Contax - Revealing the "Unknown" (Part 4 of Iconic Camera's)

[@kenblair2538]

Great series, I loved all 4, just happy I have a nice collection. One gets lots of use, others are backup. Thanks. KB

[@DrJon-zf2xo]

Very much enjoyed. I suggest that your Contax III with X synch and coated lens is a post war conversion but a very capable repair person. I have a Contax A with hybrid color black dial that looks factory but the Contax repair expert I contacted said this was a conversion not factory. It has a black and colored dial and factory like top plate and colors for the only shutter speeds for M and X synchronization. The dial looks factory and colors are exactly those of teh full color dial. The Contax A black dial synchronization, while appearing stupid today, may have made a lot of sense at the time. The contacts for X synchronization apply hundreds of volts and Zeiss may have wanted to keep that voltage away from the camera and the photographer. During the War there were no German strobe units and it they had them they would not have needed a coated lens. Don't underestimate what Contax service people were capable of doing.

[@fretlessfender]

No, this explanation doesn't hold up! My 3 has this factory mold that nobody except the factory could or would make, the coating on the lens is very thin... After the war you could send in your uncoated lenses back to Zeiss to have them coated... but this coating is much thicker! Allmost like the Russian variants... because of this I stick with my story...

[@fretlessfender]

During the war they had strobes! It was not commonly known, but they had them, allthough it was a state secret.

[@DrJon-zf2xo]

How does one keep a strobe a secret? unless they kill everyone after taking their photo.@@fretlessfender

[@jlwilliams]

02:45 Anti-reflection coating via vacuum deposition (the method still used today) was proposed by Professor John Strong in a 1936 paper in the Journal of the Optical Society of America (v26, pp73-74) and first became available in the US in December 1938 (per “Lenses in Photography,” by Professor Rudolf Kingslake, Case-Hoyt Corp., 1951.) Strong's method used calcium fluoride, which was suitable only for interior surfaces because of its softness; Zeiss later was able to extend the technology to harder materials, but to say that coating was a Zeiss-developed military secret seems excessively enthusiastic…

[@fretlessfender]

I know, but I stumbled across some papers that prove this... It was a military "secret" so not for the commercial market. Post war, it became common because declassified. My research found a person in the UK that developed coating in the late 20's... But as so often... the truth lies somewhere in between I guess...

[@ElGuardaespaldasSilencioso]

Could be a prototype for the Submarine to be able to take pictures inside the sub. They would need flash for that.

[@fretlessfender]

You would think that, but standard issue for U-boat was a Contax 2 and not a 3. Besides, high voltages in a damp environment don't match very well. KriegsMarine camera's all have this extra serial number starting with KM XXX (I wonder why?)

[@alexcarrillo5510]

No Wait - I have seen on Printest that they shown a photo of the Prototype of the Contax 4 with film wind, and also You have to do a chapter in Why? Zeiss DROPPED! the RF Line for the SLR line since the Contax S & D was announce, and also the Zeiss Biotar F/2.0 Zeiss Jena lens in which I own 2 of these lenses on my Pentacon F & Praktina FX & IIa models. Do not leave us hanging with Suspense. So the Contax S in 1949, when did the Contax D release, and not to mention the Contaflex, and the Contarex Models??

[@fretlessfender]

I know how you feel, trust me. But rest assured... The contaflex was a big failure in so many ways... cost, reliability and sales... Nevertheless a lot of manufacturers started copying Zeiss' designs.Up to a point that Zeiss teamed up with Voigtländer to produce a SLR to contest the Japanese production. And they failed again... My estimate is that they better developed the Contax line to compete with the Leica. They weren't far behind, and with relatively low cost, they could have made a big competitor for the M3. They chose to go with the Contaflex...

[@DrJon-zf2xo]

When I lived in Schevengen in teh late 1950's I longed for a Voightlander Vitessa I saw in tehwindow of a camera shope every day I walked by it on my home fro school. I later had one and loved it until I lost it to theft. If you have not tried them you might enjoy using a the folding Vitessas. That name is French for "very Fast" and they are. ' The 50 f/2 Ultron is a match for the Sonnars and Summicrons, and, if anything is a bit sharper a f/2. They are a lot of fun to use and when the rangefinder is correctly aligned take very fine photos. Their Vito III is also very fine but lacks the creative mechanics of the Vitessa. A related fun fact is that the Voightlander Prominent has a double bayonet. Their wide and long lenses attach to both. They have a special reason for doing this, which shows that they really understood optics!

[@fretlessfender]

Of you steal, you better steal from the best! The Ultron was heavily based on the Sonnar...

[@DrJon-zf2xo]

They were all "Stealing" from each other. Kingslake classifies the Sonnars as triplet based and the Ultron as a Symmetric and they lenses look a lot different. The Sonnars were cemented groups to a larger extent than the Ultron and similar Biotars. If they borrowed from Zeiss it was more likely to have been the Biotar @@fretlessfender