Twin Lens Conta ex
It’s a TLR, but not as you know it. John Wade explains all about this unusual 35mm camera
If you are familiar with twin lens re ex (TLR) cameras from the lm age, mention of the type will bring forth images of the Rollei ex and the many models that copied its shape and way of working. You’ll be thinking of an upright black box with two lenses of the same focal length one above the other, the lower lens to shoot the picture, the upper one to re ect its image via an internal mirror to a waist-level view nder on the top of the body. It will take 120 size roll lm, running vertically through the body to shoot twelve 6x6cm square pictures. Well, when it comes to the Twin Lens Conta ex, you can forget all that. Sure it has two lenses, but that’s about its only similarity to a traditional TLR.
Made in 1935 by Zeiss Ikon in Germany, the camera was correctly known simply as the Conta ex. Today it is more usually referred to as the Twin Lens Conta ex, in order to differentiate it from a single lens re ex of the same name launched by Zeiss in 1953. Advertising at the time of its launch boasted that the Conta ex was ‘ ve years ahead of any other’.
The rst big difference between the Conta ex and other TLR cameras is in it being one of a small group of TLRs designed for 35mm lm to shoot pictures in the 24x36mm format. Unlike most other TLRs, the lm runs horizontally through the body from side to side.
Apertures are set on the lens, shutter
speeds from 1/2–1/1,000sec by a knob on the side of the body, which is also turned to tension the focal plane shutter, another rarity in a TLR. The shutter is released by a lever also on the side of the body.
In a traditional roll lm TLR, the focusing screen is the same size as the lm image. That’s ne for a 6x6cm format, but when the camera’s format is 24x36mm, it’s a little small for practical use. The Conta ex gets round that by using lenses of different focal lengths for shooting and viewing. The shooting lens is 50mm, the standard focal length for a 35mm camera. But the viewing lens is 80mm, which means the image on the viewing screen, found under a fold-up focusing hood, is around twice the size of the negative image. The two lenses are focused in tandem by rotating a lever to the side of the viewing lens, but they are geared so that the viewing lens extends further from the body than the taking lens. So despite the different focal lengths, focus is matched between the two.
The viewing screen is not ground-glass as in a traditional TLR, but a rectangular fresnel lens which gives a brilliant image. For critical focusing, a magni er is swung into position from behind the hood. The full size of the screen gives the view for the 50mm lens, but it is etched with guidelines for 8.5cm and 13.5cm lenses. Similar guides also appear in the eye-level view nder. This takes the form of a semi-silvered mirror on the front of the focusing hood, through which the photographer looks via an aperture on the back. The lens format guide lines are actually on the inside back of the hood, from where they are re ected in the back of the semisilvered mirror. As a result the guides appeared to hover over the scene being viewed. From the front of the hood, the semi-silvered mirror re ects the same eld of view as the camera lens does, making it ideal for self-portraits, when the delayed action device is activated.
Those guides in each view nder indicate the next feature rarely found in a TLR: interchangeable lenses. The Conta ex was sold with a choice of 5cm f/2.8 Tessar, f/2 Sonnar or f/1.5 Sonnar standard
‘Sure it has two lenses, but that’s about its only similarity to a traditional TLR’
lenses. Also available were a 35mm f/2.8 Biogon wideangle, plus 8.5cm f/4 Triotar, 8.5cm f/4 Sonnar and 13.5cm f/4 Sonnar telephotos. Because the Conta ex was made by Zeiss Ikon, it is sometimes assumed that Contax lenses will t the camera. In fact, the bayonet tting is unique to the Conta ex, so Conta ex and Contax lenses are not interchangeable.
Now we come to perhaps the camera’s most innovative feature. The Conta ex was the rst camera with a built-in photo-electric exposure meter, with its selenium cell found under a ap above the top viewing lens. The cell powers a match needle metering read-out in a small window to the side of the focusing hood. Above the viewing lens there are three scales. The rst sets the lm speed. Above this is a scale showing all the camera’s apertures. Above that is a third scale on a moving ring which lists the shutter speeds. The settings on these last two scales appear upside down when viewed from the front, enabling them to be read by the photographer from above whilst operating the camera. Turning a lever attached to the top ring moves the shutter speed scale in relation to the aperture scale, and also shifts the needle in the meter window. When the needle is lined up against a central point, the shutter speeds on the top scale line up with the suggested apertures on the middle scale to indicate correct exposure. Although the camera’s speeds go only to 1/2 second, the metering scale goes down to 16 seconds, which can be attained by manually counting off the time with the shutter open in its ‘B’ setting. The suggested exposure needs to be set manually on the camera.
One more unusual accessory comes in the form of a special back that accepts glass plates. Once tted in place of the normal camera back, a hinged door swings up and a plate holder, containing a small glass plate, is slid onto rails on the back of the door, which is then closed. The plate holder’s dark slide is removed, the exposure made, and the dark slide replaced, before opening the back’s door and going through the process again for the next exposure. A tiny ground-glass screen
ts into the plate back for focusing and previewing the subject.
Few cameras can be termed unique in the true sense of the word, in that their speci cations are unlike those of any other cameras. But when all the various aspects of the Conta ex are put together, it’s one camera that deserves that title.
What to pay
When new, depending on the standard lens, the Conta ex was priced from £64 12s 6d (£64.62½). Today, according to the lens, expect to pay £800-1,200.