Contax flash sync cord

[Steve B]

OK, so here's the story. Some years ago my late father in law sent me a box of old cameras because he knew he wasn't going to use them and he knew I like cameras. When I found the IIa and the Contaflexes I was so excited that I didn't really look much at the bits and pieces in the bottom of the box. Well, now we're getting ready to move to another state so I'm going through all my various boxes and I find a contax flash sync cable! I rush out to the IIa to verify that it threads into the sync socket and it does. It has a bunch of electrical tape on the cable so I remover it carefully and with great trepidation! There is a not too pretty soldered cable repair under there a couple of inches from the end that threads into the camera. The end that connects to the flash is the 2 prong variety.
I have am ELeitz flash unit (from the same box) with the appropriate plug for the cable and a bunch of flash bulbs (from the aforementioned box) but there is no battery in the flash unit and it doesn't appear to take any modern battery that I have on hand.
I'm sure I can repair the cable with a little careful soldering work but does anybody know what kind of battery the flash unit might use and if it's available? I'd love to have some fun with this kit but I seem to be shy one probably very antiquated battery. Any suggestions?

 

[jlw]

E. Leitz was Leica's parent company, and your flash unit probably was marketed as a Leica accessory, so somebody on the Leica forum might be able to help you with your battery question.

There are two flavors of Contax flash cable, one for bulb units and one for electronic flash. Either of these originally had a PC connector rather than the two-prong ("H type") connector you found on yours, so the solder job you discovered was probably to splice an H connector onto the section that screws into the camera. Since the cable already has been cut and is no longer original, there's no reason not to remove the H connector and solder on any type of connector you want; then you could use a bulb flash unit for which you can find batteries (assuming bulb flash is what you want, that is.) If you'd rather use electronic flash, you'll need to find the other flavor of cord.

 

[Steve B]

Thanks jlw, I guess you're right I should have posted this on the Leica forum as its really a Leica question. Is there any reason I can't solder on a fitting for an electronic flash?

 

[jlw]

You can solder on a PC fitting, all right, but my understanding is that the sync timing won't be correct. Zeiss-Ikon actually made two different models of sync cable for these cameras: the model 1361 for bulb flash, and the model 1366 for electronic flash. These cables engage with the mechanical plunger mechanism inside the socket in the back of the camera to provide the correct amount of delay for either electronic flash or for bulbs. If you use the wrong cable, you get the wrong delay.

Presumably the cable you received with your camera was the one needed for the Leitz bulb flash unit you got with it.

Still, who knows? It would be easy enough to try out your cable with an electronic flash unit and see how it works. You should be able to buy an H-sync to PC adapter so no soldering would be necessary. Then remove the camera back and lens, aim it at a blank white surface, hook up the electronic flash, and point it at the same surface. Set the camera's shutter speed dial to the electronic flash sync speed (it's 1/50 on a Contax IIa if I recall correctly.)

Watch from behind through the film gate as you release the shutter; if the flash fires in correct synchronization, you'll see a dazzling white area filling the full dimensions of the film gate. If the flash is out of sync, you'll see either a partly black area (masked off by the shutter curtains) or no flash at all.

Incidentally, if you want to know lots more about the esoterics of Contaxes, you might enjoy visiting Henry Scherer's 'zeisscamera.com' website; here's a link to the Contax IIa/IIIa page:

http://www.zeisscamera.com/services_overhaul-cIIa-body.shtml

Scroll down to the "Color Dial or Black Dial?" section to read all about the two different flavors of flash sync systems found on the Contax, and the two different types of cables made for the older (but more reliable) mechanical system.

(Note that Henry is in the business of doing very high-end repairs and restorations on Contaxes, so his site is full not only of interesting information, but of scary stories about what can happen if you entrust your camera to an incompetent repair person. I'm sure he does an excellent job, but probably there also are other people who can do a good job of repairing these; if you decide your Contax needs an overhaul, you might want to post another thread asking specifically for repair recommendations.)

 

[Steve B]

Boy I knew that if I asked the right people,,,,,
the camera fitting that I have is inscribed with the number 1361 so I'm afraid that if I solder on an electronic flash connector I'll get a partially flash-lit exposure. Its just like my father in law to modify the sync cable. He was an intellectual new england farmer that could bale hay, hunt elk, hold forth on genetics and wound up being a professor at Univ. CA Davis for 40 years. I just got his cameras, and flash bulbs. Maybe one day I'll experiment just for the fun of it. When I found the sync cable and the Leitz flash bulb unit I thought it would be fun to do some "traditional" shooting to see how it went. There were some faded, unreadable distance/f-stop charts taped to the flash unit but they're no longer readable. It's just like him. What a guy! I'm not sure I'm willing to put a ton of energy into it. But I might. Thanks for your help!!!!!!

 

[rick oleson]

1361 is the bulb connector, 1366 is for electronic flash.... if you use a strobe on 1361 you'll get no light in the photo at all, the flash will fire well before the shutter begins to open.

1361 is just a very straightforward switch. 1366 is a really bizarre mechanical time-delay switch in which the plunger from the camera whacks a long flexible leaf spring that's attached at one end and has the contact at the opposite end. The spring flexes and snaps like a whip, and when the tip of it strikes the corresponding contact the flash fires. All this is proportioned so that it will take about .02 seconds from the time that the spring is whacked until the tip strikes the contact, which gives the shutter time to open. It really would have been easier for them to have built a contact system into the body, but that wasn't the Zeiss Way.

 

[Stu W]

Hey Rick, the black dials are more reliable than the color dials though. Stu

 

[jlw]

It really would have been easier for them to have built a contact system into the body, but that wasn't the Zeiss Way.

Rick is The Man when it comes to anything to do with camera innards... but then again, Henry S. says on his pages that the color-dial IIa with internal sync contacts was even more fiendishly complicated! (Fiendish complexity, that's the Zeiss Way!)

So for the first model, it's probably just as well that they stuck with a nice, simple mechanical delay system (or in technically correct language, elektroblitzenkontakt-springenwhackerthingie.)

Anyway, if you ever get the urge to use an electronic flash on your black-dial Contax, just keep an eye on eBay and a 1366 cable is bound to turn up eventually. Just don't expect it to be cheap, since that's the one everybody wants!

 

[Steve B]

elektroblitzenkontakt-springenwhackerthingie.

elektroblitzenkontakt-springenwhackerthingie.

That's funny! Well, I guess I'm not going to go re-inventing the wheel here. If all the bits I had could be made to work I think it would be great fun to pop off a few old skool style but the lack of batteries for the Leica flash seems to be the crux and I'm probably not going to buy a different bulb flash unit or pay a ton for the right sync cord. Fun to know all this esoteric stuff though. What a bank of knowledge this place houses.

 

[rick oleson]

Actually, it's kind of neat to play with bulb flashes. Coming from the perspective of thyristor auto strobes, where you get in the habit of stopping down to f/8 because that's where the red dot is on the AUTO scale, it's pretty amazing how much power is packed into those little peanut sized AG1 bulbs... the result of shooting flash at f/1.5 and having a light source that keeps pumping for 20-30 milliseconds!

If you can't find those little 15 volt flash batteries, you can adapt the 12 volt duracells (I think they're made for pagers or dog collars or something) to fit and work in the small bulb guns.....

 

[dexdog]

in my eBay experience, it seems that the 1366 flash cords are usually in the range of $25 or so. They often go unsold, probably because so few people know how to use them.