Contaflex Super Repair Tips
Contaflex Super Repair Tips
Those are valuable links - thank you!
I’ve not found any repair people in Washington or Oregon who want to touch a Zeiss Ikon, so I may try cleaning and lubricating it myself. I do have some experience and a fair bit of camera repair tools.
The problem with the camera should basically be confined to the shutter. It has evaporated lubricant residue. This is the same basic problem any other period camera with a Synchro-Compur will have. A Contaflex simply manifests it a bit differently, because its shutter must open for viewing before exposure, and its aperture blades are auto stop down.
One thing which makes the Super a bit more tedious to re-assemble is its use of the aperture setting wheel on the body. You can throw the shutter back on the body any way you like, but you won't be able to select all the different combinations of shutter and aperture if the timing is wrong. And the light meter calibration will be lost. There's a sliding ring that rotates around the shutter under the shutter speed control ring. This has a coupling gear in it that meshes with teeth on the shutter and aperture rings. It's what drives the Exposure Value cross coupling of shutter and aperture.
If one proceeds to pull the shutter out without noting the exact positions of all of the following, the timing from aperture dial to setting rings will be lost:
Aperture setting dial rotational orientation (it goes around the clock more than once);
ASA setting;
Shutter speed setting;
Aperture ring setting;
Rotating gear ring tooth mesh with shutter and aperture rings.
One point I find slightly irritating about the design of the original Super is that Zeiss decided to design a coupling system that limits the combination of shutter and aperture you are able to set, to the measuring range of the light meter. What I mean by this is that it is, indeed, possible to set any combination from 30 seconds and f/2.8 right through to 1/500 & f/22 (from "B" to 30s you are actually getting "Bulb", not Eg a timed 30s, it's just the required EV for the aperture). However—if you have your ASA set to Eg 25, the gearing won't permit you to set 1/500 & f/22. At ASA 25, the meter measurement range won't stretch to that. Conversely, with ASA 400 set, Eg. B & f/2.8 cannot be selected together. The Contarex Cyclops used a similar approach but Zeiss were nice enough to add a green setting on the ASA that lets you set any combination at any time.
I have laboured this point because whilst it will be necessary to set an appropriate ASA if you want to rotate the rings to 30s & f/2.8—with, say, ASA 6 or perhaps 12 the mesh of the rings should let you do that. Similarly, with a high ASA 1/500 & f/22 can both be set together.
If you are fortunate enough to be working on a Super that's never been disassembled since Zeiss made it I reckon that's half the battle won. You can photograph the orientation of the items I mentioned above and just replicate this on re-installation of the shutter.
Sadly, more of the Supers I've seen, than not, have been assembled by people with the timing off. Meaning it's trial and error to find a gear timing that actually lets you access the full range of ring coupling
and gets the meter reading right!
I find the best way to set a Super (that's actually correctly put together in the first place) is to set the ASA to the lowest number, the shutter to 30s, aperture to f/2.8 and then (if you don't need to do a full strip down) temporarily tape the aperture dial firmly in place to guard against accidentally altering it.
You can then begin to disassemble the front of the shutter including the rings, (painstakingly noting their precise positions, and the mesh of the coupling ring gear) and take the shutter out.
You'll want the focus right at the infinity stop and immediately need to mark the helicals to each other, or measure the inner ring installed height precisely, on removing the shutter, to keep the lens infinity focus correct on re-assembly.
If somebody has already stuffed your gear timing up it takes longer. From scratch, (with the shutter out) rotating the aperture dial anti-clockwise as far as it will go, then, coming clockwise 1/4–1/2 turn will get that in the general ballpark. With the rotating coupling ring clockwise as far as it can go, the shutter on 30s and aperture on f/2.8 you'll be getting close. Expect to have to pull the shutter off a couple of times to fine tune the aperture dial a tooth or so but you'll be in the right zone. The meter will be off, but when the basic timing is good, by removing the ASA discs from the aperture dial at Eg ASA 100, you can rotate the meter shaft and centre the needle for a good sunny 16 before re-fitting the discs at ASA 100.
There is enough play in the gear mesh that Eg closing down the aperture to get your needle zeroed can give an exposure that's half a stop different than if you were to zero the needle by opening up. It's because of the gear lash.
I try to set the meter shaft so that when ASA 100 is on its detent, the effects of the gear lash are split 1/4 each way of the aperture mark (as opposed to Eg bang on if you are stopping down and 1/2 stop off if you open up—or vice versa). You can then easily live with the gear lash effect even with transparency.
