The story
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 1⁄1000s, then increased to 1⁄1250s 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 1⁄1250s. 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 (Spiegelreflex, literally "Mirror reflex"), even though the "S" was not marked on the camera.
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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 Foundation), 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 (as Voigtländer, which had been acquired in 1956), 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.
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.
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.
Lenses for the original 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 Unar/Protar 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-III lenses were initially finished in black (for Contax I), but later in chrome (for Contax II and III), and offered in a wide range of focal lengths. These included the following:
Tessar 80/2.8 (not rangefinder coupled)
Biogon 35/2.8 (by Ludwig Bertele)
Biotar 40/2.0
Biotar 42.5/2.0
Tessar 50/3.5
Tessar 50/2.8
Sonnar 50/2.0 (1931 by Ludwig Bertele)
Sonnar 50/1.5 (1932 by Ludwig Bertele)
Sonnar 85/2.0 (1932/33 by Ludwig Bertele)
Triotar 85/4.0
Sonnar 135/4.0 (1932/33 by Ludwig Bertele)
Panflex Tessar 135/4.0 (ca. 200 made, about 10 lenses known to date, to be used with prewar Panflex)
Tele-Tessar 180/6.3
Sonnar 180/2.8 (1936 by Ludwig Bertele), often called "Olympia-Sonnar"
Tele-Tessar 300/8.0
Sonnar 300/4.0
Fernobjektiv 500/8.0
One of the most important lenses for the Contax II and Contax III was the 180/2.8 Sonnar, designed for sports photographers covering the 1936 Berlin Olympics allowing fast speed, and the longest lenses also reached a focal length of 30 cm and 50 cm, delivered with their own mirror housing.
Zeiss developed also some experimental/prototype wide-angle lenses that never saw the market, because they were either 1) too expensive for production, 2) the market was not appropriate. 3) they were outcompeted by other lenses of the series. These were:
Sphaerogon 19/8.0 (50 lenses made, only 2 survived so far)
Perimetar 25/6.3 (50 lenses made, only 1 survived so far)
Dagor 25/8.0 (2 lenses made, only 1 survived so far)
Topogon 25/4.5 (50 lenses made, only 1 survived so far)
During the war, CZ (Zeiss) made some special Military lenses like Sonnar 1.5/9 cm, Sonnar 1.5/12.5 cm, Biotar 2.0/13 cm, 1,5/40 cm (project UHU), still very rare constructions. Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe demanded CZ and CZ lenses for their Leicas and Robots too.
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:
Topogon 25/4.0
Biometar 35/2.8
Tessar 50/3.5 collapsible mount
Sonnar 50/2.0 rigid mount
Sonnar 50/1.5 rigid mount
Biotar 75/1.5
Biometar 80/2.8 (only 5 lenses made in 1949)
Sonnar 135/4.0
Sonnar 180/2.8
Sonnar 300/4.0
Fernobjektiv 500/8.0
Apart from refining existing designs, Carl Zeiss of Oberkochen also designed new lenses for the post-war Contax IIa/IIIa too:
Biogon 21/4.0 (1951 by Ludwig Bertele, later working at Wild Heerbrugg, Switzerland)
Biogon 35/2,8 had to be redone to fit into the new IIa and IIIa cameras (smaller dark room due to thicker dural lamells in shutter)
Planar 35/3.5
Tessar 50/3.5 rigid mount
Sonnar 50/2.0 rigid mount
Sonnar 50/1.5 (multi coated)
Sonnar 85/2.0 made in both aluminum and chrome mount
Tessar 115/3.5 (Panflex-Tessar to be used with Panflex)
Sonnar 135/4.0
From Wikipedia’s article on Contax, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3