Question to Contax owners

My answer will be somewhat hard to some folks.

As a matter of FACT my couriosity for the Kievs maximum potential led me to contact Henry Scherer, less than a year ago, to ask him if by chance he has pre-war Contaxes to sale.

He anwered that yes, and he can provide me with one at around $200, being the only trouble their deteriroated exterior. Exterior ? I thought, anyway I am going to change its front plate to a black new Kiev one, from Alex photo goods, and black paint their top and bottom castings.

Unfortunately the deal could not take place, upon Henry informing me that I will have to enter his year list. I thank him with full explanation that the price is more than affordable but the year wait is too much for me.

He thanked me back for not leaving him unanswered after my negative decision. Some humour, and mutual respect and good manners, in between, left us both as good friends.

So my answer is clear. I may buy a Contax some day, but deal it as a Kiev, including changing its name.

Cheers,
Ruben
 
and why did you want to change its front plate with black one? you can convert some kiev to black kiev, no need to make combination. and also i think that they made some changes on later kievs on front plates so i dont know are they compatible.
 
All my user Kievs are fully black, with minor niquel shining left. For me a Contax and a Kiev are both a "kontax".

If sometime I happen to buy a Contax, it will be for the price Henry offered me. Not a single penny more. I own both many kievs and the skill to smothen them and make them accurate machines.

For me Contaxes are not "the real thing, for which the Kievs are the poor man owner. The real thing is what I have: accurate and smooth "kontaxes", upgraded in many ways by my own device-imagination.

Cheers,
Ruben
 
ruben said:
If sometime I happen to buy a Contax, it will be for the price Henry offered me. Not a single penny more. I own both many kievs and the skill to smothen them and make them accurate machines.
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and how far have you gone with your skills? i mean what repairs you can make? im not confident enough to try mechanism disassembly. i changed prisms , adjusted rf, and stuff like that but i never tried to adjust shutter speeds - i think that i would brake everything because i dont have any specialised instrument and tools for taking it apart. i suppose there are instruments and tools like that, that are used in camera factories.
 
nzeeman said:
and how far have you gone with your skills? i mean what repairs you can make? im not confident enough to try mechanism disassembly. i changed prisms , adjusted rf, and stuff like that but i never tried to adjust shutter speeds - i think that i would brake everything because i dont have any specialised instrument and tools for taking it apart. i suppose there are instruments and tools like that, that are used in camera factories.
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I will tell you exactly:

I am able to clean and lubricate, to control the shutter tension. These are the elements to smoothen the camera to uncredible levels. The issue of either oil or grease, or the Mobby Dick oil - it's the biggest crap I happened to learn it is pure crap.

50% of the smoothness is obtained through the shutter right tension (all kievs come over-tensioned). 35% depends upon your camera being clean, and 15% depends upon applying slight lubrication. Zero percent depends upon using either oil or grease, or what kind of each one.

I am able too to adjust the rangefinder distance metering. This makes for distance accuracy.

Both of these operations, I perform by separating the shutter from the camera front - the most advantageous way, although it needs some deeper knowledge. It is possible to do it close to 85%~90%, without separating the shutter assembly and with a bit more of time and patience.

I have failed to obtain a good and constant frame spacing for the Kiev 4AM.

I have not started to learn shutter synchronization, a stage controlling those cases in which the shutter is stucked. I am not going to do it in the foreseeble future as it demmands huge amounts of time.

Cheers,
Ruben
 
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Just so I follow:

Take a Contax.

Spend huge money to get it CLA'd by HS.

Put a Kiev front plate on it.

WTF????? Medication taken? IMO, buy a pre-1963 Kiev 4A. Mine was 90% as good as the Contax II's I've owned in terms of fit and finish. I couldn't detect any difference in the shutter/wind system smoothness. Better yet, buy a Kiev II or 2A, but these are getting into Contax II territory these days so I doubt its worth it.
 
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Mike Kovacs said:
Just so I follow:

Take a Contax.

Spend huge money to get it CLA'd by HS.

Put a Kiev front plate on it.

WTF????? Medication taken?
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Perhaps someone else needs medication.

I said that Henry offered me a pre war Contax to be assembled and CLA, but with bad looking exterior plates for $200. Although he also stated the proposed price is a prospective one and the final may change.

A good Kiev IIa from Fedka is about $150. So I saw Henry's offer as heaven's gift, until he mentioned the waiting list, and I saw hell. :)

Cheers,
Ruben

PS
Kindly help RFF by adopting better manners of self expression
 
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And, as stated before, I have no problem in putting a black Kiev front plate even in a $800 Contax. Contaxes and Kievs belong to the same Zeiss design, the Kievs being manufactured in the USSR.

It is for this reason that recently I coined Dee's terminology: "KONTAX".

By prising the Kievs I am praising the Zeiss origin too. Although by no means I see the Kievs a second rate copy, and the Contaxes "the real thing". Nevertheless Zeiss bears the main praise in having designed it, and manufactured first.

Making the Kievs cheaper, as the Soviet have done along time, lowered somewhat their quality, in a degree according to its time. It may be seen as a big loss for some pedants, but also as a gain for common people ability to afford them.

Cheers,
Ruben
 
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yes mike - you are wrong on this. there is nothing wrong with putting kiev plate on contax - it is not some sacred thing. only problem might be compatibility if places for screws are changed a bit on kievs. also kiev had some nice improvement - i like their winding knob on 4am - it is more compact.
but they made mistake with rewind knob - it is too tall. so kiev is not something to be ashamed of.
and to get back on that black kontax - maybe its easier to try to erase contax name(because it is not so deep like at kiev) from plate with some kind of sandpaper or something like that and to make new nae plate - KONTAX. and paint it in black. that would be nice thing to do.and if you put on it bigger eyepiece from viewfinder from 4am you would get really great camera with brighter vf.
 
Makes me wonder why the Leica crowd didn't think of this before. Surely one could disguise a Leica as a Fed or Zorki. Would comment further, but I am off to put an Argus casing over my Rollei 35
 
micromontenegro said:
Makes me wonder why the Leica crowd didn't think of this before. Surely one could disguise a Leica as a Fed or Zorki. Would comment further, but I am off to put an Argus casing over my Rollei 35
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Precisely because nor Feds or Zorkis factories were established in the USSR after the Soviet Union overtook Leica's installations, spare parts, design drawings, techincians, tooling etc, and translated them to Kiev. Therefore the huge differences between Fed/Zorki and Leicas.

But I think we are going off side by this issue of the front plates. Just think about it as my own personal extravaganza, and perhaps return to the main issue.

The main issue I tryied to push forwards in this thread was technical collaboration between Contax and Kiev owners, for the benefit of both. I ask for it from a stanpoint of full equality, and I don't feel the slightest remorse for owning a Kiev fleet, nor for the Soviet Union having overtaken Zeiss installations after defeating the Nazi regime at WWII. This is precisely what the "Kiev" name ressembles to me, for which I am proud to display it.

Of course this doesn't work the other way around. No one is to make the "Zeiss" trademark synonimous to the Nazi regime, as it will be a real nonsense.

If you happen not to like the proposed collaboration, it's your full right. After all we are talking about your cameras. Due to the Kiev Survival Site, Kiev owners have more to offer to Contax owners than vice-versa. This is a fact. Skilled Contax owners may take advantage of it. The most you take advantage of it, we may start to learn from you.

Cheers,
Ruben

PS
Dear nzeeman, obviously we are in full agreement, but it is up to Contax owners to save their own community honour from being tainted by elitists viewpoints, not necessarily reflecting the majority among them.
 
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