at the end of March, and shipments ran to that September — without publishing numbers for anything in the line.
  2. This page is separate from the TVS and TVS II because the lens is a different design and the controls work on a different principle: a 30–60mm f/3.7–6.7 in place of a 28–56mm f/3.5–6.5, a motor in place of a zoom ring, and an electronic aperture in place of a clicked ring. Same family name, different camera.
  3. Two separate fives circulate about this camera and they are not the same fact. English Wikipedia describes the zoom as stopping at five focal lengths — 30, 37.5, 45, 52.5 and 60mm — which is a consequence of motorised stepping. Sunrise Camera describes the autofocus as 5点測距, five-point ranging, an upgrade from the single point of the earlier models. Both may be true; neither has been traced to a Kyocera document, and the coincidence makes them easy to conflate.
  4. The lens is given as 6 elements in 5 groups, with two aspheric surfaces and one element of anomalous-dispersion glass, by Kamerastore and by the Contax collection at submin.com. Unlike the 28–56mm on the earlier TVS models, no competing element count for it has turned up here — but the figure still rests on enthusiast writing rather than on a published Zeiss cross-section.
  5. Emulsive's compact camera test gives the TVS III a release date of 1991, a weight of 311 g and a maximum aperture of f/3.5. The first is impossible — the first TVS did not exist in 1991 — the second is 9 g under the figure in Japanese spec tables, and the third contradicts the f/3.7 engraved on the lens. The review itself is worth reading; the specification block beside it is not.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • A powered flat front cover that drives itself open and shut — the drawbridge, and the fastest way to recognise the camera
  • Vario-Sonnar T* 30–60mm f/3.7–6.7: a different lens from the 28–56mm carried by the TVS and TVS II, not a rehousing of it
  • Zoom by buttons, not by hand. The TVS and TVS II turn their lenses mechanically; this one does not, and that is the break that makes it a separate camera
  • Aperture set electronically through the interface rather than on a clicked ring
  • Sapphire glass over the openings; about 320 g and 116.5 × 64 × 40 mm — lighter and smaller than a TVS II

TVS III titanium silver:

  • Natural titanium with a stippled surface finish

TVS III titanium black:

  • Black-finished titanium over the same body

TVS III 2000年記念モデル (Year 2000 commemorative):

  • Body colours outside the standard titanium range — a blue example is documented by the dealer Yaotomi

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film, hinged back
Finder
Real-image zoom finder, larger and brighter than the TVS II's · no rangefinder image
Shutter
electronically controlled leaf shutter in the lens, seven blades · 16 s – 1/1000 · self-timer
Film advance
motorised: automatic loading, advance and rewind
Back
hinged; a data-back version was catalogued
Meter
Silicon photodiode cell, program and aperture-priority automatic with exposure compensation. DX coding reads ISO 25 – 5000.
Weight
320 g
Dimensions
116.5 × 64 × 40 mm
Country
Japan
Original price
Not established. Ishii Camera, which gives launch prices for the rest of the line — 170,000 yen for the first TVS in 1993 and 150,000 for the TVS II in 1997 — prints no price for the TVS III. A figure of 160,000 yen circulates in Japanese retail writing and in search-engine renderings of it, and no page carrying it could be opened here, so no numeric price is recorded in this entry.

Where sources disagree

Introduction
  • 1999 (Ishii Camera and Sunrise Camera, both stating 1999年発売; one-scene.com dates it two years after the 1997 TVS II)
  • 2000 (contax-camera.com; Kamerastore; most English-language writing)

Better supported: 1999 in Japan

Three Japanese dealer sources give 1999, and the spacing they describe — 1993, 1997, 1999 — is internally consistent with the launch prices Ishii Camera gives for the two earlier models. The likeliest reading is a Japanese launch in 1999 and Western availability in 2000, sharpened by the Year 2000 commemorative model that Kyocera sold under the same name. No source states that explicitly, so both dates stand.

Weight
  • 320 g (kakaku.com's specification record)
  • 311 g (Emulsive)

Better supported: 320 g

The Emulsive specification block also dates the camera to 1991 and gives the wide end as f/3.5, both demonstrably wrong, which lowers confidence in the weight beside them. Neither figure says whether it includes the battery.

What reviewers say

History

The TVS III shares a name with the TVS and the TVS II and very little else. The lens is a new Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* 30–60mm f/3.7–6.7 of six elements in five groups, with two aspheric surfaces and an anomalous-dispersion element, where the earlier cameras carry a 28–56mm f/3.5–6.5. The zoom is driven by buttons rather than turned by a ring. The aperture is set electronically rather than clicked on the barrel. The front of the camera is a powered flat cover that opens itself, which is why every review reaches for the word drawbridge. At about 320 g and 116.5 × 64 × 40mm it is smaller and lighter than the TVS II it replaced, and the leaf shutter runs to 1/1000 s across seven blades.

The date is the first thing to settle, because a buyer will meet both. Japanese dealer literature is consistent: 1999, two years after the TVS II and six after the first TVS. English-language sources are just as consistent on 2000. There is a plausible bridge between them — a Japanese launch late in 1999 reaching Western shops the following year — but there is also a complication, because Kyocera sold a Year 2000 commemorative model of this camera, a limited release in colours outside the standard titanium range, of which a blue example is documented by a Japanese dealer. A camera with the year 2000 on it, sold in 2000, is an efficient way to move a launch date. That reading is this project’s own; no source consulted advances it, and both years are recorded above rather than one being quietly chosen.

Two claims about the number five attach themselves to this camera and should not be merged. English Wikipedia describes the zoom as offering five focal lengths — 30, 37.5, 45, 52.5 and 60mm — which is what a stepped motorised zoom does. Sunrise Camera describes the autofocus as five-point, against the single point of the earlier TVS models. Neither has been traced to a Kyocera document, and a camera with five zoom steps and five AF points is exactly the sort of thing that gets flattened into one half-remembered fact.

What nobody knows is how many were built. No figure exists for the silver, the black, or the Year 2000 model that every listing calls limited. Kyocera announced on 12 April 2005 that it was leaving the camera business, having stopped production at the end of March and with shipments running to September, and it published no production numbers for the Contax compacts on the way out. The TVS III is the last film camera in its line, and the size of that last run is not recorded anywhere this project can reach.

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 wanted — shot with a Contax TVS III? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $800 across 31 fixed-price listings on 2026-10-19 (middle half $700–$1,100). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 9 days: up 14% from $700.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-10-19$800$700–$1,10031
2026-10-18$800$700–$1,10031
2026-10-17$800$700–$1,10031
2026-10-16$800$700–$1,10030
2026-10-15$800$700–$1,10031
2026-09-21$800$700–$1,00030
2026-09-18$700$32–$80038
2026-09-09$700$39–$92037
2026-09-06$700$39–$92037

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

Show 23 more listings

Buying from Yahoo! Auctions outside Japan. It is a domestic marketplace: sellers ship within Japan, and most will not register an overseas buyer. A proxy service bids on your behalf, receives the item and forwards it, for a fee and a wait. Buyee, Jauce and ZenMarket each accept a Yahoo auction number directly. Listed alphabetically for information — none is recommended over another, and none of these is an affiliate link.

Listings updated 2026-10-19. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Contax TVS · Contax T3

Sources (11)

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.