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1936 Zeiss-Ikon Contax II

This is the world famous Contax II produced in Germany by Zeiss-Ikon between 1936 thru 1942. It was a superb 35mm coupled rangefinder camera. It’s body was constructed of die cast alloy, its internal components were modular and it was wrapped in expensive  Moroccan leather. The performance of the Contax II and its suberb Carl Zeiss lenses was beyond question, the best of the prewar and wartime era. It’s rival, the Leitz Leica might have been lighter, smaller and easier to use but when it came down to absolute image capturing performance, the Contax was king.

These were photos taken with a 1936 Contax II which we had the pleasure of having in our shop. The current owner hails from New York and he was kind enough to share his photos with us.  These photos are courtesy of Ray Vickers. Copyright 2016 Ray Vickers. All rights reserved.

The first row photos were taken with a Carl Zeiss 2.0/8,5cm (85mm) Sonnar lens on Kodak Porta 160 color print film. The second row photos were taken with a modern wide-angle Voigtlander  4/21mm Color-Skopar lens.

 



Photos taken with a Carl Zeiss 2.0/85mm Sonnar lens. (The garden photos were taken during a storm.) 

Photos taken with a modern wide-angle Voigtlander 4/21mm Color-Skopar lens.