Finally Got Myself a Contax I....

[RanceEric]

Now it's off to be repaired! haha Last week I got my Contax I(b) after a long hunt for a Contax I. Shot the test roll of Tri-X this weekend. It seems the shutter likes to get stuck.. Out of 24 frames, only about 7 were unaffected by the issue.. I can't wait to get it back in working order..

Here's the new toy:

And here are two of the 7 shots that turned out:

I do like the look from the uncoated Tessar.. Everything seems to "glow"

 

[OlliL]

That's one beautiful camera!

I like the look, too.
Enjoy.

 

[The Standard Deviant]

Looks soo good!

 

[RanceEric]

Thank you, thank you! It's beautiful and so much fun to shoot with!

 

[dexdog]

The uncoated lenses do have a certain look. Although I personally would not use the word 'glow' to describe the look- why corrupt a Zeiss product with a term strongly associated with leica? 😀😀😀

 

[RanceEric]

The uncoated lenses do have a certain look. Although I personally would not use the word 'glow' to describe the look- why corrupt a Zeiss product with a term strongly associated with leica? 😀😀😀

Haha 🙂 How about "dreamy"?

 

[ddutchison]

now that's a camera!

 

[Vince Lupo]

Just checking in to see how things are going with your Contax? Still loving it??? Any new photos???

 

[RanceEric]

Just checking in to see how things are going with your Contax? Still loving it??? Any new photos???

Thanks! Definitely still loving it. I'm about to get off the train in NY and use it now! Haha thee are a few photos on my flickr (link below) but will hopefully be more after this weekend!

How about yours? So jealous of your luck!

 

[Vince Lupo]

Yes, things are good with it, thanks. I was thinking of reselling it, but I think I'll hang onto it for a while. Right now there's some colour film in there, and hopefully there won't be any scratches on the negs this time around. All the shutter speeds seem good, and I really can't believe it's in such fine mechanical condition (touching many pieces of wood!).

I just picked up a Contameter 1343 yesterday from eBay, so we'll see how that works out when it arrives.

I'll be interested to see how colour film looks through this camera - and yours too!

 

[RanceEric]

Yes, things are good with it, thanks. I was thinking of reselling it, but I think I'll hang onto it for a while. Right now there's some colour film in there, and hopefully there won't be any scratches on the negs this time around. All the shutter speeds seem good, and I really can't believe it's in such fine mechanical condition (touching many pieces of wood!).

I just picked up a Contameter 1343 yesterday from eBay, so we'll see how that works out when it arrives.

I'll be interested to see how colour film looks through this camera - and yours too!

Well if you ever decide you want to sell it, I would definitely be interested in buying it from you! ;-)

I'm interested to try color film with my Tessar.. have only shot Tri-X so far..

 

[Highway 61]

I do like the look from the uncoated Tessar.. Everything seems to "glow"

Far from that esoteric "glow" concept, this rather looks to be excessive flare, due to either greasy internal optics, glass veiling, or fungus.

Nothing personal but I can't understand why people still glorify that "glow" while a clean Tessar f/3.5 must take sharp and contrasty enough images (but for very critical contrejour situations - not the case here) in spite of its vintage and the lack of coatings.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I have a Rolleiflex, pre-war, with uncoated 75mm f3.5 Tessar. It flared like that too because it was hazy inside. Cleaning it out fixed it...it is very sharp and much more normal in tonal rendering, though it is not as contrasty as a modern multicoated lens.

 

[Highway 61]

Of course.

Single coating, when invented, improved contrast and flare control very marginally over uncoated lenses.

Multicoating improved things marginally over single-coating, especially in color, helping fighting against chromatic dispersion due to multiple ghost images inside the main image (not chromatic dispersion by itself of course) in critical contrejour situations.

With integrated coating (very recently invented), we come to something really interesting, and that fits digital photography - sensors do not like chromatic dispersion much.

So - there is a hoax about coated lenses vs. uncoated lenses : good uncoated lenses (and the prewar Tessar is one of them) must NOT provide ghosty/hazy/flary images when clean, without Canada balsam opacification, excessive dust, oily surfaces etc.

That "glow" thing just gets me ROTFLMAO.