Zeiss Ikon Contessa

jbkirkpatrick · Joined: 27 Nov 2016 Posts: 3 Location: San Antonio, Texas

My sisters and I were just going through our late parent's things and found one of these, my father's. Several years ago I had asked him about this and we looked for it to no avail. I had used it a little back in the seventies till I purchased my own new SLR (a minolta).

Finding this gem( Whoo Turtle

), I'm wanting to have someone go through it and make it ready to run again....

Anyone have a suggestion as to who to send it to?

lucca1x · Joined: 09 Feb 2014 Posts: 93 Location: Romania

What's wrong with it?

jbkirkpatrick · Joined: 27 Nov 2016 Posts: 3 Location: San Antonio, Texas

l9magen · Expire: 2016-10-21

I recently had one serviced by Chris Sherlock in New Zealand. It needed rangefinder realignment and a good cleaning of the viewfinder. He did a brilliant job.
His email is:retinarepair@gmail.com
His main repairs are for Retinas, unsurprisingly.

titrisol70 · Joined: 14 Dec 2021 Posts: 184 Location: State of Denial

I have most of the non-folding Contessas and they are reliable and good cameras.

I bought one of the folding ones on a whim to complement the Ikonta35 I had and it is a wonderful camera.
Everything the article says is true, a few notes:

- Mine is the 1st version (1950-53) the Compur-Rapid shutter and a W serial number, thus made in 52/53 before the change to the version with the Synchro-Compur (1953-55). Also the shutter was old school speeds 1-2-5-10-25-50-100
- 45mm is a perfect focal for me, and the Tessar is a great lens close down above 5.6
The iris has 9 blades, making an almost perfect bokeh all the time.
- Speed and aperture rings are packed very close to the focusing and is easy to screw up any of them while trying to focus
- RF patch is bright, and clean, I guess the use of a prism instead of mirror makes it longer lasting
- Mine is the american version, with distance in feet and ASA in the film speeds
- Having to manually cock the shutter makes me slow down, but works fine
Also dont forget to move the film counter to diamond before loading. Otherwise least pictures will have weird spacing.
- Lightmeter is operational and it seems to be very close to a handheld for EV 7-13 (ISO100) with gate open (black) and EV 11-19 with gate closed (green)
Mike Elek has easy instructions on how to fix this selenium meters
- This thing is heavy! But balances really well and is easy to hold.
- Film wind and rewind are clumsy for this day and age, but not dissimilar to other cameras of this vintage (Agfa Solinette, Voigtlander Vito)
- Previous owners really cared for the camera, is clean and the case has been restitched and repaired, as well as the leather strips have been replaced

Contessa 35 (~1952)