A system consisting of two autofocus 35mm rangefinder cameras - CONTAX G1 (1994) and CONTAX G2 (1996), made by Kyocera, with fully electronic mount, electronically controlled shutter and TTL exposure meter, which supports aperture-priority automatic exposure metering. Both cameras had a sleek design and a durable body. Compared to the G1, the G2 had improved autofocus performance, and the shutter speed range was extended to 1/6000 sec.
A small but practical lens lineup consisted of autofocus models designed by Carl Zeiss and manufactured in Japan, as well as the manual focus Hologon 16mm f/8 lens, which was made in Germany. Since the G1 and G2 did not require a mirror box or pentaprism, lens designers had more freedom to design for higher optical performance. The viewfinder of the cameras zoomed to match the installed lens and corrected automatically for parallax and focal distance. Despite the fact that the lenses supported not only automatic, but also manual focusing, they were not equipped with a focusing ring, since focusing was always performed by a DC motor built into the camera.