-----Original Message-----
From: John A. Lind
Subject: RE: [OM] Is Contax the future?
>...beginning in 1932 (Contax I) for its top-of-the-line 35mm
>camera . . . designed specifically to compete with the first Leica's
>originally marketed in the late 1920's (the original developer of 35mm
>format)
The Contax I looked, and felt, like a house brick with a lens and ungainly &
very complicated knob sticking out to set the shutter speeds. It had a tiny
peephole viewfinder. The II & III models were a huge leap forward
ergonomically from that.
.>The original pre-war I, II and III . . . and the post-war IIa and
>IIIa were all rangfinders with bayonet lens mounts, vertical travel *metal*
>focal plane shutters, and a top shutter speed of 1/1250th.
The shutters were brass sections linked together with silk thread.
>..they were well ahead of their time compared
>to nearly anything anyone else had on the market.
The Contax II & III were more technically more advanced for their day than
Leicas partly because Leitz had patented the easy ways of doing things and
Zeiss had to design around (and beyond) them.
>...Argus got millions of 35mm cameras into the
>hands of Everyman and truly solidfied the 35mm film demand...
But before that Dr August Nagel sold his holdings in Zeiss Ikon, opened his
own factory, invented the 'universal' 35mm cassette, similar to the one we
all use today (hitherto, if you owned a Leica or Contax you had to buy their
reloadable cassettes - not interchangeable) and designed a camera to use
them. He sold out to Kodak and it became the Kodak Retina. He stayed on to
develop the design and he was to the Retina line what Mr Maitani was to the
OM range. (Oly content!)
Regards,
Keith Berry (Birmingham, England)
keith_r.k.berry@xxxxxxxxxx
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