Contax I ribbons

[Shafovaloff1]

I had previously had capping at 1/1000 and found that the center spring on the bottom unit was deformed and, and, the piece glued to the cylinder had been moved to the wrong position or the tube reversed during a repair before I bought the camera. I think it serves as a brake and may also improve the co-ordination of the acceleration of the two curtains movement...since I am not a professional all I can do is speculate. I had put the thin ribbon in at one point but redid the ribbon job with something like 0.15mm but changed the method of tensioning. I think the thin ribbon, if used, with proper tensioning would render like OEM speeds but the effort exhausted me and I am happy using what I know to be the results of my efforts so far. Thanks for all your advices from those posting methods for the rebuilding of these fine pieces of camera art.

 

[Shafovaloff1]

I read Corsi's Patent on the roller for the first curtain on his Rectaflex and his design of the ends of the take-up spool and how the thicknesses of both the ribbon and curtain affect acceleration of the curtains...who would know!?

 

[Shafovaloff1]

I know I am going on but I hope there can be a consolidation of the tips on repairing the Contax I. IMHOP it is underrated because of its successor the Contax II which I have "worked on" without the assistance of a repair manual, though there is something published there but unlike the Contax II there is no repair manual for the Contax I. (Maybe in Russian?)Time is valuable...more so the older I get so the compilation would be a nice thing to avoid trial and error where it is not necessary.

 

[ryanguoan]

Hello,my contax i have a problem that is the shutter group wheel is very stuck,I don't know where to disassemble to see the problem,Do you have any shutter group's repair experience?

 

[Erik van Straten]

From time to time I use my working Contax 1 model 4. This Contax 1 is the only working Contax 1 I know of.

gelatin silver print (contax 1 v4) sonnar 50mm f1.5 1934

Erik.

 

[Erik van Straten]

gelatin silver print (contax 1 v4) sonnar 50mm f1.5 1934

Erik.

 

[Erik van Straten]

gelatin silver print (contax 1 v4) sonnar 50mm f1.5 1934

Erik.

 

[Erik van Straten]

gelatin silver print (contax 1 v4) sonnar 50mm f1.5 1934

Erik.

 

[TenEleven]

I have a working Contax I model 7 and I sold one more as it came with a lens I wanted (but worked completely fine). They can be serviced here in Japan, so there are quite a lot of working ones floating around here, and after service they appear to work reliably.

They are however, even to me as a Contax (RF) shooter, not my preferred way of shooting. (That would be the II and IIa) The positioning of the shutter/wind dial is kind of clumsy. It is very easy to accidentally change the aperture of the lens while trying to wind on or set the shutter speed. Or to bump the hood, see below...

Very nice looking camera though. I actually like the boxy design, and the enormous rangefinder baselength makes accurate focus with the 1.5 a snap.

Here's a recent picture I took with that setup. Excuse the vignette, in my hurry to grab the shots of the ravens flying in I bumped the original brass hood and did not notice it sat askew with respects to the lens/film-plane.

 

[Erik van Straten]

I didn't know they can be serviced in Japan. Can you give me the address? I have some others for repair.

Perhaps mine is serviced in Japan too!

Yes, they are clumsy to use, but that is not always bad. You have to think about the use and that thinking sometimes helps to concertrate on the subject you want to shoot.

Anyway, it is a character machine that can produce great photos.

Erik.

 

[Erik van Straten]

I bumped the original brass hood and did not notice it sat askew with respects to the lens/film-plane.

Erik: I have the original hood too, but it "sits" not really well on the lens, falls off all the time. I've found a 40.5mm hood that fits into the filter ring, but it is just a little bit to long, it vignettes on infinity at small f-stops. I will ask my bike-repairman to make it a bit shorter.

Erik.

 

[TenEleven]

I didn't know they can be serviced in Japan. Can you give me the address? I have some others for repair.

Perhaps mine is serviced in Japan too!

Yes, they are clumsy to use, but that is not always bad. You have to think about the use and that thinking sometimes helps to concertrate on the subject you want to shoot.

Anyway, it is a character machine that can produce great photos.

Erik.

I guess there would be "Kanto Camera". カメラ修理｜Kanto Camera ｜（株）関東カメラ
They are however neither cheap or fast. But for 35mm rangefinders they are very good - I would not personally send them medium format gear, but that's another story.

There is also a person going by the handle of "Orthometar" (The Contax lens) but he just sells Contax I bodies he has serviced and after my initial inquiries he has responded that is no longer interested in taking on extra work as he wants to work at his own pace, which is understandable to me and I did not bug him further. He is however fairly skilled, he even managed to re-align the Rangefinder of a v5 Contax I which is notorious for being an absolute nightmare to work on. My v7 is from him and it works very well and is quiet and smooth.

Agreed - I get a disproportionate amount of good (vs other cameras) photos out of my Contax I v7 - however I also do a disproportionate amount of annoyed muttering to myself when using it.

It has a bunch of "gotchas" such as needing to remember to put the 8,5cm finder-mask back after use among other quirks mentioned above. Also when trying to go for the 1/25 1/50 1/100 speed group I usually end up spinning past it on my first attempt. It's a different mindset for sure.

 

[TenEleven]

Also I think Erik probably already said it, but I guess it's worth re-iterating. The original (first version) Sonnar 5cm 1.5 is fantastic - especially when used on these Contax I bodies. It's optically different from the later types and to me a sort of high-water mark for Zeiss lenses. Side by side with a later "pre war" chromed lens the extreme (for an uncoated lens) transparency of the glass stands out. Whatever efforts Zeiss put into it, they clearly were deemed to costly and the next versions were "dialed back" a bit.

Sadly a common story among German camera makers.

 

[Erik van Straten]

They designed the first Sonnar 50mm f1.5 in a wonderful way - there were no computers yet - with a large group of mathematicians who were divided over a building who all performed a small part of the necessary calculations, as a kind of computer consisting of living people. It was still an enormous job.

gelatin silver print (sonnar 50mm f1.5 v1) contax 1 v4

Amsterdam, modern art gallery, 2023.

Erik.

 

[Mr_Flibble]

From time to time I use my working Contax 1 model 4. This Contax 1 is the only working Contax 1 I know of.

*cough cough*

I know of a couple more working ones in the Netherlands. 😇

 

[Erik van Straten]

*cough cough*

I know of a couple more working ones in the Netherlands. 😇

Yes, The Netherlands is a good country for Contaxes. Did you repair them, or were they still good, Rick?

Erik.

 

[Mr_Flibble]

I repaired two of them, a v4 and a v5 a few years ago.

I also have a v7 that works, but it's hard to change shutter speeds. Need to open that one up for a CLA.

 

[Erik van Straten]

I repaired two of them, a v4 and a v5 a few years ago.

I also have a v7 that works, but it's hard to change shutter speeds. Need to open that one up for a CLA.

Compared to repare a Leica, repairing Contaxes is very difficult. Repairing the Contax 1 is extremely hard. If the shutter springs are broken, you can forget about it. Rick, what were your biggest problems repairing these cameras?

Erik.

 

[Dralowid]

I repaired two, the easiest was the dimple one without slow speeds (obviously). The most difficult thing for me was remaking the fittings for the lower roller/spring so that I could use a replacement one from a Contax II which turns the other way. Somewhere back in this thread I detailed this.

I have long since sold my Contaxes and am happy not to own but but I am still, for some reason, drawn to posts on the topic of the Contax I

 

[Erik van Straten]

Yes, the whole Contax history has been snapped like a flower in the bud by the war. Many aspects of the Contax l were applied much later in all kinds of cameras, such as the vertically sloping slit shutter and the bayonet fitting of the lenses, but a worthy successor to the Contax ll never came. Or was the successor the Leica M3?

Erik.