[rollei_list] Re: Contax IIa report
- From: Carlos Manuel Freaza <cmfreaza@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 5 May 2006 17:47:06 +0000 (GMT)
This was a very interesting message Marc, it has a
very well described historic context.-
All the best
Carlos
--- Marc James Small <msmall@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
escribió:
...
> Henry Schering is a highly respected repair man.
> However, many of the
> positions he sets out with regard to the history of
> optical and camera
> design are ones at variance with the conclusions
> reached by other scholars
> and I would suggest that you hold his positions with
> some suspicion unless
> confirmed from other sources.
>
> Zeiss Ikon was formed by a government-sponsored
> merger of four smaller
> camera companies under the leadership of the Zeiss
> Foundation in 1926 (a
> very similar deal brokered by the government led to
> the creation of
> Auto-Union, now Audi). At that time, the Zeiss
> Foundation was by far the
> largest optical firm in the world and was immensely
> wealthy. The
> Foundation decided to make Zeiss Ikon its prestige
> line and decided to make
> a premier 35mm camera to lead their wares. Immense
> engineering work went
> into the Contax and only the best of materials were
> used. The leadership
> of Zeiss Ikon during the 1930's was Heinz
> Küppenbender, who went on to head
> the German optical industry during the War and to
> head the Zeiss Foundation
> after the War; the Contax was designed by Emmanual
> Goldberg, a daring and
> innovative creator, and its development was headed
> up by Hubert Nerwin, who
> went on after the War to design the 70mm Combat
> Graphic in the US. These
> guys knew their business and were extremely
> competent.
>
> The Contax I was a work in evolution, but the Contax
> II and III were mature
> designs of great quality and ability, and the
> immense number of accessories
> made them versatile system cameras.
>
> Then came the War. Afterwards, the Zeiss Foundation
> was effectively
> bankrupt, and Zeiss Ikon was in even worse shape.
> Decent materials were
> not available in Germany at any price. The Contax
> designs were available
> but the Stuttgart plant had previously produced only
> large and medium
> format cameras under the Contessa-Nettel and Zeiss
> Ikon names, and there
> was no tooling or industrial expertise for the
> production of
> miniature-format (35mm) cameras. And, as you note,
> the Contax tooling had
> been seized by the Soviets for the most part and
> sent off to the Arsenal
> Works in Kiev. A comparison in the production
> capacity of Zeiss Ikon
> before and after the War can be seen by examining
> the order number index
> produced by the Zeiss Historica Society: The
> compilation of Prewar numbers
> runs to some 67 pages in fine type; the Postwar
> index runs to only 7 pages
> in larger type. The Zeiss Foundation was anxious to
> resume produciton of
> the Cointax but, in the end, Zeiss Ikon had to
> reinvent the wheel and had
> almost no resources with which to do so.
>
> The Prewar VF/RF is vastly better than that of the
> Postwar model, in
> measure because Zeiss Ikon had enjoyed much better
> access to fine optical
> glass than did the Postwar concern.. The Prewar
> Contax uses brass slats in
> its shutter; brass was just not economically
> available in 1950, so the
> Postwar Contax uses aluminium shutter slats which
> require a redesigned
> shutter and which only have about 1/10 the service
> life of the brass
> shutters. Fit and finish on both Prewar and Postwar
> Contax cameras are
> generally good but the materials used on the Prewar
> cameras are
> incomparably better.
>
> There are no differences between the BD and CD
> versions of the IIa/IIIa and
> Schering is simply wrong to suggest this. The
> factory makes no mention of
> this in its repair manuals and, in fact, a BD camera
> could be converted to
> a CD, as was my IIa.
>
> The most authoritative works on the Contax range is
> ON THE TRAIL OF THE
> CONTAX by Hans-Jürgen Kuc, available in both German
> and English editions.
> He discusses the Prewar and Postwar cameras and the
> constraints which
> caused the Postwar cameras to be less satisfactory
> than the Prewar cameras
> from a users perspective.
>
> Had the War not occurred, the Contax IV and the
> Leica IV would have been
> competing in the marketplace by 1942. As it was,
> Leitz made the jump
> Postwar to the M series but avoided the SLR until
> 1964, while Zeiss Ikon,
> after producing two prototype Contax IV cameras in
> the mid-1950's, decided
> by 1957 to end Contax production and to go over to
> the dark side with the
> Contarex, the camera system which eventually
> bankrupted the company.
>
> Marc
>
> msmall@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Cha robh bàs fir gun ghràs fir!
>
>
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