CZJ 5cm 2.0 (1938) collapsible, in Contax mount

[TenEleven]

HCB most definetly used Zeiss lenses on his Leica. As an example, his portraits he shot of Camus are a dead giveaway. No Leitz lens looks like that. The defocus is typical Sonnar and it was too early to have been a Nikon or other Japanese lens. Further there are also accounts corroborating this narrative.

The common refrain is that HCB had the lens adapted to his Leica. By Zeiss or others, the exact details however change regarding whom you ask because there is sadly no exact historical record.

 

[TenEleven]

[Accidental Double Post Expunged]

 

[raid]

So I was right about it! I read somewhere about HCB using Zeiss lenses on his Leica cameras. The best use the best.

 

[raid]

Was there a time during which Leica was asked to use Zeiss lenses and mount the optics into Leica lenses during WII?
I have a Zeiss 5cm 2 inside an Elmar shell. Was it done by Leica/Leitz?

 

[ranger9]

The most famous of all, Cartier-Bresson, wasn't a Contax user. He cared about lens quality and user-friendliness so he used a Leica. Erik.

I've seen vintage in-period HCB prints (he didn't do his own darkroom work, BTW.) They didn't look to me as if he cared about lens quality as long as the images were good enough to publish. Isn't he the one to whom is attributed the quote, "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept"? Anyway, Leica lenses were certainly good enough as long as you didn't need to use wide apertures.

 

[boojum]

I've seen vintage in-period HCB prints (he didn't do his own darkroom work, BTW.) They didn't look to me as if he cared about lens quality as long as the images were good enough to publish. Isn't he the one to whom is attributed the quote, "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept"? Anyway, Leica lenses were certainly good enough as long as you didn't need to use wide apertures.

Agreed. His images are not for pixel peepers, focus freaks or exposure addicts. He made his motivation clear: a notepad of images.

 

[TenEleven]

Was there a time during which Leica was asked to use Zeiss lenses and mount the optics into Leica lenses during WII?
I have a Zeiss 5cm 2 inside an Elmar shell. Was it done by Leica/Leitz?

There is a record of German high command asking Zeiss to fabricate lenses in LTM for the war effort. However, there really isn't anything to corroborate how far that "involuntary collaboration" went. So, sadly your guess is as good as mine. It certainly is conceivable that Leitz sent some of their "Elmar" focus mounts to Zeiss which then proceeded to mount their f2 Sonnars into it.

If we use Occams Razor, it certainly is more believable than someone or some company "ruining" a perfectly good Elmar lens to put a Sonnar into it, especially considering what it would have cost to buy two perfectly good lenses to make one in this period. No big-enough used market existed then.

 

[Erik van Straten]

I've seen vintage in-period HCB prints (he didn't do his own darkroom work, BTW.) They didn't look to me as if he cared about lens quality as long as the images were good enough to publish. Isn't he the one to whom is attributed the quote, "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept"? Anyway, Leica lenses were certainly good enough as long as you didn't need to use wide apertures.

Yes that is a funny quote, very famous, but in my opinion it is only a joke. He used to walk for hours and hours with a camera, and then a lightweight Leica is more comfortable than a heavy Contax. Besides, he started 35mm photography in 1932 and then there was no Contax yet. Only Leica. And again, a Contax is not user friendly. Compared to a Leica a Contax is clumsy, no matter how good the lenses are. And then: better lenses do not automatically make better pictures.

Erik.

 

[TenEleven]

Yes that is a funny quote, very famous, but in my opinion it is only a joke. He used to walk for hours and hours with a camera, and then a lightweight Leica is more comfortable than a heavy Contax. Besides, he started 35mm photography in 1932 and then there was no Contax yet. Only Leica. And again, a Contax is not user friendly. Compared to a Leica a Contax is clumsy, no matter how good the lenses are. And then: better lenses do not automatically make better pictures.

Erik.

The Contax I was released in 1932 and anticipating the release of the camera Zeiss of course already made lenses for it since 1931 - this includes some small one-off batches of the same lenses for Leica - I assume to be able to test/prototype them without having a camera body ready. This is all in their manufacturing books. So the claim that "there was no Contax then" is counter-factual.

Secondly, the Contax I is not the most user friendly camera, for sure. Also certainly not most the reliable. That didn't stop people like Ansel Adams and a couple of others from making use of them, however. Zeiss realized the issues and quickly followed up with the Contax II in 1936, which in a world first combined the range- and viewfinder into a single eye-piece which sped the composing and focusing steps up enormously.

This model, then saw wide-spread adoption among many popular photographers such as Capa, Ansel Adams, O'Keefe, Walker Evans, also the entire curio of Life photographers including Gene Smith (who also shot Leica) etc.

Lastly, image courtesy of RFFs own dexdog, here's a Zeiss original LTM Lens from 1933. The knurling had been criminally filed to make it fit on a M3... Anyway to say that there was no Zeiss glass for Leica or that HCB couldn't have used it just does not represent the facts on the ground.

 

[former member]

Hope to get down to Navarre/Pensacola this Spring. It is beautiful.

I've seen several 1930s Sonnars custom converted to Leica mount, done back when they were new. One company in the UK did this.

I've also shot my perfect glass 5cm F1.5 Xenon along side of my converted 1934 5cm F1.5 Sonnar. The Sonnar is better, but the Xenon is better than its reputation would have you believe. Of course after 80 years, the Xenon has acquired a beautiful bloom on the glass: so maybe my results are better than when it was new.

 

[TenEleven]

Hope to get down to Navarre/Pensacola this Spring. It is beautiful.

I've seen several 1930s Sonnars custom converted to Leica mount, done back when they were new. One company in the UK did this.

I've also shot my perfect glass 5cm F1.5 Xenon along side of my converted 1934 5cm F1.5 Sonnar. The Sonnar is better, but the Xenon is better than its reputation would have you believe. Of course after 80 years, the Xenon has acquired a beautiful bloom on the glass: so maybe my results are better than when it was new.

Speaking of bloom - have you ever seen bloom on a Sonnar lens?
I haven't and I've seen many many now - I wonder what is up with that.

I have a Nickel Elmar that has a nice bloom and it's almost as good as the coated one - not that a 3 groups 4 elements Tessar copy is very demanding of coatings in the first place.

 

[Shafovaloff1]

Re: "TenEleven" : I have an interest in the Contax I development. Your post regarding the production of lenses has my antenna up about "manufacturing books". Are there books on the manufacturing process or just production numbers...any reference I might gain access to would be helpful. Oh, I forgot to mention that I am living near Huntsville, Alabama where there are a lot of German population that came over after WWII so even if reference is in German I have a good shot at valid translation. And, thanks for the post!
Thomas Shafovaloff

 

[TenEleven]

Re: "TenEleven" : I have an interest in the Contax I development. Your post regarding the production of lenses has my antenna up about "manufacturing books". Are there books on the manufacturing process or just production numbers...any reference I might gain access to would be helpful. Oh, I forgot to mention that I am living near Huntsville, Alabama where there are a lot of German population that came over after WWII so even if reference is in German I have a good shot at valid translation. And, thanks for the post!
Thomas Shafovaloff

Thomas, there are a bunch of resources, sadly many now sold out or scarce that you could consult. And yes a lot of these books are in German, altough I think English translations of Kucs books exist.

There's:

• Jurgen Kucs "Auf den Spuren der Contax" (On the trail of the Contax) -- Volume 1 would be of primary interest to you
• Jurgen Kucs "Contax Geschichte" (Contax History) -- Again Volume 1 -- more of a short reference though
• Hartmut Thieles "Fabrikationsbuch Carl Zeiss Jena" -- Which has all the factory numbers and manufacture dates for lenses as well as when they were (re)computed and what mount they were made for - towards the war it gets incomplete-ish for obvious reasons
• Perhaps "Bertele: Ein Pionier der Geometrischen Optik" -- A Biography on Ludwig J. Bertele that has some additional bits of info
• Brandts "Das Photo Objektiv" -- Ditto
• There's also "Carl Zeiss History of Founding, Division and Integration" But it's in Japanese - I usually have to recruit help with anything but the most basic texts in there...

There's also the website of gentleman and Zeiss fanatic Marco Cavinia - since it's plain no frills HTML you can use google translate on the italian.
Here: http://www.marcocavina.com/sommario.htm

I hope that helps

 

[Erik van Straten]

The Contax I was released in 1932 and anticipating the release of the camera Zeiss of course already made lenses for it since 1931 - this includes some small one-off batches of the same lenses for Leica - I assume to be able to test/prototype them without having a camera body ready. This is all in their manufacturing books. So the claim that "there was no Contax then" is counter-factual.

Secondly, the Contax I is not the most user friendly camera, for sure. Also certainly not most the reliable. That didn't stop people like Ansel Adams and a couple of others from making use of them, however. Zeiss realized the issues and quickly followed up with the Contax II in 1936, which in a world first combined the range- and viewfinder into a single eye-piece which sped the composing and focusing steps up enormously.

This model, then saw wide-spread adoption among many popular photographers such as Capa, Ansel Adams, O'Keefe, Walker Evans, also the entire curio of Life photographers including Gene Smith (who also shot Leica) etc.

Lastly, image courtesy of RFFs own dexdog, here's a Zeiss original LTM Lens from 1933. The knurling had been criminally filed to make it fit on a M3... Anyway to say that there was no Zeiss glass for Leica or that HCB couldn't have used it just does not represent the facts on the ground.

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In an interview with Richard L. Simon in 1952 Cartier-Bresson said that the lenses he used were the Leica 50mm (the Elmar) and the Nikkor 50mm f/1.5. On a story he brought also a 35mm and a 135mm (no brand specified, but the Elmar 35mm f3.5 is so extremely good that I guess he used that one). He said that he preferred the Elmar 50mm and that he used the Nikkor when he got in a dark spot. No mention of any Zeiss lenses.

Personally I like the Contax I. I have a very good working v3. I also have a Kiev from the 1950's, an exact copy of the Contax II. Although it is a very good and reliable camera, it is not nice to use. Not user friendly. I very much prefer my Leica III.

The photographers you mention are famous. But they are never on the level of Cartier-Bresson. Capa and Evans were however good friends of his.

You should always remember that a good camera does not automatically take good pictures. To take really good pictures, the photographer's genius is a prerequisite, so the camera must fit to the person.

Erik.

 

[raid]

Back to photography: here is an older image of Dana that I took with a Contax !IIa and a CZJ 5cm with Fuji XP2 film..

 

[raid]

This one was taken in New Orleans with Reala film and CZJ 5cm 1.5.

 

[former member]

Speaking of bloom - have you ever seen bloom on a Sonnar lens?
I haven't and I've seen many many now - I wonder what is up with that.

I have a Nickel Elmar that has a nice bloom and it's almost as good as the coated one - not that a 3 groups 4 elements Tessar copy is very demanding of coatings in the first place.

My 1934 5cm F1.5 and 1936 5cm F1.5 both have a beautiful bloom on them. You must be very careful when cleaning these lenses to leave it intact. My 1934 Sonnar had never been cleaned and when I got it. My 1936 5cm F1.5- very close to my fully coated 1936 5cm F1.5, made in the same batch.

 

[Bingley]

Lovely images with that pre-war Contax f2, Raid! I’ve got Opton Sonnars (f2.0 and f1.5) in Contax RF mount, and a Jena Sonnar f1.5 in LTM. All three lenses are coated, though. I’d love to pick up an uncoated pre-war copy some time. Now that I have Contax RF to LTM adapters, I can use all of these lenses on my Leica IIIc and Canon IVSB2, which I think is the best of all worlds for shooting with vintage gear.

 

[raid]

Lovely images with that pre-war Contax f2, Raid! I’ve got Opton Sonnars (f2.0 and f1.5) in Contax RF mount, and a Jena Sonnar f1.5 in LTM. All three lenses are coated, though. I’d love to pick up an uncoated pre-war copy some time. Now that I have Contax RF to LTM adapters, I can use all of these lenses on my Leica IIIc and Canon IVSB2, which I think is the best of all worlds for shooting with vintage gear.

Thanks!
The CZJ lenses are wonderful for photography. The 5cm/1.5 is King of such a focal length. The rigid Summicron Is next in line.

 

[Bingley]

I agree, Raid. But the post-war Opton Sonnar 50/1.5 is not too shabby…