Front, with a folding van Albada finder in the accessory shoe.
Back
Shutter Speed, Winding Knob, Exposure Counter and Shutter Release
The Contax IIa has a metal, vertically traveling focal plane shutter. You set the shutter speed using a single dial that is concentric with the film winding knob, the exposure counter and the shutter button. Shutter speeds are 1 second, 1/2, 1/5, 1/10, /25, 1/50, 1/100, 1/250, 1/500 and 1/1250 second. Supposedly the shutter is good for 400,000 actuations.
The "black dial" version of the camera was synchronized for flashbulbs at 1/25 second or for electronic flash at 1/50 second. You needed to attach either the model 1361 sync switch for flashbulbs or the model 1366 sync switch for electronic flash. The switch screwed into a socket on the back of the camera and had a 3 mm PC sync socket for the flash unit. The reason for the different switches was that a flashbulb takes 20 milliseconds to reach full brilliance, while an electronic flash takes just a millisecond to reach full brilliance. The different switches allow for the difference in timing. The "color dial" version of the Contax, which came out in 1954, automatically switches between bulb sync and electronic sync when the correct shutter speed is selected.
The normal lens was an f/3.5, f/2.0 or f/1.5 50 mm lens, depending on how much you wanted to pay. The f/2.0 version seems to be the most common. You could get additional lenses ranging from 21 mm up to 500 mm focal length, matching auxiliary finders, reflex focusing attachments, close-up equipment, etc.
The Contax had an internal focusing helicoid for the 50 mm lens, which permitted the 50 mm lenses to be quite small. To remove a 50 mm lens you rotated the lens to the infinity focus setting, where it would latch. You held down the latch on the lens mount, rotated the lens counterclockwise and lifted it out.
Because when focusing they moved in and out at a different rate than the 50 mm lenses, the wide angle and telephoto lenses had their own focusing helicoids built into the lens. They attached to the external bayonet mount and coupled to the range finder. Both the camera and the lens had to be focused at infinity to attach or remove the lens. Close focusing macro lenses and long telephoto lenses attached to the Flektoskop or Panflex reflex focusing attachment. These attachments had a reflex mirror and a focusing screen built in, just like an
The f/2 50 mm Sonnar lens in the picture was manufactured in Jena, East Germany. The Zeiss plant there had been nationalized by the East German government after WWII, but continued to make products with the Carl Zeiss name for a while. Carl Zeiss, Inc., New York, imported lenses from the East German company; therefore, East German Zeiss lenses are not hard to find in the USA. Carl Zeiss, Inc. had been owned by the Carl Zeiss Foundation and functioned as the US agent for all Zeiss products. It was enemy alien property during WWII and was taken over by a federal Office of Alien Property Custodian. It continued to operate under federal control until it was returned to the Carl Zeiss Foundation about 1960.
The Contax IIa had some nicer features than the Leica IIIf which came out around the same time. The Contax had a combined viewfinder and range finder eyepiece, while the Leica had separate viewfinder and range finder eyepieces. The Contax had a single shutter speed dial, while the Leica had separate fast speed and slow speed dials. The Contax was easier to load because the whole back came off for loading film. On the Leica you had to remove the bottom plate and slip the film between the pressure plate and the film gate. Despite its features and excellent lenses, the Contax was less popular than the Leica. For one thing, the Contax was more expensive. The US list price in 1951 for a Contax IIa with an f/2 50 mm lens was $405, which had the buying power of about $4,000 depreciated 2019 dollars. A Leica IIIc with an f/2 50 mm lens cost about $350 ($3,500 equivalent). The improved 1954 Leica M3 and cameras from Japanese companies, notably Canon and Nikon, further cut into Contax sales and rather than update the Contax, Zeiss Ikon developed new single lens reflex cameras. SLRs proved to be for more popular than range finders; however, this did not prevent the Carl Zeiss Foundation from shutting down Zeiss Ikon in 1972. German precision cameras simply were no longer competitive with Japanese cameras. Leica managed to survive by going after the luxury market with astronomically priced cameras.
The Contax branded cameras made in 1974-2005 were built by Yashica (later Kyocera) under license from Zeiss. Zeiss still makes lenses and optical equipment.
Casts of the Elgin Marbles, the Parthenon in Centennial Park, Nashville, Tennessee.
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