The Contax IIa

Production of the Contax was for all intents and purposes halted during World War II. Most assuredly, some development continued, as well as camera production, and most product likely went to the military.

When the war ended in 1945, it was time for Zeiss Ikon to see what was left of itself. Much of its production was in the eastern part of the country. Allied bombing had devastated a number of cities in that region, including Dresden where Zeiss Ikon produced many of its cameras, including the Contax.

But more than a camera factory went up in flames -- the blueprints for the Contax, prototypes and other cameras were destroyed as well (read the Zeiss Historica Society's excellent article on Hubert Nerwin). Making matters more complex, the Soviets had taken control of the eastern zone, as well as Zeiss Ikon's facilities there, eventually carting away the remaining equipment and some of the staff to produce the Soviet-branded line of Contax II copies.

Faced with these challenges -- loss of talent, loss of factory, loss of designs and lack of raw materials -- it took several years to produce a successor to the Contax II.

Zeiss Ikon reintroduced the Contax brand in 1950 with the Contax IIa (and followed by the metered Contax IIIa in 1952). The Contax IIa, now made in Stuttgart, was an updated design of the Contax II with several changes. The shutter, which continued to be constructed of vertically traveling metal blades, were now made from lightweight aluminum and not heavy brass. As well, the silk ribbon was replaced with a cord and straps. The rangefinder optics and prisms were smaller in the Contax IIa, and the body overall wasn't as large.

Advancing the film and cocking the shutter took much less effort, as did changing shutter speeds– particularly if the shutter was cocked. The frame counter moved to the film advance, and the film rewind knob was larger and easier to grasp, although you still had to keep the rewind button depressed while turning the rewind knob.

The new cameras also offered flash synchronization. The early Contax IIa (black dial) required the use of an intermediate cable that was screwed into a socket on the back of the camera just under and to the right of the accessory shoe. There were separate cables for bulb flash and electronic flash. The user screwed the cable into the camera and then plugged together the cables from the flash with the Zeiss Ikon cable. Later cameras (color dial) carried a regular PC socket that worked with either, eliminating the need for the intermediate cable.

The black dial cameras are so-named because all of the shutter speeds are marked in black. The later color-dial cameras with regular PC sockets had 1/50 marked in yellow and 1/100-1/1250 marked in red; these are more expensive on the used market.

All of these changes took place while maintaining forward and backward lens compatibility, which meant any prewar or postwar Contax lens (except for the prewar Biogon 35mm) could be used with a postwar camera. All prewar cameras mate with all Contax lenses -- prewar or postwar.

The rangefinder was still a wide base but not as wide as before. Still, it was wider than the Leica of that time, and therefore didn't require the Leica's magnified viewfinder to ensure accurate focusing. And unlike the Leica, it still had a single window for viewing and focusing.

Eventually, Leica leap-frogged Zeiss Ikon with its Leica M. And as time moved on, Zeiss Ikon chose not to replace the Contax IIa. The camera disappeared from the Zeiss Ikon catalog around 1960, just about the time that SLRs were taking hold of the 35mm market.

More than a half century later, the Contax IIa remains a very usable camera and properly serviced can provide several more decades of trouble-free service.