Opinions on the Contaflex System?

[das]

I find the Super BC viewfinder is adequately bright, even with the slow 2.8 Tessar. Zeiss put a quality focusing screen in it with a split, microprism, and ground glass aids. It's neither heavy nor bulky. I had always read that it was some kind of metallic brick, but that's just not true IMHO.

 

[rick oleson]

I do have some Contaflex notes in my Tech Notes download.

The Contaflex is very well made, but the whole concept of a leaf shutter SLR is fussy: when you press the button, the shutter closes, then the mirror and light baffle go up, then the lens stops down, then the shutter opens and closes again. In the Super’s Compur shutter, there is no shutter release mechanism as there is in a regular shutter: the splined shaft that cocks the shutter holds it in the charged condition until you press the button. Then the shaft is free to spin backwards allowing the shutter to fire. It’s a lot of extra moving parts to drag things down if it gets dirty. Another complication is that there entire shutter moves forward and back during focusing, but the splined shaft does not, so it slides in and out of its mating socket as you focus - a source of wear and possible failure to fully cock the shutter if it’s worn.

I have one complete Contaflex outfit with wide and tele lenses and magazine back - but it’s a Prima. With front element focusing, the shutter is solidly fixed to the body and the wind linkage is simpler. The Pantar lenses aren’t as sharp as they Tessars, but they aren’t bad, and they don’t have the cement separation that you often see in the Pro Tessars. It’s not a bad combination of interesting Zeiss doodads and reliability.

If what you really want is a leaf shutter SLR that’s reliable, performs well and has a good set of lenses available, though, I would take a serious look at a Kowa SETR or SETR2. They’re very well designed, reliable if in decent condition, with instant return mirror, TTL metering and lenses from 28 to 200mm. I’d choose one over any German leaf shutter SLR.

 

[BernardL]

Super. Also a IV.

On the Super you can separate the lens by unscrewing three screws inside the body as shown below. I had to take a deep dive to fix one loose screw deep inside the lens assembly.

On the Contaflex I/II/III/IV there are also three screws, but accessible from the film gate only at a slant angle; taking that shortcut is risky IMO. In that case I had to separate the front plate from the body. And, to do that, I had to dis-assemble the top and all the linkages (between winding lever and shutter cocking); not so bad because in that case the problem was dried grease in the gears.

Should you decide to embark into a repair, I have assembled documentation from various sources, both Zeiss maintenance manuals and third-party texts and videos.

A final word of encouragement 😆 from Jason Schneider's thread Camera Repair Horrors: These are the models that give repairmen agita.

Leaf shutter 35mm SLRs such as the Kodak Retina Reflex, Voigtlander Bessamatic, and Contaflex (all models from their respective makers) are challenging to repair due to their complex mechanisms with tight tolerances and potential for lubrication problems such as oil contaminating the shutter blades.

 

[KoNickon]

On the Super you can separate the lens by unscrewing three screws inside the body as shown below. I had to take a deep dive to fix one loose screw deep inside the lens assembly.

On the Contaflex I/II/III/IV there are also three screws, but accessible from the film gate only at a slant angle; taking that shortcut is risky IMO. In that case I had to separate the front plate from the body. And, to do that, I had to dis-assemble the top and all the linkages (between winding lever and shutter cocking); not so bad because in that case the problem was dried grease in the gears.

Should you decide to embark into a repair, I have assembled documentation from various sources, both Zeiss maintenance manuals and third-party texts and videos.

A final word of encouragement 😆 from Jason Schneider's thread Camera Repair Horrors: These are the models that give repairmen agita.


View attachment 4881227

Thanks, this is helpful. I may need to really psych myself up to taking that on! What may come off relatively easily may not go back on easily at all....

I've found the Bessamatics to be the most reliable, actually.

 

[das]

Does anyone know the internal filter thread diameter size for the 2.8 Tessar? It's not 27mm, it's not 25.5mm, it's something even smaller.

 

[mconnealy]

Does anyone know the internal filter thread diameter size for the 2.8 Tessar? It's not 27mm, it's not 25.5mm, it's something even smaller.

From the manual:
"They screw into the lens mount (27 mm diameter) ..."

However, a rough measure of mine looks more like 24mm.

 

[das]

I've wasted some money buying step up rings. 🙂. The size is definitely smaller than 25.5mm. Might be 24mm but I think it's around 22 something. It's weird that no one on the internet has figured this out.

 

[rick oleson]

I've wasted some money buying step up rings. 🙂. The size is definitely smaller than 25.5mm. Might be 24mm but I think it's around 22 something. It's weird that no one on the internet has figured this out.

I have a Contaflex IV here with the 50/2.8 Tessar. Just screwed a filter into it to check, then measured the OD of the male filter thread. It measures 26.9mm.

If you have a Contaflex I or II with the nonremovable 45/2.8 Tessar, I don't have one of those to check.

rick

 

[das]

Thanks, Rick. Here's what I am seeing. This is a 50mm f/2.8 Tessar. A 27mm filter slides around in this space and does not screw into anything. Indeed there are no threads to even latch onto on that outer ring - using my fingernail, there are only faintest of imperceptible grooves there. There is an inner ring threaded part just above the serial number plate that appears to be about 22 or 22.5mm. I do not see how anything threads into anything other than that. If people are getting regular 27mm modern filters to screw in, I do not see how that is possible. This particular lens certainly does not take them.

 

[KoNickon]

I have a Contaflex IV here with the 50/2.8 Tessar. Just screwed a filter into it to check, then measured the OD of the male filter thread. It measures 26.9mm.

If you have a Contaflex I or II with the nonremovable 45/2.8 Tessar, I don't have one of those to check.

rick

Yes -- it's marked S 27. The one I have (yellow -- G) is # 382. It also has a female thread that enables it to fit, among other things, the Ikonta 35 and allows the 1110A 28.5 push-on hood to fit around it.

 

[rick oleson]

Thanks, Rick. Here's what I am seeing. This is a 50mm f/2.8 Tessar. A 27mm filter slides around in this space and does not screw into anything. Indeed there are no threads to even latch onto on that outer ring - using my fingernail, there are only faintest of imperceptible grooves there. There is an inner ring threaded part just above the serial number plate that appears to be about 22 or 22.5mm. I do not see how anything threads into anything other than that. If people are getting regular 27mm modern filters to screw in, I do not see how that is possible. This particular lens certainly does not take them.

View attachment 4882014

Hi Das: Here's what I'm seeing:

This is a Zeiss Ikon S27 filter fully screwed into the inner threaded ring in the same 50/2.8 Tessar that's on your Super - in this case it's on a Contaflex IV, but the lenses are interchangeable.

Have you measured the inside diameters of the inner threaded and outer smooth rim? On my lens, the outer rim measures 30.4mm, so yes, a 27mm filter will bounce around inside that. The inside of the inner threaded ring measures 26.5mm, which is to the inside of the threads - 1/2mm smaller than the outer diameter of the filter thread.

Please excuse the black thing on the front - I've got a monocular attached to this filter ring. All of my other attachments are 28.5mm slip-on type, made to slip over the outside of the threaded rim into the slot between it and the outer smooth rim. This is the only threaded Zeiss Ikon filter that I happen to have for the Contaflex.

For clarity, here's the lens that the filter is screwed into:

 

[das]

Thanks so much for looking into this! Seems like the original Z filters and the 28.5mm push ons work great. I'm just trying to find a modern MC filter that would work. The inner threads of mine measure about about 22mm. Not much around for modern filters in that size, but I'll try to find something. I would guess it would be 22.5mm and not 22mm.

 

[rick oleson]

Thanks so much for looking into this! Seems like the original Z filters and the 28.5mm push ons work great. I'm just trying to find a modern MC filter that would work. The inner threads of mine measure about about 22mm. Not much around for modern filters in that size, but I'll try to find something. I would guess it would be 22.5mm and not 22mm.

That’s interesting, I don’t know what you’ve got there. I haven’t found any reference to a Contaflex filter size smaller than 27mm, and I don’t know what your prospects are of finding anything to fit. The smallest “modern” filter size I have is 25.5mm for the normal lens of the Pentax Auto 110, which is too small for my Contaflex 50/2.8 Tessar and apparently too large for yours.

 

[Pioneer]

I admit that it has been awhile but back when I used Contaflex I used 27mm filters Zeiss filters and they worked fine. For all I know I still have a few in the back of a drawer. They weren't "modern" manufacture" but they seemed to work just fine for what I was doing. In my opinion Zeiss was pretty high quality and did what was expected.