Contax IIa impressions

[FrankS]

First, it's a lovely machine and I can easily understand that many people feel that it was superior to the screw mount Leicas of the same era. Compared to an M mount Leica however, it falls short if picture-taking efficiency and ease is used as a judging criteria. Shutter peed settings and aperture settings are more difficult to see and to adjust "by feel". On the 50mm f2 Sonnar lens, the aperture scale rotates with the focussing of the lens. The biggest drawback however is the finder. It is much squintier than any M body Leica (though I've never looked through a .58 mag. viewfinder) and there are no framelines. To deal with this I am getting an external 50mm viewfinder, but then you are back in the Leica screw-mount era of separate rangefinder and viewfinder windows. I figure that my M mount Leicas are much easier to use but that the Contax will get some use when I'm feeling more retro and in need of a change of flavour in cameras. The Leicas are so much easier to use that I've decided that one Contax is enough for me. I originally contracted with Henry Scherer to buy a Contax IIa black dial from him, and then recently got a great deal on a second Contax, this one a colour dial. I've contacted Henry and was able to not buy his camera and to send in the colour dial Contax for rebuild (in a few months from now). One Contax is enough for me. I'm kind of proud of my mature and rational decision-making on this.

 

[doubs43]

Frank, your assessment is well reasoned but I'm not certain that the Contax II is being fairly matched. It was contemporary to the Leica III's up to the IIIc and when compared to them I believe it would fare somewhat better. My father often spoke fondly of his Contax II but elected to keep his IIIa Leica instead, selling the Contax. It can be said, I suppose, that he voted with his choice and that may have been influenced by factors such as lens availability, price etc. I do recall that he liked the focusing system of the Contax.

The post-war Contax IIa can be fairly judged against the M-Leicas and I'm guessing that you'd likely come to the same conclusion that the Leica is the better choice. The M also seems to have been the consumer's choice and Contax stopped production of their RF cameras in the early 1960's.

But, I'm sure of one thing: the debate over which is better, the Leica or Contax, will continue to rage for as long as RF cameras are used to take pictures! It's fun to watch!

BTW, that's a really nice-looking II you have!

Walker

 

[JoeFriday]

that's the conclusion I sort of expecting you to arrive at.. but the question is, how would you compare it to your Kiev?

 

[wlewisiii]

It's an understandable reaction. But I do wish Zeiss would have put out the Contax IV rather than sinking the ship trying to make the Contarex a success; that and the Nokton would have given Leica some real competition at the end of the 50's and possibly kept the Contax line alive at least as long as ZI. I doubt the company would have survived any longer than it did as, like Kodak today, they seemed bound and determined to always make the worst decisions possible.

Even with all it's faults, the Kiev 5 with it's parallax corrected brightline finder gives just a faint hint of what could have been if it had been Zeiss engineers behind it rather than Soviets working with a system stacked against them.

William

 

[FrankS]

Walker, thanks, yes she is a beauty. Almost too pretty for me.

Brett, how does it compare to the Kiev? I'm trying to be nice about this: let's say they are in different leagues. Very similar to the difference between Leica and FED cameras. I still think that Kiev and FED cameras are excellent value for the money (if you get a good one) but it would be unfair to compare a Mercedes to a Yugo.

William, I agree completely that an updated Contax IIa from the sixties, if it had been produced, would have been awesome! Certainly the viewfinder would have been improved.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

I like the Contax IIIa, the shutter is just a marvel. I love firing it off. I wish the viewfinder was as good. As you know, I modified the S2 to take the Sonnar and other lenses for the Contax. If you ever get a chance to handle an Nikon SP, you'll know how good a Contax/Nikon mount camera can be. I just wish Zeiss had not sat out of the game for so long, and wonder if we might yet see a COntax Mount version of the new Zeiss-Ikon camera. After all, Cosina knows how to make the mount.

 

[Honu-Hugger]

Another side to this is reflected in what you spend time getting use to; I am extremely comfortable with all aspects of the Contax because it is the camera I use most often. I am also very comfortable with another camera (the Alpa) that would seem extremely awkward to first-time users with the shutter release on the front of the body and the wind lever operating in the reverse direction of the norm. People may adapt differently but for me the varied layout of different cameras has never been a problem (Rollei SL66 with focus knob on the side of the body, shutter release in the front lower corner).

 

[RObert Budding]

Yes, it is a mattter of what you get used to. THe finder on my Contax IIIa is fine. I use external finders for all lenses but the 50mm. And sometimes I use an external finder for that, too. So all I care about is that I can see the patch in the finder and focus accurately. Then a quick shift to the external finder for framing.

Robert

 

[VinceC]

>>Yes, it is a mattter of what you get used to.<<

That's quite true. I bought a Kiev on a whim in the late 1980s, and the camera shopkeeper explained that old Nikons used the same mount. I kept my eyes open for old Nikons at swap meets and within a couple of years had a Nikon S2, S3, SP and an assortment of lenses.

Now I'm so used to the quirks of Nikon RFs that I'm surprised when I hear Leica people complain about theirs -- I had no idea they were putting up with less than life-size viewfinders and lenses with half-click stops while I'm shooting with both eyes open, counting full-stops clicks and shooting with one hand thanks to the focus wheel. I don't use the Kiev as much as I used to because it scratches my eyeglasses, but its ergonomics still feel fine and I remember what a joy it was to use with a 35mm lens and the large Russian external finder. There's just a natural genetic progression from the Kiev/Contax II to the Nikon S2 to the S3/SP to the Nikon F. After hundreds of hours of use, controls just fall to my hands and I can concentrate on the most important part -- the picture itself.