Contax Zeiss Survival Guide

[David W. Jones]

An alternative to the 21mm until you get enough coin, would be the Zeiss Flektogon 20mm f2.8 MC to fill the gap.

 

[Uli Plank]

Hmm, tried that route. Massive sample variation, lots of damaged or misaligned ones floating around and not really cheap any more.

 

[Tommaso Alvisi]

Yeah, good fleks are rally rare

 

[Nick Morrison]

Brice both of these shots look terrific. Give credence to the idea that the 28 2.8 and 35 2.8 are like the Contax "Standard Primes". Slower than their big brothers, but just as sharp...and maybe even "punchier". I know the 85 2.8 and 100 3.5 are very contrasty for example, and wonder if the 28 2.8 and 35 2.8 are as well.

I just LOVE the slower Contax primes. I just think they are great in their own way, and an amazing investment.

Well done!

To give some food to the conversation.

Here is a sample taken with the 28 F 2.8

And another one with the 35 F2.8

Cheers
B.

 

[Nick Morrison]

Hey guys not sure if you've seen this recent piece by Patrick O'Sullivan, but thought it was worth sharing as he shot it all on his rehoused Contax Primes. This piece took my breath away when he posted it, and I think it's one of the best things posted on Reduser all year (I'd nominate it for an "award" if Reduser had them!). Hope you enjoy. It's a great piece of art.

Also, Patrick has a great quote about using Contax glass on MX I wanted to share. So succint and well said:

I've always been a fan of the look you get from them. Nice sharpness to harshness ratio for the MX sensor

 

[Brice Ansel]

I just LOVE the slower Contax primes. I just think they are great in their own way, and an amazing investment.

And thanks to you Nick, really happy with the investment.
By the way I forgot to mention the 28 and 35 are AE

28 AE F2.8 (wide open)

28 AE F2.8

28 AE F2.8

Cheers
B

 

[Brice Ansel]

I have to admit when I arrived into this place I tryed to restrain myself not using the 60AE to early.
But when I did start playing with it, Oh man, it was like hard drug, hard to stop.
This lens is tits!


60AE

60AE

60AE

60AE

Cheers
B

 

[Nick Morrison]

Brice those 60 Macro shots are SICK. "Tits" indeed!!!

That 60 is fast becoming one of my favorite Contax lenses PERIOD. It's so sharp it hurts. But it looks GREAT. And...because we almost always shoot with it wide open at 2.8 (where even there it's mind numbingly sharp)....the bokeh is wonderfully circular and creamy.

A must have in the Contax set, IMHO.

And for whatever reason, gets used much more often than the 100 Macro (I'm usually shooting in small cramped spaces, so the 100 is hard to make room for)

 

[Brice Ansel]

"Tits" indeed!!!

That 60 is fast becoming one of my favorite Contax lenses PERIOD. It's so sharp it hurts. But it looks GREAT. And...because we almost always shoot with it wide open at 2.8 (where even there it's mind numbingly sharp)....the bokeh is wonderfully circular and creamy.
A must have in the Contax set, IMHO.

And for whatever reason, gets used much more often than the 100 Macro (I'm usually shooting in small cramped spaces, so the 100 is hard to make room for)

"Tits" corrected.
For a funny reason the 60AE remind me in its render the mytic and pricey 100 macro leica R.
It has the same gentle way to show high details scene, sharp and creamy.

 

[Nick Morrison]

"Tits" corrected.
For a funny reason the 60AE remind me in its render the mytic and pricey 100 macro leica R.
It has the same gentle way to show high details scene, sharp and creamy.

Haha. I think your the only Leica lover I know who's been willing to also fall in love with Zeiss. These things tend to be like Madrid vs Barcelona, or Yankees vs Red Sox, so I applaud your sweeping passion for optics.

In my case...my father is an unabashed Leica lover, so I couldn't resist falling in love with Zeiss...just to be a "little bit" different. Plus the classic Zeiss vibe just sits well with me (like a nice fitting suite!).

But I will admit...those Leica's look good! They trend almost too pretty, which is my only reservation...but that could also be my classic Zeiss bias talking, hard to tell!!

 

[DAVID BARKAN]

Haha. I think your the only Leica lover I know who's been willing to also fall in love with Zeiss. These things tend to be like Madrid vs Barcelona, or Yankees vs Red Sox, so I applaud your sweeping passion for optics.

Better cheer for lenses then for football (soccer) teams; lenses make you money, teams don't. =)

 

[Brice Ansel]

Haha. I think your the only Leica lover I know who's been willing to also fall in love with Zeiss. These things tend to be like Madrid vs Barcelona, or Yankees vs Red Sox, so I applaud your sweeping passion for optics.

In my case...my father is an unabashed Leica lover, so I couldn't resist falling in love with Zeiss...just to be a "little bit" different. Plus the classic Zeiss vibe just sits well with me (like a nice fitting suite!).

But I will admit...those Leica's look good! They trend almost too pretty, which is my only reservation...but that could also be my classic Zeiss bias talking, hard to tell!!

Hé hé hé...
You are right Nick about the pretty render of Leica R .
When outdoor and light is shit sometime my Summicron set can save my shoot.
When outdoor under a harsh light or high contrast cituations CZ Contax are the one.
Hey it's just me, I'm not a lense expert, but more of an oportunist when it's about lenses.
Leica and Zeiss I'm still supporting the German design.
Just love old fart glass combine with digital.

 

[Nick Morrison]

So just got back a couple of modded zooms from RP lens and have this to say:

35-135 Vario Sonnar - WOWZERS!!! This thing is fucking sharp. Looks AMAZING. The Macro is super...and...my zoom is PARFOCAL from 35 to 135mm!!! Couldn't believe my eyes!!! I wish someone would invent a zooming mechanism for PUSH-PULL designs, some kind of carriage attached to a follow focus wheel that lets you dial the zoom range in and out. Can it be that hard? Cuz this lens is tits!!! (and on Dragon this zoom could destroy, once it's slow 3.3-4.5 aperture becomes a non issue at 2000 iso).

80-200 Vario Sonnar - I've always been a fan of this lens, but I also love finding each lens's "mutant power"...what IT does specifically really well...and this one...well...has AMAZING CLOSE FOCUS. Holy shit!!!! It's a macro at 200mm! I can focus in almost a foot away at 200mm! My 180 2.8 has me half way across the room!!

After the 60 2.8 and 100 2.8 Macros, this may be the most useful macro to bring on a shoot...as you get in VERY CLOSE..while still being quite far back on a 200mm.

Just something to keep in mind...and just another reason this lens may be the best $250 you ever spent.

 

[Jordan Buck]

I have finished reading this whole thread yet but am working my way through it.
I just wanted to say thank you to all the contributions and all the information.
I am looking to build a full set of re housed contax lenses and using this thread as a reference is really going to help.

 

[Nick Morrison]

I have finished reading this whole thread yet but am working my way through it.
I just wanted to say thank you to all the contributions and all the information.
I am looking to build a full set of re housed contax lenses and using this thread as a reference is really going to help.

Hey Jordan, if you have any questions, feel free to ask. You could also get your lenses modded by Duclos or RP lens if you are on a budget.

best

 

[Saied_M]

Hi Nick, I am also working my way through the thread, and please accept my sincerest thanks for this; I tried to look further based on your kind research.

If I understand correctly, when WW2 split Zeiss in half, Contax became the West German half. I am fascinated by how Zeiss in East Germany fared. I understand they became Zeiss Jena and stuck with the M42 mount (you mention C/Y bayonet for Contax). I understand adapters are plentiful for M42, so presumably Zeiss Jena should be hunted too, and they seem to be quite cheaper than Contax. My impression is that there is a bit of Cold War residue in that it is still easier to market the word "West" over "East", but maybe I'm wrong.

Even more intriguing is that I understand Zeiss Jena then became Praktica and introduced the B mount (also called PB mount). These are dirt cheap and more recent, yet I believe they still have Zeiss glass. The problem seems to be the lack of adapter support.

One worrying thing I came across only today is tittle-tattle on the net that some vintage glass is RADIOACTIVE due to the use of Thorium in the coatings, and it seems a bit of a lottery as to what is what (!).

Do you have any views on any of this ? Many thanks again for this thread.

Saied

By the way, a bit off topic, but when I was looking into this I came across a complete WTF camera set-up which left me stunned. Somewhere I read it was ex-KGB issue and capable of shooting a humming bird from five miles away.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Photosniper_-_assembled.jpg
You can only imagine what these guys got up to, though it seems more like The Pink Panther than The Third Man - I guess you wouldn't want to weld your Red to that !

 

[Nick Morrison]

Hi Nick, I am also working my way through the thread, and please accept my sincerest thanks for this; I tried to look further based on your kind research.

If I understand correctly, when WW2 split Zeiss in half, Contax became the West German half. I am fascinated by how Zeiss in East Germany fared. I understand they became Zeiss Jena and stuck with the M42 mount (you mention C/Y bayonet for Contax). I understand adapters are plentiful for M42, so presumably Zeiss Jena should be hunted too, and they seem to be quite cheaper than Contax. My impression is that there is a bit of Cold War residue in that it is still easier to market the word "West" over "East", but maybe I'm wrong.

Even more intriguing is that I understand Zeiss Jena then became Praktica and introduced the B mount (also called PB mount). These are dirt cheap and more recent, yet I believe they still have Zeiss glass. The problem seems to be the lack of adapter support.

One worrying thing I came across only today is tittle-tattle on the net that some vintage glass is RADIOACTIVE due to the use of Thorium in the coatings, and it seems a bit of a lottery as to what is what (!).

Do you have any views on any of this ? Many thanks again for this thread.

Saied

By the way, a bit off topic, but when I was looking into this I came across a complete WTF camera set-up which left me stunned. Somewhere I read it was ex-KGB issue and capable of shooting a humming bird from five miles away.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Photosniper_-_assembled.jpg
You can only imagine what these guys got up to, though it seems more like The Pink Panther than The Third Man - I guess you wouldn't want to weld your Red to that !

Hey Saied, yup...at the close of WW2...Zeiss was torn in half. Most of it's engineers fled to the West, under the protection of allied troops. Zeiss setup new operations in WEST GERMANY, where they continued to innovate and launched the HASSELBLAD medium format line, the Zeiss cinema lenses like the SUPER SPEEDS and STANDARD PRIMES, and the CONTAX line of stills glass (bringing back to life a very old Zeiss "brand" name they wrested away from Eastern Zeiss).

The original Zeiss plant in Jena fell into Russian hands, where it was restored...and the old pre-war designs were re-manufactured and re-distributed about the Soviet empire for decades. Lenses like the Helios 44-2 are just Soviet "modern" copies of the Zeiss pre-war Biotar! The lens design didn't change for 60 years!

There were some innovations at Zeiss Jena, but nowhere on the scale of WESTERN ZEISS. Jena glass is still quite good, but it's hard to get "good" copies, and the build quality is no where near as good as Contax, though most of the Jena's I own are perfectly well made.

The modern Jena glass (the MC's) are good, but if you are going to get affordable glass from the 80s...I think there are better deals out there...like Nikon AIS, Minolta Rokkor's, and Canon FD's. These lenses were some of the best of their time.

The best Jena MC is probably the Flektagon 35 2.4, that thing is a beast!

What I personally like collecting are the OLD Zebra Zeiss Jena's, because these are TRULY OLD...like from the 60's, and have very gentle coatings that are so low-con and flaring it makes my head spin. I've built a collection that I'd like to get modded.

But I'm not getting them because they are sharp. Only because they look interesting.

Yes, a number of old lenses are radioactive. But so is your cellphone. Probably much more so. Remember, we now live in an age where we are surrounded by more "fields" and energy than ever before. I wouldn't be worried by a little radiation in your old lens. Unless you plan to eat the lens, you should be fine.

The way to tell if a lens ia particularly radioactive is to see if it's turned "yellow" or "orange". If it's become discolored this way (from the cast the radiaton gives off presumably), one way to cure this is some people leave their glass bathing in sunlight for a couple of days. Apparantly that does a pretty good job at treating the issue, though I've never done it myself, so someone else with more experience may want to chime in there.

Hope this helps.

 

[Uli Plank]

Well, last thing first: That "Sniper" lens is a Russian Tair 4,5/300 mm, so far from shooting a humming bird miles away…
My Tair 135mm 2.8 has very nice bokeh with its 21 or so aperture blades.

Radioactive lenses are alpha sources from natural Thorium. Such rays can't enter your body more than skin deep unless you grind them fine and inhale or eat them. Plus, any serious sunburn does more harm to your skin. But unfortunately the advice about fixing the yellowing by sunbathing (or UV bathing) doesn't help with them, I tried with an old Takumar, that was radioactive and quite yellow. The only lens that I wouldn't store right under my bed is a Kodak Aero Ektar, which was quite radioactive.


UV helps with another type of yellowing, though, which is caused by an old organic cement used to glue lens groups together called Canada balm. It can cause yellowing too and that can be fixed by sunbathing, I was successful with my old Russian Jupiter-9 (I used a strong UV source made for EPROM erasure, since sunbathing can take weeks). Modern lenses use synthetic glues that don't get yellow.

So, yellowing is no sure sign for radioactive lenses, only a Geiger counter is.

 

[DAVID BARKAN]

Hey everyone.
I got the Cavision LH-80 for the lenses that I can put the Cordvision 80mm fronts, but I was wandering what do you all use with the 28-85mm zoom, since it's a 82mm (probably 86mm outside), I bought the 82-77 Stepdown so I can use the same filters, should I just go ahead and get the W1 hood and K-94 cap? Or there's another (cheaper) solution?

Thanks

 

[Nick Morrison]

Hey everyone.
I got the Cavision LH-80 for the lenses that I can put the Cordvision 80mm fronts, but I was wandering what do you all use with the 28-85mm zoom, since it's a 82mm (probably 86mm outside), I bought the 82-77 Stepdown so I can use the same filters, should I just go ahead and get the W1 hood and K-94 cap? Or there's another (cheaper) solution?Thanks

Just screw the Cordvision 80mm front onto your 82-77 stepdown. That's what i do. Works great.