Contax IIa - Cheers to Henery!

[aoresteen]

Last year I had Henry overhaul my Contax IIa BD & 50mm f/1.5 Sonnar. What was junk is now perfection!

My IIa had left the factory with a bad shutter and a bad rangefinder. It had never properly worked until now. So I have a NEW 50 year old camera!

The camera is now silky smooth, RF is dead on and bright. Well worth the cost and wait.

Henry is the best! Highly reccomended.

http://www.zeisscamera.com/

 

[Dan States]

Agree totally. His work is outstanding. He did my IIA and Sonnar F2 and they are perfection.

That's a damned fine camera by the way...I love my Leica's but have to say the IIA has it all over Leica in quietness of operation and the quality of the lenses at that time. Both Sonnars 1.5 and 2 trouce my Summitar and Summars completely and give little to the Summicron (1st).

If only film loading wasn't such a pain...they actually found a way to make it harder than the LTM Leica!

 

[RObert Budding]

Loading film in a IIa is difficult? My IIIa was the same and I never had a problem. I always removed the take-up spool and hooked it onto the film leader. Pop the spool and film back in and it's done.

 

[rover]

His list is now 73 customers long!!!!

I am number 33.

I think this has really curbed my GAS. I have not really bought anything in a while (other than Joe's last Canon P), but I know that my IIa and Sonnar will be coming, some day.

Some things are worth the wait I guess.

 

[darkkavenger]

Such workmanship and also this wonderful Contax RF system is what insidiously whispers me to sell all my gear and get a Contax II/III or a Contax IIa/IIIa. Who knows, when I'll be rich maybe ? 🙂

 

[JoeFriday]

His list is now 73 customers long!!!!

I am number 33.

and my IIa and Sonnar 50/1.5 are finally at 29.. it'll only be one more year (hopefully) and Henry will be working on it (and that's not an exaggeration)

 

[RObert Budding]

Such a long waiting list and I couldn't sell my Henry-serviced Contax IIIa here? I finally put it on eBay and sold it to a guy in France.

 

[Rich Silfver]

I am also finding the film loading to be a pain - but I've only done it once so maybe just beginner's bad luck.

Also, the shutter on my IIIa is way louder than my M3. Should it be as quiet as an M-Leica?

 

[jano]

*sob* I'm #73 🙁

 

[JoeFriday]

I always thought my IIa was really quiet.. but I put it on a shelf when I got my M3, and just took it out for the first time in months last weekend.. the shutter seemed unusually loud to me after getting used to Leicas.. it's not a gunshot like most SLRs, but it's definitely louder than the M3

 

[rover]

It will be interesting to see/hear the difference after the CLA. I had a Keiv that was every bit as quiet as any other camera I had at the time. My M3 has been serviced in the past 5 years so it will be nice to compare it to my IIa when that arrives, oh so long from now.

 

[Dan States]

My IIA was much quieter after service. It's quieter than my IIIF by a wide margin. My only beef with pretty much all the Zeiss cameras I own is the shutter release feel. It's like snapping a chicken bone in every camera I've owned and it makes hand holding at slow speeds hard.

I've started using the timer for slow exposures and that does the trick.

 

[Ash]

Maybe I should join the waiting list now, so by the time I'm at the top of the queue I've saved the money I need!

 

[darkkavenger]

I think I should join the list as well ... what do you guys think ?

 

[FrankS]

I just sent my Contax to Henry yesterday. Waiting on his list is like waiting for Christmas! Max, if you can handle the cost and the wait, then yes you should. Living in Europe though, I would think there would be more local repairpersons qualified and available, no?

 

[darkkavenger]

Hello Frank,

I was pointed in another thread I think to repairsmen in Germany. However I might want to have the camera really perfectly adjusted and despite the hassle of waiting, Henry Scherer seems to have a fairly established reputation in this field. I would love to send in my 50/2 Sonnar for adjustment as well, and have both camera and lens also cosmetically fixed. I've sent an e-mail to Mr. Scherer and I'll decide then. 🙂

 

[FrankS]

He is very pleasant to talk to. Based on his website, it sounds like he does much more than a routine CLA. It sounds as though each camera is totally dismantled, the parts cleaned, then reassembled with specs checked and adjusted along the way. That would be hard to find at any price. I'm very happy to have my Contax go there!

 

[Ash]

Frank, if you read through the whole site (like I ended up doing) you will find he is absolutely against 'CLA', and I guess his service is the only way to get a Contax that works better than it did when it came from the factory.

 

[jano]

There is a seller on ebay, petrakla, from the netherlands. Apparently they (peter and petra) have a good reputation and "CLA" each camera. I couldn't wait for Henry, so a contax II with pre-war 50 is en-route to California. If there's interest, I'll give my thoughts once I receive it. So far, they have been very responsive, and to summarize what they said, "we did one final check before shiping your camera, found a small issue which wasn't necessary to fix, but we fixed it anyway, sorry your shipment is being delayed a little" -- I thought that was cool, hopefully product will correlate to their attention to detail.

Jano

 

[dexdog]

I couldn't wait for Henry, so a contax II with pre-war 50 is en-route to California. Jano

Jano, who did you send the camera to in California?

Just to reinforce what others have said, I think that Henry is the best, and well worth the wait. I recently used a Henry-overhauled Contax II to shoot a bunch of Velvia 50 while on vacation, and the camera did a great job. Most shots were made using 125, 250 and 500 shutter speeds, and the exposures were consistently good.