ZEISS Contax IIIa Rangefinder Camera with Zeiss Stereotar Stereo Lens 1950's Classic camera
Contax IIaEdit With the Contax IIa, Zeiss Ikon introduced a brand new 35mm Range Finder camera, to replace the aged and somewhat trouble prone Contax II/III. The Contax IIa/IIIa line of cameras were an engineering tour de force, with many new features such as flash synch, and a shutter that could be set to any speed with the curtains either tensioned or un-tensioned. Gone were the failure prone silk straps of the previous camera, in their place were nylon cords for opening the first curtain, and driving the flash synch, and heavy nylon strapping to drive the second curtain, and slow speed retard. Also, gone were the straps running through a hole in the first curtain, which was the cause of most strap failure. New was the fastest shutter speed of any 35mm camera on the market, of 1/1250. This speed was chosen by the designers for the sole purpose of having a speed faster than the Leica IIIf of the day, but in reality was not of much use, as it was f-stops faster than the previous 1/500. This line of cameras could use any of the common film canister systems of the day, with one canister, or two, or could be used as a conventional shoot to the end, rewind style camera. The back and bottom of the camera came off to give easy loading, while the take up spool came out for easy connection to the leader. Many Believe that the Contax IIa/IIIa are in terms of built quality, the finest camera line ever built. Zeiss redesigned the Stereotar for the Contax, and in 1952 released the version. It differed from the pre-war version as the lens contains part of the rangefinder optics in an arm, similar to that which was found on the pre-war Nettax camera. Because the rangefinder base was shortened of the post-war cameras, it will only rangefinder couple with them. It was provided with a prism for distances over meters, providing the greater stereo separation needed. It also came with a separate viewfinder and a Contameter close up set. There were also accessory close
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Photo credit: © Jack Grieve / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
Keywords: camera, carl, contax, german, stereotar, zeiss
