Kyocera introduced the Contax 645 AF in 1999. This high end medium format camera was aimed squarely at cameras like the Pentax 645N and Mamiya 645AF and, in many ways, surpassed them in terms of features.

The Contax had improved ergonomics, more advanced metering, a fast maximum shutter speed of 1/4000s, and legendary Carl Zeiss optics including the famous 80mm f2. The Contax 645 was never cheap, but it became a wedding photographer’s dream camera in the late 1990s and early 2000s before being discontinued in 2005 due to Contax leaving the camera market.