Question about Contax G1 focus issue.

[Bolo Kukus]

Some lateral thinking here. Usually there is always a solution, of a sort, to these problems.

Consider using your G1 as a manual focus camera. The lens (I'm assuming you are using the 45/2.0 Planar, the very best of the lot of those beaut Zeiss Gs, altho' the 35/2.0 Planar is for me a close second, and the 28/2.8 Biogon gets the most use of all my four G lenses.

Set your lens on f/8, manual focus (on maybe 5-7 meters for distance shots, 3-5m for closer work), and as they say here, Bob's your uncle. After 1-2 rolls you will be used to this, and the by-hand settings will be second nature. I do it all the time, for more precise focusing when I want to concentrate on one aspect (= focus plane) of an image.

A G1 and the super superb 45/2.0 Zeiss lens Planar is too good a combo to let the kit sit around and not be used.

 

[Godfrey]

I'd had Leica M4-P and M6TTL before I bought a Contax G2 somewhere in the 1990s. The only thing I absolutely hated about the Contax G2 was the inconsistency of its focusing ... different lenses focused differently, whether manual or auto focus was used, and it was almost impossible to hit the precise same focus mark three times in a row. This just about drove me nutty, to the extent that after a year of trying every fix I could find and every technique I could muster, I gave up and sold the entire kit, bought another pair of Leica M4-P and CL bodies. Never had a single focus problem with any Leica M-bayonet camera I've owned, presuming the rangefinder wasn't all gummed up and sticky at the time of purchase (which was the case on two of the bodies I've purchased, and the dealer/previous owner paid the service fee to have the mechanism CLA'ed).

It was a shame. Those Contax-Zeiss lenses were superb when I could get them to focus properly. In retrospect, I should have had the Hologon 16/8 T* adapted to Leica M-bayonet as it was the only manual focus lens in the batch and was the one I always got perfect focus with. 🤷‍♂️

G

 

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