Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/11/20
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Eric Welch wrote: >Now maybe what happened is that the complex shutter mechanism... and Marc James Small <msmall@roanoke.infi.net> replied: >This is one of the mythic "urban legends" of photography but, if the truth be told, the Contax' shutter is not that much more complex than the LTM camera's, and is certainly a lot more rugged. I'm sure Marc is right when he says that the limited life of the tapes used in the Contax shutter have helped tarnished that camera's reputation. However, I suspect that opinions of the Contax have also been influenced by the 1955 book "Miniature and Precision Cameras" by J Lipinski, a volume which discusses at some depth the theory and practical construction of the 35mm and 6x6cm camera, and in its day was highly regarded as authoritative. Lipinski talks about "the enormous mechanical complexity of the Contax" and describes the Contax shutter blinds as a being "a masterpiece of misplaced ingenuity". Winding the film and shutter involved a train of no less than 24 gears. "Because the winding of the roller is transmitted through five gears, the wind of a Contax seems very harsh in comparison with that of a Leica." He warns that "In the event of a fault, only a first-class firm should be allowed to execute the repairs. Whereas an ordinary highly-skilled mechanic may understand the Leica mechanism and attempt a repair with some success, it takes a really professional camera specialist to understand and repair a Contax." Lipinski is right about the harshness of the Contax wind - curiously enough, the wind of a Kiev 4 (Contax copy) I purchased recently is smoother than that of my Contax, though to be fair the German camera has had some 40 years more 'wear and tear' than its Russian counterpart. Regards, Doug Richardson