Contax

Contax was a camera brand noted for its unique, and sometimes odd, technical innovation and a wide range of Zeiss lenses, noted for their high optical quality. Its latest incarnation was a line of 35 mm, medium format and digital cameras engineered and manufactured by Kyocera, featuring modern optics engineered by Carl Zeiss, which has an outstanding reputation for high quality photographic equipment. On April 12 2005, Kyocera announced that they would no longer produce Contax cameras.

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 its employees. Dr. Ing. Heinz Kuppenbender was its chief designer.

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 titanium (Titanium was a research oddity in the 1930s, and Zeiss could not have used it for shutter production. A Contax 2 owned by another contributor had blackened brass slats)

slats somewhat like a roll-up garage door. (By contrast, the competitive Leica used rolls of rubberized fabric moving horizontally.The Contax design allowed a slighter higher shutter speed: the top speed was 1/1250 second, as compared to 1/1000 second on other cameras with a focal-plane shutter or 1/500 second on a between-the-lens shutter.) The interlocking slats were aligned by silk threads, which were very strong but subject to wear. Unfortunately, there was no easy way to replace a broken thread: the usual method required bending and rebending tabs on the ends of the titanium slats, which often broke them. (The metallurgy of titanium is complex and was not well understood in the 1930s.) After the factory's supply of spare parts was exhausted, this became a fatal problem. The coupled rangefinder had a very long baseline, with its own eyepiece next to that of the viewfinder. Other main differences 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 finished in black.

The young lens designer Ludwig Bertele, formerly of Ernemann, was charged with the responsibility of designing the lenses. It can be said that with a few exceptions, Contax lenses were superior to equivalent contemporary Leica lenses for more than two decades. 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. After lens coating became universal post WW2, extra air-to-glass surfaces became an advantage giving designers more freedom in correcting lens aberrations.

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, and all finished in chrome plating. They became very popular among professional photographers, especially photojournalists who demanded high-performance, large-aperture lenses for available-light work.

A historic camera: the **Contax S** of 1949 — the first pentaprism SLR

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 Kiev 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 (Spiegelreflex), 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 35-mm 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, numerous models followed including D, E, F, FB, FM, FB, 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 line of camera was abandoned.

Meanwile in the US zone, the three main Zeiss concerns—Carl Zeiss Stiftung (Carl Zeiss Foundation), Carl Zeiss, and Zeiss Ikon—were reestablished. With Hubert Nerwin in charge as design chief, heavily revised Contax models, the IIa and IIIa, were produced at the new Zeiss Ikon plant at Stuttgart, and they were made until 1962.

With the emergence of the Japanese camera industry, Zeiss discovered that it was essential to form an alliance with a Japanese maker. Asahi, maker of the Pentax, was engaged first; and it went as far as Zeiss's designing a common lens mount, which became the Pentax K-mount after the two firms parted company. Then, an alliance was formed with Yashica, and a new line of Contax single-lens reflex cameras was born, starting from the RTS of 1975. Numerous models followed, which also included compacts, medium-format reflex cameras, and digital cameras.

Interestingly rival Leica in the 1970s and 80s used a couple of 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.

Kyocera took over Yashica in 1983 and maintained the Yashica and Contax brands, but the digital onslaught induced Kyocera to abandon photographic equipment manufacture in 2005, thus drawing the Contax story to a close.

Original Contax 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, 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 which remained for almost two decades.

Since the Contax was produced at the Dresden works before the war, the new Zeiss Ikon firm in Stuttgart 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.

While endeavouring to retain backward compatibility, the IIa and IIIa, introduced in 1950 and 1951 respectively, used the same lens mount as the prewar models, but due to the smaller dark chamber inside the lens throat, the prewar Biogon 35/2.8 wide-angle lens could not be fitted.

Dresden-built Contax SLR Models

The loss of the Contax production tools at the Dresden factories turned out to be a blessing, as it made impossible the use of the existing toolings and parts. The new design chief Wilhelm Winzenberg was not involved in the camera side of Zeiss-Ikon, this also allowed a brand-new Contax design to be developed, to follow Hubert Nerwin's wartime plan to make a Contax SLR camera.

As the traditional vertical-run Contax shutter required considerable space both above and below the film gate for the drum rollers, the upper roller takes up the critical space required for the reflex housing mechanism, making it dimensionally impossible to use it for a satisfactory SLR camera. Winzenberg solved the problem by the use of a completely new horizontal-run focal-plane shutter, thus allowing space for the reflex housing.

While the 35 mm SLR camera had already appeared before the war, its major disadvantage was the waist-level finder which gave a laterally reversed image, taking away the immediacy between the photographer and his subject. In the Contax reflex, to be called the Contax S, a pentaprism was positioned directly above the focusing screen, which offered an eye-level, unreversed view of the viewfinder. This major technical advantage was critical in establishing the 35 mm SLR as the definitive camera type for the decades that followed.

Since a larger lens mount would be desirable, the Contax S adopted a screw mount of M42X1mm specification, which was to become the de-facto industry standard.

When introduced in 1949, the Contax S was not marked as such, only "Contax", but increasing pressure from the new Zeiss Ikon company in Stuttgart induced Zeiss Ikon in Dresden to progressively abandon the use of the established trademark and names. The following model, known as "Contax D", first appeared with a little "D" marked under the Zeiss Ikon logo to signify its source as Dresden, but that was not good enough: in some markets it was sold as "Pentacon", a name contrived from "Pentaprism" and "Contax". Subsequent models were also made wearing both Contax and Pentacon nameplates, the former were meant for markets where Zeiss Ikon Dresden still held the rights to its name. Eventually, the company abandoned its original identity, and was merged with KW. In all, 22 Contax/Pentacon models were built in Dresden.

Yashica/Kyocera-built Contax Models

35 mm SLR models

The Contax name was revived in 1975 after the production of the Contax rangefinder cameras ended in Stuttgart more than a decade before. Like the first attempt at forging an alliance with Pentax, Zeiss designed a new common lens mount, known as Contax/Yashica mount (C/Y) to be used on cameras bearing both marques. The first model, the RTS (short for "Real Time System"), was designed by Prof. Dr. Katsuiko Sugaya, styled by the Porsche Design studio, and manufactured by Yashica. Utilizing electronics comprehensively, it was the beginning of the new Contax line of SLR cameras which brought 13 different models, with the exception of the S2 and S2b (named after the original Dresden-built camera) being fully mechanical. The following is a brief rundown of the major models:

Contax RTS
Contax Preview - a non-metered body with a mechanical shutter, a Polaroid Back and a Right-Angle Finder to correct the reversed image.
Contax RTS II
Contax RTS III
Contax 139
Contax 137
Contax CGCM - a severely stripped down 137MD used by the Swedish military and for recording images from oscilloscopes and similar screens.
Contax 159
Contax 167
Contax ST
Contax Preview II - an upgraded and faster mechanical shutter than the Preview.
Contax Aria
Contax AX - This had a unique autofocus system that worked with manual focus lenses by moving the film plane inside the camera. A side benefit of this arrangement is that it allowed the AX to feature a macro mode which worked much like a built-in 10 mm extension tube, allowing for a magnification ratio higher than 1:1 without the use of bellows or extension tubes.
Contax RX - A rugged, all-metal camera with a focus-assist system that would show an illuminated indicator in the viewfinder when the center circle was in perfect focus. The RX2 does not have this feature.
S2 and S2b - Titanium-bodied mechanical SLRs that only required a battery for the light metering system, not the operation of the camera, and was deliberately designed without exposure automation. The S2 had a spot meter, and was popular with some Zone System photographers, while the S2b had a traditional centerweighted meter favored by some photojournalists.

Contax G-Series

The G Series was a unique 35 mm autofocus rangefinder system with interchangeable lenses. Rather than displaying a typical rangefinder focusing patch and brightlines, the first G1 had a zooming viewfinder with a focus confirmation light activated by the autofocus system if manual focus was required. The actual AF system, unlike AF for SLR cameras, used a twin-window rangefinder, but the alignment determination was electronic.

The G2 was the second camera body in the series, and displayed manual focus distance directly on a viewfinder LCD. The G2 was generally considered more rugged and controllable than the earlier G1. Another improvement over the G1 was its full parallax correction viewfinder. A limited edition run of black G2 bodies and lenses were produced, differing from the standard titanium finish found on the original G1 and G2.

The lenses used optical formulae not often used by Zeiss, which had specialized in SLR photographic lenses for many decades prior to the G Series. (These formulae appear to be repeated in the later Zeiss Ikon Leica-mount rangerfinder cameras.) The G series also boasted the only true zoom available for a rangefinder system, made possible by the electronic coupling of the camera's viewfinder and the lens.

Contax T-series Compact Cameras

Kyocera introduced a series of highly successful T-series compact cameras, offering Zeiss-designed lenses which appealled to photographers desiring above-average picture quality.

Contax T, a compact titanium body rangefinder camera in the style of Minox GT-E, with a five element Carl Zeiss T* Sonnar 38/2.8 lens
Contax T2, a titanium body autofocus compact camera, featured a retracting 5-element Sonnar 38/2.8 lens, made in silver titanium, in black and gold plated finish
Contax T3, smaller than Contax T2, with recomputed 6-element Carl Zeiss Sonnar 35/2.8 lens
Contax TVS compact camera with zoom lens
Contax TVS II
Contax TVS III, with Contax T style front door cover.
Contax Tix an APS Contax camera.

Contax 645

A departure from the 35 mm format, the Contax 645 was an autofocus medium format SLR system, featuring an array of Zeiss lenses and interchangeable film and digital backs. One of its unique features was a film back equipped with the vacuum system originally developed for the 35 mm RTSIII SLR, which was claimed to increases sharpness by keeping the film perfectly flat in the plane of focus.

In addition to 120 and 220 medium format backs with film inserts for quick loading, including the previously mentioned vacuum back, many manufacturers offer a variety of interchangeable digital backs for the Contax 645 system:

Imacon
Leaf
Kodak
Jenoptik
Sinar-Bron
Megavision
Phase One

Contax N-Series

The Contax N-Series was an autofocus 35 mm SLR system. Three models were made, the N1, the NX and the N Digital, an ill-fated and now discontinued early Digital SLR. They use the new N-Mount lenses, and this means the system is not compatible with the older manual focus SLR system. Contax does sell an adapter that allows lenses from their 645 medium format system to be used on N bodies.

Electronic flash units

All of Contax's flash units were cross-compatible with all Contax camera systems, and Metz made a Contax-compatible control unit for its strobes as well.

Flash units available included (GNs stated at ISO 100):

TLA20 (GN 20)
TLA30 (GN 30)
TLA140 (GN 14) - Very compact unit originally designed for the G1
TLA200 (GN 20) - Compact flash unit originally designed for the G Series.
TLA280 (GN 28)
TLA360 (GN 36) - Best used with optional PS-220 Power Pack Set for faster recycling.
TLA480 (GN 48) - Bracket-mounted flash system requiring external Power Pack PS-120 for operation.
RTF540 (GN 40) - Bracket-mounted system with slaves, coloured panels, AC Power Unit, High Voltage Battery and standard Power Pack sets.

Metz SCA adapters:

SCA3802
SCA3801
SCA382 - Worked with the older cameras, but did not transmit ASA and aperture information on the Contax 645, Aria, RX, AX N1, NX, and N digital cameras.

Contax Interchangeable Lenses

Originally designed to be a system camera, many lenses were made for the original Contax, and this tradition carried on for all models with interchangeable lenses.

Lenses for the Original Contax Rangefinder Models

Traditionally, lens makers like to mark the location of the company conspicuously on their lenses. Therefore, from the beginning of lens manufacture up to the end of the Second World War, all Zeiss lenses were marked "Carl Zeiss Jena". Since the new Oberkochen-based Carl Zeiss Optical company is not in Jena, its products are simply marked "Carl Zeiss", while the original factory carried on using the "Carl Zeiss Jena" marking. For the first few years Carl Zeiss of Oberkochen used the "Zeiss-Opton" marking.

The original series of lenses for Contax were mainly new designs by Ludwig Bertele, under the Sonnar name which was previously used by Contessa-Nettel. These lenses were mainly advanced Cooke triplet derivatives of markedly asymmetrical designs, for the purpose of maintaining maximum image contrast by reducing lens flare before the era of anti-reflective surface coating, many of them also offering large maximum apertures as well. Apart from these, some existing designs were also adapted for use too.

The Contax I lenses were finished mainly in black, and offered in a wide range of focal lengths. These included the following:

Tessar 28/8 (non-rangefinder coupled)
Biogon 35/2.8
Biotar 40/2.8
Tessar 50/3.5
Tessar 50/2.8
Sonnar 50/2
Sonnar 50/1.5
Sonnar 85/2
Triotar 85/4
Sonnar 135/4
Tele-Tessar 180/6.3

The most important lens for the Contax II and Contax III was the 180/2.8 Sonnar, designed for photographers covering the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and the longest lens also reached a focal length of 500 mm.

While Jena continued to make some lenses for the pre-war Contax for a few years, lenses were also made for the Stuttgart-built post-war models, some were of new designs:

Biometar 35/2.8
Biotar 75/1.5
Sonnar 300/4

Apart from refining existing designs, Carl Zeiss of Oberkochen also designed new lenses for the post-war Contax too:

Biogon 21/4
Topogon 25/4
Planar 35/3.5
Tessar 115/3.5

Lenses for the Dresden-built SLR Models

Lenses for the Dresden-built Contax single-lens reflex cameras used the M42X1mm screw mount, but as existing designs intruded too far into the camera body, making the swivelling mirror unable to clear the back of the lenses, a new series of lenses were made by Carl Zeiss of Jena, and later on, Hugo Meyer of Görlitz was also engaged as the second official supplier of original lenses. The following is a list of lenses made by Carl Zeiss:

Tessar 40/4.5
Tessar 50/3.5
Biotar 58/2
Biotar 75/1.5
Triotar 135/4
Sonnar 180/2.8
Sonnar 300/4
Fernobjektiv 500/8

Lenses for Yashica/Kyocera-built SLR Models

The Yashica/Kyocera-built Contax cameras employed a new family of lenses. The names of these lenses generally reflect the designs and functions:

Distagon : wide-angle retrofocus lenses.
- F-Distagon : fish-eye lenses.
- PC-Distagon : wide-angle lenses with shift feature for correcting perspective convergence.
Hologon and Biogon : non-retrofocus wide-angle lens designs.
Planar : fixed focal length primes of very large maximum aperture that range from medium wide-angles to short telephotos.
Sonnar and Tele-Tessar : telephoto lenses, and Tele-Apotessar and Aposonnar indicated apochromatic correction.
Vario-Sonnar : zooms lenses.
Makro-Sonnar and Makro-Planar : macro lenses for extreme close-up work, based on the Sonnar and Planar designs.
Tessar : 4-element lenses of medium focal length, sometimes referred to as a "Normal" lens.
Mutar : teleconverters.
Mirotar : mirror lenses.

Most of these lenses were marked T* referring to their T* coating (pronounced "Tee Star"), a highly developed Zeiss multi-coating process. The 'T' came from a German word 'Tarnung', which means 'camouflaging', as in making invisible, used here in reference to making flare invisible.

While these lenses were designed by Zeiss and manufacture shared between Zeiss and Yashica's optical division Tomioka, Zeiss increasingly allowed Tomioka to take responsibility of their manufacture.

Lenses for Contax SLR Models

These cameras used the "C/Y" lens mount, short for "Contax/Yashica": Yashica being the lower-end consumer brand SLR system made by Yashica/Kyocera that shared its lens mount with Contax SLRs. Zeiss lenses in the C/Y mount came in either AE or MM varieties. MM lenses were more recent, with a setting that allowed the camera to select the aperture as part of its autoexposure system, while the older AE lenses did not. There was often no difference between an older AE and a newer MM lens apart from this feature. Sometimes, the older AE lens may be worth more on the used market because it may be a German-made example, while the newer lens may be Japanese-made, despite their optical formula and build quality being identical.

Distagon 15/3.5
F-Distagon 16/2.8 - Noted for its unusually high speed.
Distagon 18/4
Distagon 21/2.8 - Noted for its unusual design and sharpness.
Distagon 25/2.8
Distagon 28/2
Distagon 28/2.8
Vario-Sonnar 28-70/3.5
Vario-Sonnar 28-85/3.3-4
Distagon 35/1.4
Distagon 35/2.8
PC-Distagon 35/2.8 - Noted for its tilt and shift capabilities.
Vario-Sonnar 35-70/3.4
Vario-Sonnar 35-135/3.3-4.5
Vario-Sonnar 40-80/3.5
Tessar 45/2.8 - Noted for its unusual "pancake" design, being very thin and lightweight.
Planar 50/1.7

Planar 50/1.4 - Noted for its sharpness.
Planar 55/1.2 Anniversary lens
Makro-Planar 60/2.8 - Offers a higher magnification ratio (1:1) than the other MM macro lenses.
Makro-Planar 60C/2.8
S-Planar 60/2.8 - Old type of Makro-Planar 60 mm f/2.8
Planar 85/1.2 Anniversary lens
Planar 85/1.4
Sonnar 85/2.8
Planar 100f/2
Makro-Planar 100C/2.8
Sonnar 100/3.5
Sonnar 135/2.8
Planar 135/2
Sonnar 180/2.8
Apo-Sonnar 200/2 - Noted for its unusually high speed and an iris with extra blades for smoother bokeh and rounder highlights, designed for portrait and fashion work. It came with a set of drop-in filters.
Tele-Tessar 200/3.5
Tele-Tessar 200/4.0
Vario-Sonnar 70-210/3.5 AE
Vario-Sonnar 80-200/4
Tele-Apotessar 300/2.8 - Noted for its sharpness and stratospheric price.
Tele-Tessar 300/4.0
Vario-Sonnar 100-300/4-5.6
Mirotar 500/4.5
Mirotar 500/8
Tele-Apotessar 600/4 AE
Mirotar 1000/5.6 AE
Mutar I 2x teleconverter
Mutar II 2x teleconverter of high quality, designed to mate with long telephotos.
Mutar III 1.4x teleconverter

Lenses for G-Series

G-series Contax models used a unique bayonet mount offering auto-focus coupling mechanism.

Hologon 16/8 - Came with an optical viewfinder and a center filter to reduce vignetting. Noted for its extremely low distortion.
Biogon 21/2.8 - Came with an optical viewfinder.
Biogon 28/2.8
Planar 35/2
Planar 45/2 - Noted at the time of its release as the sharpest available lens for 35 mm photography
Sonnar 90/2.8
Vario-Sonnar 35-70/3.5-5.6

Lenses for Contax 645

The following lenses were made for the Contax 645. Additionally, with the use of MAM-1 adaptor, all the Hasselblad lenses including C, CF, CFE, CFI, F and FE can be used as well.

Distagon 35/3.5
Distagon 45/2.8
Distagon 55/3.5
Vario-Sonnar 45-90/4.5
Planar 80/2
Apo-Makro-Planar 120/4
Sonnar 140/2.8
Sonnar 210/4
Tele-Apotessar 350/4
Mutar 1.4x teleconverter

Lenses for Contax N-Series

Lenses for the N-series included:

Vario-Sonnar 17-35/2.8 - Noted for the unusually high speed for this type of lens.
Vario-Sonnar 24-85/3.5-4.5
Vario-Sonnar 28-80/3.5-5.6
Planar 50/1.4
Vario-Sonnar 70-200/3.5-4.5
Vario Sonnar 70-300/4.0-5.6
Planar 85/1.4
Makro-Sonnar 100/2.8
Tele-Apotessar 400/4

External links