Zeiss Historica Spring 2003

Zeiss Historica Spring 2003

There’s lots of wartime talk in this issue, with Werner Widdlers tales of what it was like to work in USSR occupied Jena, stereo devices, the quality of prewar Zeiss lenses, and an uncommon 21st century Japanese made camera with a Contax lens mount.

Pg 2. A former worker at the Saalfeld subsidiary of Carl Zeiss tells of his experiences there in 1946 and later in Jena, as the occupying USSR developed their ability to make Contax-like cameras, and relocated production to Kiev.

Pg 7. The Contarex Super and Super Electronic. The Contarex Bullseye usually gets all the attention of the Contarex family for it’s distinct looks, but no Contarex collection would be complete without looking at the Super and Super Electronic models.

Pg 10. The transition from the Flektoskop to the Flektometer.

Pg 13. Prewar and Postwar stereo devices from Zeiss-Ikon.  If you liked stereo photography and Zeiss, you had a lot of options in the years following the war…

Pg 16. …and if Zeiss had stereo devices, then that means the Soviets had them for the Kiev too!

Pg 18. Do you really need to ask the question about the quality of prewar Zeiss lenses?  Apparently some people do, and this collaborative article between John Scott, Peter Hennig, and Charles Barringer give us some test results.

Pg 23. If you thought the Contax mount died with the Contax and Kiev series of cameras, then you’ve obviously forgotten about this Cosina of Japan made Voigtländer Bessa variation from 2003, the R2C!

Pg 24. Two quick looks at a strange Nazi binocular and stereo lenses for microscopes.

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