Contax
Contax began as a German camera model in the Zeiss Ikon line in 1932, and later became a brand name. The early cameras were among the finest in the world, typically featuring high quality Zeiss interchangeable lenses. The final products under the Contax name were a line of 35 mm, medium format, and digital cameras engineered and manufactured by Japanese multinational Kyocera, and featuring modern Zeiss optics. In 2005, Kyocera announced that it would no longer produce Contax cameras. The rights to the brand are currently part of Carl Zeiss AG, but no Contax cameras are currently in production, and the brand is considered dormant.
Historical overview
While the firm of Ernst Leitz of Wetzlar established the 24 mm × 36 mm negative format on perforated 35 mm movie film as a viable photographic system, Zeiss Ikon of Dresden decided to produce a competitor designed to be superior in every way. The name Contax was chosen after a poll among Zeiss employees. Dr. Ing. Heinz Küppenbender was its chief designer.Pre-war
Made between 1932 and 1936, the original Contax, known as Contax I after later models were introduced, was markedly different from the corresponding Leica. Using a die-cast alloy body it housed a vertically travelling metal focal-plane shutter reminiscent of the one used in Contessa-Nettel cameras, made out of interlocking blackened brass slats somewhat like a roll-up garage door. This complex shutter became the characteristic of the Contax camera and its Super-Nettel derivative. By contrast, the competitive Leica followed the established design of using rubberized fabric shutter curtains wound around rollers, moving horizontally. The Contax design allowed a higher maximum shutter speed: the top speed was s, then increased to s in the Contax II. The fact that the shutter ran across the shorter dimension of the format area was a significant factor for achieving this technical feat. The interlocking slats were aligned by specially woven silk ribbons, which were very strong but subject to wear. Replacing these ribbons was difficult but, contrary to modern cameras, made for a 400,000-cycle life.Zeiss also invented the System Camera, with all sorts of near-photo, wide-angle, mirror-house, long-focal-length lenses for specific situations. However Zeiss called it Universalkamera.
One of the key design features was a coupled rangefinder with a very long baseline, with its own eyepiece next to that of the viewfinder. To enhance accuracy, a novel rotating wedge system was employed instead of the common swinging mirror mechanism. Other main features included focusing drive built into the camera body for use with standard lens, removable back, shutter-speed knob integral with film-wind knob placed at the front of the camera body, and black-enamelled finish.
The young lens designer Ludwig Bertele, formerly of Ernemann, was charged with the responsibility of designing the lenses, including the Biogon and Sonnar.
The greatest advantage of the Zeiss lenses was the reduced number of air-to-glass surfaces in Bertele's designs. In the years before lens coating was generally practiced, this had advantages for contrast and resistance to lens flare. Zeiss also pioneered glass coating, and before the war coated lenses were offered. After lens coating became universal post WW2, designers were given more freedom in using extra air-to-glass surfaces in correcting lens aberrations, without fear of the ill effects of surface reflections.
In 1936 the Contax II and III models were introduced; the only difference between them was the integral exposure meter on the latter model. They introduced the combined eyepiece for both viewfinder and rangefinder, the shutter speed and film wind knob placed on the top plate, fastest shutter speed at s. and finished in chrome plating. They became very popular among professional photographers, such as Robert Capa and Phil Stern, especially photojournalists who demanded high-performance, large-aperture lenses for available-light work and a workhorse. The vertical shutter had both variations in speed, slit and a brake at the end of travel that was again a Zeiss first.
Post-war division
After the Second World War, a few Contax cameras were produced at the original Dresden factory, and some were assembled at the Carl Zeiss optical works at Jena, before production was transferred to Kyiv in Ukraine. During the war years, the chief designer, Hubert Nerwin, tried to convert the Contax into a single-lens reflex camera but was hindered by the presence of the upper roller of the vertical focal-plane shutter. The postwar design chief Wilhelm Winzenberg started with a clean slate, which became the Contax S, even though the "S" was not marked on the camera.The Contax S can be said to be the camera that defined the configuration of the modern 35mm SLR camera. Not only did it introduce the M42 lens mount which became an industry standard, but it was also equipped with a horizontal focal-plane shutter, and also removed a major objection against the reflex camera by offering an unreversed, eye-level viewing image by employing a pentaprism. Introduced in 1949, the S was followed by numerous models including D, E, F, FB, FM and FBM. During that period, VEB Zeiss Ikon, as the firm became known, was gradually under pressure from the new Zeiss Ikon AG in the US zone, so the original Zeiss Ikon and Contax names and trademarks gradually disappeared and were replaced by the new name of Pentacon, which never really caught on. Finally, this camera line was abandoned.
Meanwhile, in the US zone, the three main Zeiss concerns – Carl Zeiss Stiftung, Carl Zeiss optical, and Zeiss Ikon – were reestablished. With Hubert Nerwin in charge as design chief, Zeiss Ikon produced heavily revised Contax IIa and IIIa cameras at a new plant at Stuttgart until 1962. Zeiss Ikon also produced several SLR camera lines starting from the 1950s, including the Contaflex SLR, Contarex, Bessamatic, and Icarex, but none of these bore the Contax brand. Zeiss Ikon ceased camera production in 1972.
With the emergence of the Japanese camera industry, mainly a consequence of the US pressure on West Germany's Zeiss to cease collaboration with the East German Zeiss, and also the lack of raw materials the former was enduring, it was in a way forced to form an alliance with a Japanese maker. Asahi, maker of the Pentax, was engaged first; and it went as far as Zeiss designing a common bayonet lens mount, which constituted a detour from Pentax's adoption of the East German M42 mount; the new bayonet mount was named for many years as the "Pentax Mount" to avoid any accreditation to the Eastern Bloc, and later became known as the Pentax K-mount after the two firms parted company.
Licensed branding
An alliance was then formed with Yashica, and a new line of CONTAX single-lens reflex cameras was born, starting with the RTS of 1975. Numerous models followed, which also included autofocus rangefinders, compacts, medium-format reflex cameras, and digital cameras.Rival Leica in the 1970s and 1980s used West German Zeiss-designed wide-angle lenses for their own cameras. The 15 mm Hologon was the first super-wide lens on a Leica, and the Leica reflex had access to the 15 mm Distagon lens as part of the Leitz supplied range.
Image:Contax TVS digital hg.jpg|thumb|Contax TVS Digital with Zeiss Vario-Sonnar 2.8–4.8
Kyocera acquired Yashica in 1983 and continued to manufacture products under the Yashica and Contax brands. In the mid-90s came their Contax G1 with outstanding lenses and a little later the G2, both fully manual or automatic, featuring the first zoom lens for a rangefinder camera as part of a range of Zeiss-branded lenses from 16 mm to 90 mm. However, by 2002 the company's film camera products were declining in sales, and its newer digital camera products failed to make serious inroads into the digital-photographic market. In 2005, Kyocera discontinued all photographic equipment manufacture, including the Contax brand in 2005, thus, for now, bringing the Contax story to a close.
Zeiss Ikon cameras
Original (pre-war) rangefinder models
In contrast to the contemporary Leica which was evolved from its original concept into a photographic system, the Contax was designed as the heart of a photographic system from the start. A heavily engineered machine of tremendous complexity, it was Zeiss Ikon's showcase of the technology it possessed.The Contax I had six identifiable variants, but fundamentally identical; every aspect was designed to be better than the Leica. For instance, the removable back was for faster loading and reloading, the bayonet lens mount was designed for rapid lens interchangeability, the long-base rangefinder was for more accurate focusing with large aperture lenses, and the vertical metal shutter not only gave a faster maximum speed but also banished the problem of shutter blinds burning.
However, its operation was something of an acquired taste, which explains the more conventional successors, the Contax II and III models. Not only was the combined shutter speed dial and film advance knob placed at the more conventional position, but it became much easier and quicker to operate. The combined viewfinder and rangefinder was not the first one on the market, but it was the first on a system camera which offered significant operational advantage, a lead ahead of the Leica until the Leica M3 of 1954.
IIa and IIIa
Since the Contax was produced at the Dresden works before the war, the new Zeiss Ikon firm in West Germany did not have the tools to recommence production. The resultant Contax IIa and IIIa models, while sharing many similarities with the prewar forebears, also showed significant simplification and cost-cutting by using cheaper materials, due to the lack of resources. However, these simplifications were also largely responsible for making them somewhat more reliable.Designed to retain backward compatibility, the IIa and IIIa used the same lens mount as the prewar models, but due to the smaller dark chamber inside the lens throat, the pre-war Biogon 35/2.8 wide-angle lens could not be fitted.
The Zeiss Ikon Model 563/24 was a complete redesign of the previous II/III cameras, and was sold by Zeiss Ikon from 1950 to 1961. Gone were the troublesome silk shutter straps; in their place were straps made of nylon; a flash synch was added; and the body's size and weight were reduced. Shutters were still guaranteed for 400,000 cycles. The same internal/external bayonet mount was kept. This line was an engineering and manufacturing tour de force, and is considered by many to be the finest camera ever made. As with the II and III, the IIa was the base camera, and the IIIa had an added exposure meter attached on top of the camera. The shutter curtains were changed to duraluminium, lighter and faster to start and stop; however, they were thicker, too. The old Biogon did not fit, so a new one was designed together with the new Biogon 21 mm f 4, gave new perspectives to wide angle photographing.
Two basic variations of the IIa/IIIa were made: the so-called "black dial" and "color dial" cameras. The black dial cameras used a special flash synch cord for either flash bulbs or strobe flash. On the color dial cameras the ability to use the flash bulbs was eliminated; a P/C connector was added, and strobe synchronization was the only option. Where the Leicas of the day had only electronic flash synch at s second shutter speed, the Contax IIa/IIIa was synched at s and all slower speeds. Further, with the adjustment on the 1365 flash cable used with the Black Dial camera, the user could tune the flash to the individual shutter, and synch strobe to the s! At the time, this sort of shutter speed with a strobe was unheard of, and was a major technological feat. On the later color dial cameras, the s marking on the shutter speed dial was painted chromate yellow, while the speeds of T, B, 1, 2, 5, 10, and 25 were black, and 100, 250, 500, and 1250 red.
The Contax IIa/IIIa ceased production in 1960 and was removed from the company catalog in 1961, replaced by the Contarex SLR. Ed Shoenecker, the longtime owner of a Zeiss dealer in Portland, Oregon, Hollywood Camera, described the abrupt change: "We could not keep the Contax bodies and lenses on the shelf, people were buying all they could afford, and putting things they couldn't afford on lay-away. Then the new catalog came out, and the Contax was gone. No explanation at all. We were in shock. The camera that replaced it was a fine camera, but it cost so much more money, it never made the inroads into the market the Contax did. Then, we had to stop carrying the Contarex because they were just too much money."
There is a demand for good working examples of the IIa/IIIa by collectors and users alike. As user cameras, they are highly versatile, compact, easy to handle, and give many years of trouble-free service. The range of lenses made over the very long period of time the lens mount was in use, adds to the usefulness of this design.