[Leica] Re: Contaxi redux

[lrzeitlin at optonline.net (Lawrence Zeitlin)]

On May 31, 2006, at 9:35 PM, MSmall wrote:

> Zeiss Ikon specivically directed that watch oil NOT be used on the 
> innards
> of Contax cameras, both  Prewar and Postwar due to its effect on the
> shutter tapes when it outgassed.  You probably would have done better 
> to
> have followed the factory perscriptiosns!
>
> Amd which camera, a II or a IIa, would you rather haul with you for an
> expedition to explore the Ubangi-Shairi River?
>
> Note that Zeiss Ikon offered IIa cameras to the 1953 American climb n
> Goodwin-Austen (now more commonly known as K-2), to the Italian climb 
> of
> 1954 which conquered that peak, and to the 1953 British ascent of Mount
> Everest.  All three expeditions declined the offer and employed heavily
> used Contax II and III cameras to document their efforts.
>
> The point remains that the Contax II and III had a well deserved 
> reputation
> for reliability, while the IIa and IIIa were seen as the cameras of 
> choice
> for advanced amatuers looking for a good weekend camera.  This, in the 
> end,
> damned the breed, as Zeiss Ikon flopped repeatedly it he marketplace:  
> it
> barely broke even with its MF cameras (Ikoflices and Ikontae) to the 
> point
> where these were killed by 1957, but it stayed afloat through the P&S
> Contessa line and through the Contaflex leaf-shutter SLR's.  The 
> commercial
> success of these latter cameras actually allowed Zeiss Ikon to break 
> even
> in 1954 but, from then until the end in 1972, it was a spiral of 
> increasing
> losses.  The Contax IIa and IIIa were horrid disasters financially for
> Zeiss Ikon, and the Contarex, that boiling maelstrom of loss, iced the
> deal.  Zeiss Ikon was doomed after the introduction of the Contarex in 
> 1959.
>
> Now, had Zeiss Ikon survived the war with the financial security of, 
> say,
> Leitz or Franke & Heidecke or even Voigtl?nder, then things might have 
> been
> different.  The re-engineered Contax would have been much more of the
> nature of the Contax IV prototypes which have survived, and would have 
> been
> introduced in 1948 or 1949.  A battle royal between these two might 
> well
> have knocked back the Nikon and Canon RF bit.  Und so weiter.
>
> If you want a complex and gear-driven shutter, look to the Contax S, 
> where
> the only tape is the one pulling up the reflex mirror when the 
> exposure is
> made.  Peter Dechert to the contrary (he is a friend of mine and I have
> told him this), I have never had a Contax S or D fail on me desite the
> immense complexity of the shutter, and these gears being made on the
> worn-out machine tools left tot he East Germans after the Soviets had
> "accomodated" the better stuff for their own uses.  A worker who takes
> prided in his efforts will produce a quality item despite the 
> constraints
> under which he is working.  And the folks cranking out the Contax S 
> and D
> cameras were the selfsame guys who had been, a decade earlier, 
> churning out
> Contax II and III cameras.
>
> It is obvious, in retrospect, that Zeiss Ikon ought to have sold its 
> soul
> in 1947 to a simple P&S Contessa, a leaf-shutter Contaflex SLR, and a
> professional-grade Contarex.  But no one realized in 1947 just how 
> much the
> SLR was going to dominate the field (the developer of the 35mm SLR, 
> Hubert
> Nerwin, had left Zeiss Ikon for the US in 1946;  he was to later 
> produce
> the Texax Contax, the Combat Graphic.)  Hindsight is always 20-20.  And
> Zeiss and Zeiss Ikon in 1947 were teetering on the narrow edge of 
> fiscal
> disaster, so it is remarkable that they chose to invest funds in the 
> Contax
> IIa and IIIa designs.
>
> In the end, the Contax II and III were huge proft-makers for Zeiss 
> Ikon.
> The Contax IIa and IIIa were dramatically awful loss-leaders fro the 
> mark.
>
> They'd have done better to have avoided the niche at all.

Pardon my mixing my faux Greek and faux Latin in this post title, I 
have several responses to your points:

1. I used a whale oil based clock oil (very expensive) on the Contax 
gears at the advice of Marty Forscher of Professional Camera Repair in 
NYC. Marty was a close personal friend of my father. He said it was 
what he used. Would he lie to me?

2. If exploring the Ubangi-Shairi river, I would first visit my 
psychiatrist. If he couldn't dissuade me from the trip I would leave 
both Contax cameras at home. Humidity and fungus would probably make 
short work of either camera. I would however, take my Nikonos with 35 
and 75mm lenses, and a backup Rollei 35S in a waterproof Tupperware 
box. Excessive tropic heat and humidity is bad news for complex 
cameras. I had several equipment failures with top of the line SLRs in 
India during the monsoon season. Indian "no problem" repairs took 
several months. The little Rollei 35 saved my bacon. I understand the 
reluctance of the 1953 K-2 expedition to use the newly introduced 
Contax IIa. (1950-61). It follows the dictum of never using new and 
little tested equipment on a once in a lifetime trip. Remember Amundsen 
chose dogs and skis instead of Scott's motor driven tracked sled 
haulers and ponies on the race to the South Pole. "Never be the first 
by whom the new is tried, or the last to cast the old aside." I 
experienced this to my sorrow when I last trekked the Appalachian trail 
in a pair of new hiking boots.

3. I don't take any issue with your comments about Zeiss Ikon's 
business model disaster. Unfortunately Leica, having also misjudged the 
photographic marketplace is on the same slippery slope. The latest 
press release of a 1:1 stock trade with a German holding company augers 
ill. Perhaps the company is to be broken up into its component parts.

Larry Z