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Rise of the Contax

The 1930's sci-fi camera that almost made it...


Almost anyone who’s spends enough time shooting or collecting prewar 35mm cameras will eventually encounter the black Contax rangefinder that Zeiss-Ikon introduced in 1932. Originally designed to take the Leitz Leica head on and knock them out of the then new “miniature camera” market, the first Contax ultimately flopped. Sure it had superior technical features compared to the original Leica such as a coupled rangefinder, a more elaborate build quality and of course superb interchangeable bayonet mounted lenses but as Zeiss was to learn… that simply wasn’t enough. Most collectors and historical narratives would have you believe that reliability issues led to Contax’s downfall and to some extent that is indeed true. They weren’t known as shining examples of reliability. Many cameras were returned for repair and adjustment. Many also have a factory modified serial number that attests to the internal modifications and updates they received. However with a certain amount of care and attention, the original Contax could in fact, work rather well. So to simply quote “reliability issues” as the reason to its demise is too simplistic. However if you actually work with an original Contax rather than just reading about it, the true reason for its failure becomes painfully and obviously clear. It may have worked in the cool deliberate hands of technophiles who enjoy the manipulation of precise mechanical things but for photographers more interested in capturing images rather than playing with cameras, it was an ergonomic nightmare…

Liston Flash… I think the shutter is firing correctly now.

Sure, the knobs and dials and little gizmos on its black body gave it a cool 1930’s science fiction, Flash Gordon kind of look but operating it is a real chore. The wind knob is located right next to the lens on the front of the camera. Turning this knob to advance the film and cock the shutter is marginally do-able with a small f3.5 or f2.8/5cmTessar lens mounted to the body. But with a fast f1.5/5cm Sonnar or the even larger f2.0/85cm Sonnar mounted on the camera it was and is a real pain. You simply can’t get your hand around the wind knob because there’s not enough space between the lens and the knob and you’re forced to use your finger tips in a short series of partial turns instead. Try doing that that on a cold day with stiff fingers or better yet, try doing it with gloves on… Even with the best of efforts it remains a cold, clumsy operation while the rest of your body risks enjoying a warm rosy glow of frustration.


Manipulating the dials on the Contax could be tedious at times…

That very same wind knob also functions as the camera’s shutter speed selector and in that task it certainly doesn’t score any better than it did at winding. Selecting speeds is especially complicated on Contax I with slow speeds (early examples didn’t have them) and literally make it twice as difficult. The slow speed equipped cameras often force you to juggle two setting to set a single speed because the wind knob/shutter speed knob is orbited by an adjustable ring dial that needs to be correctly positioned as well. That’s because the shutter speeds are divided into three groups (with appropriate descriptive German names for slow, normal and action) and you have to select the proper group before you can actually dial in the desired shutter speed. So if you’re unfortunate enough to need a shutter speed outside of the speed group you’re using, you have to select another group first via the outside ring dial and then pull the wind knob outward to turn it into a shutter speed selector and then rotate that to select a newly revealed range of shutter speeds…

If you all of this is a bit difficult to comprehend, don’t worry about it. It also confused the owners over the years who actually wanted to work with it, myself included. And writing about it isn’t any easier. Zeiss-Ikon with its infinite love of precision engineering understood early on that the public might be a bit confused by all of this. As an aid, they fitted the various dials with lot’s of little numbers, various alignment dots, a pointer, a notched indicator and two different colors to help you get things right… Yeah right.


Maybe if we all concentrate, we can read the little numbers…

Of course from a mechanical stand point it’s easy to understand that you can’t put large numbers on small dials but the mere presence of those small dials in the design was an indication that Zeiss-Ikon hadn’t thought things through from a marketing stand point and that their philosophy was diffused and muddled. After all, the Contax was intended to appeal to well heeled individuals and successful photographers but unless you’re born wealthy or lucky, financial success generally comes to people who’ve been around long enough to gain some experience. Experience takes time and as a result many of the successful individuals who were supposed to buy the Contax were middle aged and had less than perfect vision…

 Actually I don’t think anyone would have noticed or complained much about the slow handling of the Contax if it hadn’t been for Leitz. If there had been nothing to compare it to, most Contax users would naturally have assumed that working with such a sophisticated camera that accepted interchangeable lenses and used the new format of 35mm movie film, required certain innate mechanical skills. They might have actually prided themselves on it and enjoyed explaining the impressive intricacies of the camera to family members and laymen much in the same way people now enjoy showing off the complex features and menus of their latest digital wonders.

Unfortunately for Zeiss-Ikon, Leitz began marketing the Leica II rangefinder camera in the very same year the Contax was introduced. Leitz then followed it up the following year with the Leica III which added slow shutter speeds to the package… In comparison to that the Zeiss-Ikon’s Sci-Fi camera seemed clunky, over engineered and ultimately unsatisfying to photographers who wanted to travel light, move fast and catch the decisive moment. Add to that problem the financial climate of the 1930’s great depression, the significantly higher sale price of the Contax and the writing was clearly written on the wall for everyone to see…


Flash Gordon with an early Zeiss prototype wall cleaner...