Zeiss Ikon Contessa
John Wade looks at a top- quality and very usable collectable
LAUNCHED 1950 PRICE AT LAUNCH £78 GUIDE PRICE NOW £80-100 FOR COLLECTORS, the Contessa is an interesting and historic piece of Zeiss workmanship; for users, it’s a 35mm camera with a rangefinder for accurate focusing and an in-built meter for measuring exposures.
It also folds, measuring no more than 12x8x5cm when closed. Pressing a tiny stud allows a bed to drop down at 90° to the body as the lens moves forward along it to the shooting position.
Unlike most rangefinders that work on a two-mirror principle, the Contessa copies a style previously used by Zeiss in the Contax. Two rotating wedges of glass are placed so that, at infinity, the thick end of one wedge falls against the thin edge of the other, and light passes straight through without displacement. As the camera lens is focused, one glass wedge rotates against the other, forming a prism and deflecting the light in a way similar to that swivelling mirror in a more traditional rangefinder.
A selenium meter cell is found under a flap on the front of the body. Film speeds are set on a dial on the top-plate, which is rotated against a moving needle driven by the meter cell to indicate shutter speeds against apertures. The readings are then transferred manually to shutter and aperture dials around the lens. Although the shutter runs 1–1/500 second, the meter measures light up to a full 16 seconds. Apertures run f/2.8-f/22.
This is a great little camera for collectors and users alike.
What’s good
Zeiss engineering and optics, folds for easy carrying, robust rangefinder.
What’s bad
Fiddly shutter and aperture controls, film speeds are measured in DIN, unreliable meter.