santino
FSU gear head
The nikon is a rip off but it looks totally Different than a iia....
someonenameddavid
Well-known
Really the Leica M forgeries were limited to people making half frame M3s, black painting and renumbering M3s, so the cameras were genuine Leica.
The screw mounts which are mostly Russian fakes are generally easy to spot, crude screws, enormous nazi symbols weird paint jobs. Polished brass touted as Luxus finish.
A believable faked Contax IV, I would like to see,,,,
Cascadilla
Well-known
I agree that the infinity lock isn't my favorite Contax feature, but the focus needs to be at infinity when you change lenses in order not to damage the rangefinder so it is actually useful.
nukecoke
⚛Yashica
xayraa33
rangefinder user and fancier
Nikon did.
Nikon S2 by P F McFarland, on Flickr
And Yashica borrowed heavily from the design on their early rangefinder models
Yashica YK Front by P F McFarland, on Flickr
PF
Those examples are not good enough for being direct copies, because they are simply not copies. My 127 film Anny 44 would be included in that bunch if it only took exterior styling cues from the Contax RF models to qualify as a out and out copy.
Other than the Soviets and the long convoluted story on how they got to make the Kiev III and Kiev II from the pre war Contax II and Contax III, the Contax camera was not copied.
In my opinion, no one made a very close copy of the post war Contax IIa and IIIa like say how the Japanese copied the Barnack Leica in many of the Nicca, Leotax and Tanack models and many other smaller makers like Chiyoca and Melcon and Honor did and that is not mentioning the direct Barnack copies made by Soviet, American and British firms.