Zeiss Historica Fall 2001

Zeiss Historica Fall 2001

A large amount of this issue is devoted to the Contax, from early Contax I rangefinders, the Contax S SLR, a prototype 3cm Contax viewfinder, and the Kiev, which was the Soviet version of the Contax.

Pg 2. The early SLR Contax of 1949.  From late 1945, the design of the new Contax SLR camera was under way in the Dresden works of Zeiss Ikon AG.  The first dummies were ready in late 1946, and the camera was introduced to the market in 1949.

Pg 7. Some Zeiss filters and locks.

Pg 8. Zeiss personalities.

Pg 10. Heinrich Ernemann’s advertising stamps.

Pg 12. An unusual Contax I.  The author’s cutaway Contax I, and another just like it in the British Museum, may have been used to demonstrate the workings of the inner parts of the camera.

Pg 16. Contax prototype viewfinder.  Does the existence of a Contax viewfinder from frame lines for a 3cm lens, suggest that such a lens might really exist?

Pg 18. The No-Name Kiev.  Why were Kiev 4a’s made at Arsenal Zavod in the early 1960s with no name on the camera, and supplied with Carl Zeiss lenses?

Pg 20. Carl Zeiss Jena lenses for Exakta and Praktica cameras.

Pg 22. A Zeiss Sonnar in Leica mount.

Pg 23. The ISO Reporter.

Pg 24. Book review, Geschichte der Dresdner Fotoindustrie by Herbert Blumtritt.

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