What if?

[Roverman]

This is just to start a discussion not a war.
What if the Russians had demanded Leica instead of contax as war reparations?. Would we now be singing the praises of the contax mistque?
Would the Russian Leica brand (whatever it would have been called) be looked at with deep mistrust. Fate could have had a strange hand in things and the new digital contax ix would be on every rangefinder users wish list.
Just thinking out loud that's all

 

[Sparrow]

This is just to start a discussion not a war.
What if the Russians had demanded Leica instead of contax as war reparations?. Would we now be singing the praises of the contax mistque?
Would the Russian Leica brand (whatever it would have been called) be looked at with deep mistrust. Fate could have had a strange hand in things and the new digital contax ix would be on every rangefinder users wish list.
Just thinking out loud that's all

Balaleica? 🙂

 

[Roverman]

That's good, very good!

 

[rhl-oregon]

Also shameless--but better than any pun I can think of involving Rollei. (Russkyflex just doesn't have the Zhivago charm of Balaleica).

Maybe you'll get a serious answer to your What If, but don't lie awake waiting. In any case, the Japanese sneaked into Contax engineering the easy way (with a bunch of cameras to reverse-engineer, and build better) and came up with the Nikon rangefinders with which I am falling in love, after a cheap date with a lousy 1970s Kiev IVa.

 

[ZeissFan]

Could be interesting, although the end result still would be the same, I think. Zeiss Ikon would have folded. The Japanese beat them on price, and consumers were no longer willing to pay a premium for a German product. It isn't all that different today. Consumers by and large are unwilling to pay extra for a camera. It is something that Canon understood in the 1980s. Product quality only has to be "good enough" for consumer level offerings.

The other factor is that unlike Leica, Zeiss Ikon (not Zeiss) had cameras for nearly every market segment. Twin lens reflex, a box camera, folding 6x4.5, 6x6 and 6x9, 35mm consumer and pro SLRs and rangefinders and scale focus offerings, a 126 SLR and a simpler 126 camera, movie cameras and a full line of accessories for many of the systems. That was in the post-war period. Before that, a 127 folder, a 116 Ikonta and Super Ikonta, enlargers, plate cameras, several box cameras, darkrom gear, film and on and on.

I do like the "what if?" quesion.

 

[Bille]

This is just to start a discussion not a war.
What if the Russians had demanded Leica instead of contax as war reparations?. Would we now be singing the praises of the contax mistque?

The loss of the Contax production tools at the Dresden factories turned out to be a blessing, as it made impossible the use of the existing toolings and parts. The new design chief Wilhelm Winzenberg was not involved in the camera side of Zeiss-Ikon, this also allowed a brand-new Contax design to be developed, to follow Hubert Nerwin's wartime plan to make a Contax SLR camera.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contax

 

[farlymac]

But they were already making Leica knock-offs. Contax, and the other Zeiss cameras were something new they could get into cheaply.

PF

 

[Roverman]

Did the fact the Russians made kievs damage the contax name though, or was zeiss doomed because of too many fingers in too many pies?.
Yes the Japanese came up from behind with good cheep cameras but why are Leica still here? Surely the same pressure that zeiss was under was also effecting leica, the only difference was that Leica had continuity of production, they didn't, afaik, loose the factory to bombing damage and then loose staff and what little tools and stock to the Russians.
If you look at the cameraquest site the contax had advantages over the leicas tha weren't addressed till the introduction of the M's. I have owned both and sold both, stupidly, and miss them dearly but the shear cost of Leica stuff will out of my reach now especially the lenses, most M fit lenses seem to make well over the thousands of £/$ compared to hundreds for contax and Russian stuff less than that. I know that quality can be hit and miss but I'm tempted by that as I do miss film and picture making, yes my digi compact is good but holding it at arms length and squinting at a screen just doesn't give me the same connection.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Zeiss had the misfortune to be in the Soviet-occupied zone, and Leica didn't. Besides, as already noted, Leica knock-offs were already well established in the USSR.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Leigh Youdale]

There is an alternative.

There is an alternative.

I do miss film and picture making, yes my digi compact is good but holding it at arms length and squinting at a screen just doesn't give me the same connection.

I've settled into a fairly easy process using B&W film and either a Leica M6 body or a Voigtlander Bessa R4A, both with Cosina/Voigtlander lenses. I have to say that although the Bessa R4A isn't as "pretty" as the M6 it actually has some better features - some as simple as a shutter release lock and a window to show what film cassette is loaded, and it's much lighter to carry! Same applies to the other Bessa versions - I had an R3A before the M6. Nothing at all wrong with the CV lenses.
I use a Rondinax 35U daylight tank for developing the films and scan the negatives on an Epson V700, and print on an Epson R2880, up to A3+ size with saleable results. I have a wet darkroom but no longer use it. The results are equivalent and more easily obtained with the hybrid process.

If I use colour film then the local camera shop does the processing for nothing. How come? I develop all the B&W films they get which they can no longer do and build up credits which I "spend" on colour processing.

 

[S.H.]

I think the Soviets real target was the awesome Zeiss glass. They adapted it to their lower cost Leica knock offs anyway.

 

[sevo]

I think the Soviets real target was the awesome Zeiss glass.

Zeiss Ikon (the camera maker) and Carl Zeiss (the lens maker) were both owned by the (non-profit, semi-federal) Zeiss Foundation, but they were quite different companies with different locations (Dresden respectively Jena), management and strategies even before the war. That they always had been in-fighting and forked into two each of Zeiss Ikon, Carl Zeiss and Zeiss Foundation after the war did not make matters any easier...

 

[KoNickon]

Actually, a Soviet Leica could be called a Laika (literally, a "barker" i.e a dog -- pun very much intended).

Those of a certain age will recall that this was the name given to the poor female canine that was given a one-way trip into Earth orbit.