Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2008/12/17

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Subject: [Leica] ZEISS BIOTAR 58/2 TEST
From: marcsmall at comcast.net (Marc James Small)
Date: Wed Dec 17 16:06:37 2008
References: <7FED1040-7983-4ACB-8037-A10CA1DAF9A3@telefonica.net> <F75229D4EFB6477281138C30F3782201@jimnichols> <20081217042522.86E277DF73@barracuda.rutabaga.org> <E02DF49CD04B493AA56B33D6359FB74D@jimnichols>

At 01:26 AM 12/17/2008, Jim Nichols wrote:
 >Marc,
 >
 >I may be way off in my recollection of the camera.  I recall that I either
 >got it in a trade for a revolver, or that I traded it for a revolver, can't
 >recall things that happened forty years ago in great detail.  I do recall
 >that, in examining the camera, I found that, though there was no flash
 >fitting installed in the camera body, beneath the covering there was wiring
 >for a flash connection to the shutter mechanism.
 >
 >I can't recall the inscribed name, but seem to connect it to some model of
 >Contax or Practica.  I don't recall anything about the lens except that I
 >could not find a way to remove it. It was my first encounter with an SLR
 >camera.
 >
 >Jim Nichols

Dear God, my man, let's not ignite the fiirearms 
thread again!  Most of the LUG-nuts seem to disapprove of such goings-on.

It is difficult to sort out the various agencies 
under which the East German camera industries 
worked from 1945 to the later 1950's, so most 
students of such just identify them as "VEB Zeiss 
Ikon", a fine overall name but one historically 
inaccurate.  VEB Zeos Ikon, if you will permit me 
the misnomer, did make some folding 35mm cameras 
with fixed lenses, and that is probably what you 
had.  The Zeiss Ikon Contessa range were better 
cameras structurally, but the East German cameras 
were quite capable and sported, for the most part, CZJ Tessars.

After some thought, might this have been a CZJ 
Werra I?  That had a fixed lens.  But I cannot 
think of a Contax or Pentacon badged camera with 
a fixed lens, though I will admit that my 
advanced age and feeble physicals keep me from 
diving into my relatively vast Stack of Stuff, to 
steal a line from Rush Limbaugh, to decypher this 
dispositively.  I had to dig all of these books 
out a while back to answer Luis' post.

Carl Zeiss Jena was a fascinating plant.  It is 
today the situs for Zeiss' scientific production 
and design, telescopes and planetaria and the 
like.  But it was once the navel of the optical 
world and deserves respect for this.  And nearby 
is the original plant of the Schott und Genossen 
glasswerke, now again under the proper Zeiss 
Stiftung control.  (Not to reignite the Egg 
Coddler thread of some years back, but that is 
where the recent production of Schott egg-coddlers emenated.)

Yours in Zeiss!

Marc


msmall@aya.yale.edu
Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!



In reply to: Message from luisripoll at telefonica.net (Lluis Ripoll) ([Leica] ZEISS BIOTAR 58/2 TEST)
Message from jhnichols at lighttube.net (Jim Nichols) ([Leica] ZEISS BIOTAR 58/2 TEST)
Message from marcsmall at comcast.net (Marc James Small) ([Leica] ZEISS BIOTAR 58/2 TEST)
Message from jhnichols at lighttube.net (Jim Nichols) ([Leica] ZEISS BIOTAR 58/2 TEST)