[Leica] Another 50 for the Jeffster

[don.dory at gmail.com (Don Dory)]

Jeffery,
I have to admit I was tempted by the Cosina camera until I noticed I could
not use my prewar 35 Biogon on it, dealkiller.  I will second Marc's
comments re the Contax II or III.  I picked up a III in pretty sad shape and
had it overhauled, I believe it will be working for a very long time.  I
would like to find a II that was overhaulable as I do prefer the smaller
camera than the III. My main reason is I have hopes that the 21 Biogon will
start to come down in price as everyone goes to digital and it will not fit
any digital anything.

Don
don.dory@gmail.com


On 3/30/06, Jeffery Smith <jsmith342@cox.net> wrote:
>
> I meant COSINA Voigtlander (Bessa R2C). I got my Contax Iia + 50/2 lens
> for
> $400, which was pretty good considering that it hadn't been banged around.
> Although they are about the same size, the Contax feels much smaller in my
> hands than the similar Nikon S2. And I have to admit that I like the *zip*
> of the metal shutter. ;-)
>
> Jeffery Smith
> New Orleans, LA
> http://www.400tx.com
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lug-bounces+jsmith342=cox.net@leica-users.org
> [mailto:lug-bounces+jsmith342=cox.net@leica-users.org] On Behalf Of Marc
> James Small
> Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2006 7:28 PM
> To: Leica Users Group
> Subject: RE: RE: [Leica] Another 50 for the Jeffster
>
>
> At 05:45 PM 3/30/06 -0600, Jeffery Smith wrote:
> >Thanks for the clarification on the lens differentiation, Marc. The
> >lack of compatible bodies available is what has steered me away from
> >the Contax line of Zeiss RF lenses. True, Voigtlander does make a
> >Contax-compatible body, but the price is just too steep for me
> >considering how few Zeiss lenses I own (2...both 50's).
>
> Jeffrey
>
> The Voigtl?nder plant produced its last item in the 1970's.  Cosina
> produces
> a camera under the Voigtl?nder brand in Contax RF BM, but it is not a
> Voigtl?nder product.
>
> A working Contax II costs around $175 or $200 or often less, and is a
> potent
> instrument -- Capa's shots on the D-Day beaches, for instance, were made
> with one of these.  There weakness is that the shutter tapes wear out over
> time but these can readily be replaced from a number of sources, most
> notably Eddie Smoloff in Brooklyn, who buys his stock from the Arsenal
> works
> in the Ukraine.  Other than this, the mechanism on these cameras is
> incredibly tough and will last a long time -- yes, there are many gears
> and
> many bells-and-whistles, but they are all well made to very high standards
> from great materials.
>
> We have had many discussions here about the lack on M6 Leicas of that
> buttery shutter advance so notable on earlier Leicas.  The reason was that
> earlier Leicas used bronze gears which easily lapped in to each other but
> did not last long enough, so Leitz replaced them with steel gears, and
> these
> take decades to lap in.  I suspect my late Wetzlar M6 will be as buttery
> in
> its advance as is my M3 in another three decades or so!  But I'll have a
> bunch of worn-out M3 gears to replace in the interim.  Zeiss Ikon went
> with
> steel gears from the get-go with a few exceptions, and the exceptions are
> gears which do not bear heavy loads.
>
> The East German arm of Zeiss Ikon renovated Hubert Nerwin's project for a
> Contax SLR and produced it after the War as the Contax S.  Peter Dechert,
> who began his professional life shooting a Contax S and Hasselblad 1000F,
> comments in his monograph on the camera about the complexity of the gear
> train and how shoddily it seems to be made, due to lack of good materials
> and of machine tooling which hadn't been worked long beyond its use-by
> date
> due to wartime requirements -- and then even he admits that the only major
> weakness in the system is the cord pulling up the mirror and that these
> cameras, for all of the warning signs of incipient failure, just keep on
> keeping on.
>
> A Contax II is a joy forever.  And it was the Expedition Camera for the
> 1953
> British conquest of Everest, though that picture on the top of Tenzing was
> taken with a Prewar Retina with a Zeiss Tessar lens, and shot on
> Kodachrome,
> to boot.
>
> Marc
>
> msmall@aya.yale.edu
> Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!
>
> NEW FAX NUMBER:  +540-343-8505
>
>
>
>
>
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