Really looking forward to the story. I am still regularly using my father's 1942 Contax II. I had this fully repaired and serviced by a Zeiss ikon specialist in the US in 2020/21 (took 6 months) and in that process uncovered some interesting and unique characteristics relating to its construction that occured during the period it was made. My father gave me this camera in 1974 when I gave him a new Yashica TL Electro-X to thank him for all his years of support while I was a kid - now I have both, and both are used regularly here in Brisbane, Queensland. My father bought the camera shortly after the end of the war while he was in his very early twenty's. As a kid in the 60's, I still remember the red box it came in with the Zeiss Ikon logo because he kept transparencies in that box. It's a shame he is not around so I can learn a little more of how he actually originally attained it at that time in Australia. As he was living in Southern NSW, there would be a chance that it came to Australia with some of the workers who immigrated to work on the Snowy Mountains Hydro Scheme which started in 1949 which would line up with the dates and location - there are photographs of him with the camera before he was married and well before i was born. It would have been a significant investment for him. I also have his original leather camera bag, filters, instruction book and tripod. I still remember my father pinning blankets up on the laundry windows and developing and printing his own photographs. I really look forward to the upcoming episodes as this camera is very special to me. Thanks heaps - Derek.

@ThePhotographyMinimalist

9 ай бұрын

Thanks for sharing!

Well made ! I don't have the iconic Contax bodies (I, II & III series - or old Contax SLRs with M42 mount) but i do shoot with the Contax-Yashica system since 89, and besides Minolta & Nikon F, it's my fave system since then...made by Yashica up to 83, then it was the japanese ceramic giant Kyocera, which produced the Contax series.

I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THE WHOLE STORY!!! As my late dad had a Contax IIa,as he was in WWII, and I manged to get myself a Contax II, and III with the lenses, and also I got the Pentacon F in which it was the Twin Brother of the Contax D but also have Zeiss lenses for the Contax/Pentacon SLR, and then I got the Praktina system with also Zeiss Lenses AND the Spring Wind Motor Drive(2). I will be hopefully to see it... Well Done on the Trailer.... Love it..

I'm curious as to what cameras grunts used on the front lines. I shot around 500+ photos during my deployment to Kuwait/Iraq beginning back in September of of 2002 through Oct 2003. It was just a simple 2mp Connon Powershot S200 Elph but, without it no one in our platoon would have captured anything. I just asked what the smallest most robust camera they had at the time was. It made it through fighting in Najaf, Baghdad, both Thunder Run 1&2, and then Fallujah. All while fitting inside of one of my grenade pouches. Anyway, looking forward to your video. Thanks

Somehow, I do not think that Contax II cameras were used by the US Army in WWII. My first serious 35mm camera was a Contax II with uncoated 50mm 1.5 Sonnar, circa late 1930s. I bought it from Wall Street Camera in NYC for $65. That was a lot of cash for a 13-year-old in 1959. It was not very satisfying. The rangefinder was great, but the viewfinder was not great, just like most of that vintage. The uncoated Sonnar was very low contrast, but sharp enough. The removable back and take-up spool made it clumsy to load by prevailing camera standards. While the shutter worked fine, the knob winding had weird, variable tensions from the shutter and always left you wondering if you were doing it right. A few gifts and a lot of yard work enabled a Nikkorex F and the then-new 50mm 1.4 Nikikor in 1961. It may have been made for Nikon by Mamiya, but it worked perfectly with no issues to 1976, when it was replaced by a Nikkormat FT2. I don't think I ever used the Contax after 1962. I consigned it for sale at my local photo shop around 1980. ($100)

@fretlessfender

7 ай бұрын

Perhaps not by the US forces, but the most famous WW2 photographer Robert Capa used exclusively Contax during WW2. Those slightly out of focus moments from D-Day on the beaches of Normandy are his work, and his Contax 2 camera...

@rvannooij

7 ай бұрын

Indeed, Contax II cameras were NOT issued to US military photographers. You see them mainly in the hands of accredited civilian correspondents, like Capa, during the war. On rare occasions you see them as personal cameras of military photographers, but never in a combat situations. The table of organisation and equipment for a Signal Photographic Company for 1944 shows a dozen Leica cameras as "35mm camera, Unofficial", to be carried by the officers of the Combat Assignment Units.

Robert Capa Contax II

@ThePhotographyMinimalist

9 ай бұрын

Spot on!

@marcp.1752

9 ай бұрын

Just right, Robert Capa made the Contax brand famous. I've asked Zeiss via mail serveral times ago, how about a 100 years of Contax, into 2032...but they said no, and won't release, or bring anything to the birthday table then...it's a shame.

@chriscard6544

9 ай бұрын

@@marcp.1752 too bad, do they know something called marketing ?

@alexcarrillo5510

9 ай бұрын

THANK YOU, NOW I CAN TELL CHUCKLES THAT HE LIED OF THAT SHOT OF THE SPANISH SOLDIER!. I glad that I own the Contax II & III with Zeiss lenses.

@chriscard6544

9 ай бұрын

@@alexcarrillo5510 yeah you are right, there is a darkside