Zeiss Ikon Contax or Leitz Leica?

Zeiss Ikon Contax or Leitz Leica?

speech on the functionality of analog photography in the XXI century

Since eighty years, the photographers ask themselves whether it is a better a Zeiss Ikon Contax or a Leitz Leica camera.

This question has not always had the same answer: the world in 1925 was very different from that of today. Obviously it is also changed the world of photography. Today, in the era of digital pictures, we must also ask the meaning of the use of a camera mechanical and manual 35 mm manufactured eighty years ago.

It is also important the point of views of those who want to buy a camera like these, to know the use to which they want to do of these cameras.

Before answering it is essential to introduce four points for reflection.

1 - historical position of the mechanical and manual cameras

2 - the objective characteristics of the Contax II / III and the Leica II / III cameras

3 - examination of objective data.

4 - needs of three different types of customers: collectors, permanent users, traveler users.

1 - Historical Background of mechanical and manual rangefinder cameras

The 35 mm film mechanical and manual cameras, were introduced on the market since the spring 1925, when the Leitz’s Leica camera (with fixed lens and galileian viewfinder only, without rangefinder), made its debut at the fair of Lipzia (Germany).

To be honest, the “movie film” still cameras (24 mm not like today 35 mm ) were invented 20 years earlier (the Italian Ambrosio of Turin, in 1905, was the first ever), but they never had widespread. Especially they had no claim to be considered quality cameras.

The final point, of the 35 mm rangefinder camera’s period, was one day in March 1960, when the engineer mr. Masahiko Fuketa introduced, at the Japan Camera Show in Tokyo, the Nikon F, the first SLR camera produced on an industrial scale.

Before then the 35 mm rangefinder cameras were the only option for a professional photographer (except for the Rolleiflex and Speed Graphic). After 1959 rangefinder cameras suddenly became vintage objects, abandoned by all professionals in favor of the Nikon F, except by a very few strange people. Among these extravagant people I desire mentioning mr. Horst Fass (1933-2012. Mutilated by a mine in 1967), almost the only photographer of the Vietnam War (1963-75) who did not use the Nikon F painted black. Fass only used his three Leica M3 and a Contarex cameras, Germans as him.

These 34 years of domination of the rangefinder cameras can be divided into two distinct parts: the 30s and 50s. The 40s can be considered as a photographic medieval era: World War II in the first five years, and the enormous difficulties in the reconstruction and resumption of industrial activity in the second five, had cleared the production of cameras.

Few cameras were built in that decade. Those few cameras were built with substandard materials, because of the difficulty in obtaining raw materials. These cameras are good for collectors, not for users.

In the second half of the 40s, their temporary absence from the market of German photographic giants, pushed many European factories (mostly Italian) to groped the adventure of the production of a 35 mm cameras. They were small businesses that have baked a very low number of cameras, but of acceptable quality, and today much wanted by collectors. In the 50s, with the return of the great German industries, this short spring was swept away.

In the first decade (the 30s) and second (the 50s) Leitz and Zeiss Ikon have met in a fierce competition, but also quite original.

Let’s introduce the competitors

Ernst Leitz from Wetzlar and Zeiss Ikon from Dresden were commercial enterprises from very different sizes. Leitz was much smaller than the Zeiss Ikon; and, above all, it was alone in the world. On the contrary Zeiss Ikon was part of the huge group Carl Zeiss Jena, the leader enterprise and unchallenged in the field of all kind of optical lenses, among which, the camera lens saw it also excel by far over any other competitor. Leitz was comparable to today's motorcycle company “Ducati”, while Zeiss Ikon to “Honda” company. Honda not only produce a number of motorcycles much higher than Ducati, but especially the Honda’s motorcycle division is just one part respect to the vast production of the Honda Corporation.

It seems appropriate to illustrate a brief history of the two german companies.

<to be continued>