Zuerich Contax II Photo Walk

#contaxII #streetphotography #photowalk


SoundCloud:   / padchops  
Instagram: @fkasentimental

Since I am twelve I am using analog cameras and since long I am planning to share once in a while a video about a not so frequently used vintage camera here, hope you enjoy! This will largely remain a channel for music.
Video was made in July 2021 in Zuerch, Swizzerland, the camera here is a Contax II from 1939 with a 1,5 5cm Sonnar lens (pre-war T-coating), Film used: Iford Delta 400, developed in T-Max developer.

Filmed with Panasonic Lumix DC-GX9. As I had few time to do this walk, the filming became a little shaky, so sorry for that. It was a walk starting in the historical center, leading to Joseph-Str. at Ars-Imago, a very beautiful shop for analog photo gear, you should definetely check it out when in Zürich:

https://www.ars-imago.ch/en

Music by my son and me, made with 1010 music Blackbox, Wurlitzer and Pro-2 pad & bass added in DAW.

Some info on the Contax II (though you are probably here because you know it already): The Zeiss Ikon Contax II was the more successful follow-up to the original black Contax from 1932, released in 1936 and made until about 1943-44. There is also a rare postwar version made in Jena, different from the prewar model, that was produced in Dresden. These were also the starting point for the very successful Soviet Kiev II etc. which were built into the 1980s afaik.
The Contax II (prewar) was by large an improvement to the earlier one in many ways: shutter reliability, built-in rangefinder (first time combining the view- and rangefinder image in one window on a 35mm camera) with a prism, that proofed to be very shock resistant, a self timer and one knob to choose your shutter speeds, ranging from 1/2-1250s (you can get approx. one second by using the self timer). It was largely designed by the newcomer at Zeiss Ikon's development department, Hubert Nerwin. To my knowledge, the Sonnar 1.5/5cm (by Ludwig Bertele) was the fastest prime lens in its time for 35mm. The prewar range of lenses for the Contax II and III went from 2,5cm to 50cm tele-lenses, used with a clumsy mirror box. Several accessories for these were made, for close-ups and even laboratory use in conncetion with a microscope, a true camera system. The shutter is of metal sluts and when well adjusted very quiet with a beautiful sounding "chunk" on release. The viewfinder - by modern standards - is a bit squinty, like your average finder on a digital mirrorless cam. On this particular camera, it is even a little foggy, as the camera has sat most of its live unused in its case. In general, I found it a quite fast camera to use, if you can get used to the slower advance knob and way of focusing with the dial or on the lens barrel. For street, I find it good to use scale focusing. I like the standard focal length of a fifty mill, as I grew up with this.