Contax Pre-War Lens on IIa or IIIa

[Timmyjoe]

Good Morning.

Not having much luck finding out if a Pre-War Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar 5cm f2.8 lens (Made for the original Contax rangefinder) will work on a Contax IIa or Contax IIIa. Meaning, will it fit and focus properly? Anyone have experience with this?

Thanks in advance for all info.

Best,
-Tim

 

[Mr_Flibble]

Should not be a problem at all. Only the older wide-angles will hit shutter blinds on the IIa/IIIa body.

 

[Steve Bellayr]

50mm no problem

 

[CameraQuest]

Please see the Contax Rangefinder Heading at

https://cameraquest.com/classics.htm

Needs to be updated, especially the photos

 

[Bill Jones]

Good Morning.

Not having much luck finding out if a Pre-War Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar 5cm f2.8 lens (Made for the original Contax rangefinder) will work on a Contax IIa or Contax IIIa. Meaning, will it fit and focus properly? Anyone have experience with this?

Thanks in advance for all info.

Best,
-Tim

Tim,

The orignal Contax (Contax I) Tessars collapse too deeply into the bodies of later Contax models and for the sake of your camera should not be collapsed.
This applies basically to black faced Tessars. Chrome faced Tessars for Contax II and III will work fine.

You should check the distance from the absolute back end of the lens tube to the rear of the bayonet mounting tab when the lens mount is fully collapsed. If it is 20.5mm (a little longer than 3/4 in) do not try collapsing it in the camera. If it is 15.5mm (about 5/8 in) it is OK to use it collapsed.

Bill

 

[Timmyjoe]

Wow, Fantastic information everyone, thanks so much.

Thanks for the detail Bill. I was looking at a collapsible Tessar, glad you warned me as the one really nice thing on my IIIa is the shutter works flawlessly. Would hate to have wrecked it.

Best,
-Tim

 

[Highway 61]

Only the older wide-angles will hit shutter blinds on the IIa/IIIa body.

They won't hit the shutter blades but the upper shutter curtain spindle housing being a part of the camera lens chamber itself. 😉

 

[peterm1]

When I had a Leitz Elmar 50mm f2.8 on my Leica M8 I was paranoid about the back of the lens hitting the sensor or its surrounding shroud when it was collapsed. Some said it would some said it would not. I did not wish to risk it. I was also worried about it accidentally collapsing inside my carry bag. (You can see I am a worry wart). To prevent it, I just placed a short length of transparent tape around the extended barrel of the lens. That way it would not collapse without me first removing the tape. And the remedy was basically not visible unless you knew what you were looking for. If worried about it you may wish to consider doing something of this sort. It is perfectly reversible should you wish to.

 

[David Hughes]

If you like playing with fire or using collapsible lenses where it might just be silly, then the best thing to do is pull the lens forward and put two or three elastic bands around the lens tube to stop it going back. One ought to be enough but they sometimes break and come off.


Other solutions have been suggested over the years but most of them involve something sticky and that can be messy.


Regards, David

 

[JakobN]

There are no problems using prewar Tessars and Sonnars on postwar Contaxes. The different camera models have the same flange to film distance, so optically there is no problem unless lens or camera have been tampered with. A lot can happen in 80 years.
About the risk of collapsing an early black face Tessar, they actually thought of this when they designed the new Contax lla and llla in Stuttgart. When you collapse an early Tessar into an a-camera, the rear end of the lens will hit two small areas of the casting inside the chamber that clearly are there for that purpose. They are flat surfaces parallel to the film and they stop the lens nicely.
Regards

 

[davidswiss]

There are no problems using prewar Tessars and Sonnars on postwar Contaxes. The different camera models have the same flange to film distance, so optically there is no problem unless lens or camera have been tampered with. A lot can happen in 80 years.
About the risk of collapsing an early black face Tessar, they actually thought of this when they designed the new Contax lla and llla in Stuttgart. When you collapse an early Tessar into an a-camera, the rear end of the lens will hit two small areas of the casting inside the chamber that clearly are there for that purpose. They are flat surfaces parallel to the film and they stop the lens nicely.
Regards

thanks Jakob, that's very useful. I have an old lens and almost had a IIa recently. When I eventually do manage to find one it's good to know I can use the lens without any worries.

 

[Bill Jones]

There are no problems using prewar Tessars and Sonnars on postwar Contaxes. The different camera models have the same flange to film distance, so optically there is no problem unless lens or camera have been tampered with. A lot can happen in 80 years.
About the risk of collapsing an early black face Tessar, they actually thought of this when they designed the new Contax lla and llla in Stuttgart. When you collapse an early Tessar into an a-camera, the rear end of the lens will hit two small areas of the casting inside the chamber that clearly are there for that purpose. They are flat surfaces parallel to the film and they stop the lens nicely.
Regards

Jakob,

When using a Contax I Black face Tessar with other cameras, the following applies-

You should measure the end to bayonet tab dimension on any collapsable Tessar you're going to put on any Contax other than a Contax I as all the others and I assume Kievs also have the shorter back clearance for the Tessars. If the depth is 15.5mm then it can be used as is.
If the depth is 20.5mm the it will hit the shutter crate if you try collapsing the lens.

The depth from the the small flats to the bayonet tab on Contax IIa and IIIa cameras is 17mm. The lens bayonet tab is 1mm so this leaves only 16mm for clearance. The black face lenses need 22mm to collapse and have some clearance. So they cannot collapse fully in a IIa or IIIa. you need to put something around the tube like the elastic recommended above that takes up 5mm. Back in the day we used to recommend using a 1/4" Dymo labeling tape because it was firm enough to withstand collapsing the lens many times.

The clearances on the Contax IIa and IIIa are for clearing the Contaprox I and the later collapsable Tessars.

Note the Contax I black face Tessars are relatively rare.

Bill

 

[Mr_Flibble]

Note the Contax I black face Tessars are relatively rare.

Bill

Mine will remain paired with my Contax I bodies anyway.

 

[santino]

All I know is that the black face Tessar 3.5 50mm works fine with the Kievs and that the collapsible 2 50mm Jena Sonnar (already single coated) with the IIa.

 

[JakobN]

Bill,
I know that the Tessars had to be limited in their movement with the advent of the Contax ll, otherwise the rear of the Tessar would hit the curved cover over the lower curtain roller. In the postwar cameras the lens hits two flats in the casting, and I don't see any problems with that, but others might not like it. I have used both early fully collapsible and later less collapsible prewar Tessars on my Contax lla, they are all stopped by the flats inside the camera, also the chrome ones.

Jakob

 

[Rayt]

The 35/2.8 Biogon is the only one incompatible as far as I have tried.