How to make an SLR out of a Rangefinder

[drmatthes]

No, I'm not talking about Visoflex or Flektoskop or whatever. - Once in a while there are rumours on the net that Zeiss Ikon had a prototype of a SLR based upon the Contax RF line ready by war-time (well before the post-war "Contax S" constructed by Winzenburg & Henning for VEB Zeiss Ikon in the GDR of 1948).

On two web-pages I found the 1st of September, 1941, as patent application date, yet without any proof.

The pictures below show what I found in the German Patent Adminstration database. Obviously only files from occupied France have survived. They show that the camera had a pentaprism, a vertically travelling (cloth?) shutter, and even a built-in light meter (above the pentaprism, giving it an overall look similar to the Contax III).

Thought some other camera history fools like me could be interested.

I have heard further muttering that the presumed name should have been "Syntax", and that the prototype(s) plus construction plans got lost during WWII.

Were Winzenburg & Henning also the constructors of the wartime prototype? Or was it Hubert Nerwin? Or Heinz Küppenbender? Due to French practice, no inventor's names are mentioned in the patent.

Any more information on all that?

Jesko

_______________

2006 AD
800 yrs Dresden
80 yrs Zeiss Ikon

 

[Socke]

I've read about it somewhere on the web, if my memory serves me they had one or two prototypes and the Contax S is based on a different design.

 

[Mazurka]

I've also read that the Contax S was not based on this design because of the high cost, so perhaps the blueprints were not lost (at least not to Dresden) at the time.

 

[RJBender]

No, I'm not talking about Visoflex or Flektoskop or whatever. - Once in a while there are rumours on the net that Zeiss Ikon had a prototype of a SLR based upon the Contax RF line ready by war-time (well before the post-war "Contax S" constructed by Winzenburg & Henning for VEB Zeiss Ikon in the GDR of 1948).

On two web-pages I found the 1st of September, 1941, as patent application date, yet without any proof.

The pictures below show what I found in the German Patent Adminstration database. Obviously only files from occupied France have survived. They show that the camera had a pentaprism, a vertically travelling (cloth?) shutter, and even a built-in light meter (above the pentaprism, giving it an overall look similar to the Contax III).

Thought some other camera history fools like me could be interested.

I have heard further muttering that the presumed name should have been "Syntax", and that the prototype(s) plus construction plans got lost during WWII.

Were Winzenburg & Henning also the constructors of the wartime prototype? Or was it Hubert Nerwin? Or Heinz Küppenbender? Due to French practice, no inventor's names are mentioned in the patent.

Any more information on all that?

Jesko

_______________

2006 AD
800 yrs Dresden
80 yrs Zeiss Ikon

Jesko,

Send this to Marc James Small (msmall AT aya.yale.edu), co-author of Zeiss Compendium East & West : 1940-1972

Substitute @ for AT in the above e-mail address.

R.J.

 

[dexdog]

I've also read that the Contax S was not based on this design because of the high cost, so perhaps the blueprints were not lost (at least not to Dresden) at the time.

There is a book by Alexander Schulz called "Contax S", originally published in Germany by Verlag der Lindemanns Buchhandlung. The drawing shown in drmatthes' post is reproduced on page 15 of the English-language version of this book. There are three documented scenarios discussed in the book about the origin of this design, and all relate to the time when Hubert Nerwin was working at Carl Zeiss.

The book also gives the same story related by mazurka, i.e., that the design shown on the patent application would have been very expensive to produce. Nerwin himself is quoted saying that he worked on the project between 1940 and 1944, and that an extensive re-design of the plan shown in the 1941 patent application was needed to produce the Contax S.

As stated in the text of the book, the 1941 design incorporates a vertical travel shutter, and not the horizontal travel shutter in the production Contax S. The rollers for the vertical shutter can be seen above and below the film plate on the side view of the camera shown in the patent application.

Interesting book, although the translation into English from the original German is a bit clumsy (I am German-challenged, and own the English-language version).

 

[ErnestoJL]

If they had the patent rights.... it makes me think of a lot of questions, all of them starting with "If..."

ZI registered the name "Contaflex" for a TLR which used same lenses and basic shutter design of the Contax II (however it wasn´t made as modular as the Contax is). Some specifications are same as the RF Contax (see H. Scherer website). A reasonable evolution of that camera would be a 35 mm SLR...

I allways thought that the postwar Contaflex was something that shouldn´t existed if...

Ernesto

How different the story would be if that´t true