Filling The Gaps With Another 35mm Folding Camera: The Zeiss Ikon Contessa (533/24)

I’ll come out and say it: I didn’t need this camera. It was just an impulse buy from the Kamerastore website. But I like Zeiss Ikon cameras, and this one was 35mm, and a folder (it doesn’t look like it, but it has little bellows inside), and I just had to have it. I HAD to. Of course, it was cheap, about 40€, which I understand is a great price for a Contessa. Naturally, it was in the ‘Not Passed’ category of the Kamerastore website, with ‘flaws that will affect typical use’. In this case, the ‘shutter overexposes and needs service. The rangefinder calibration is off. The light meter does not work, [and it] has a lot of dust, haze, and fungus inside the viewfinder’. The fungus had been killed by UV light, and I hoped (one day) I might get inside it to clean this out.

The Zeiss Ikon Contessa (533/24) is a manual 35mm rangefinder camera. Produced between 1950 and 1955, it was a quite high-end camera for the day, and it looks like it. Turning it over in your hands, the Contessa is a heavy beast (clocking in at around 600g), but has a minimalist appearance. All there is on the top plate of the camera is an indicator dial for the type of film, and the dial and window for the camera meter. On the bottom of the camera are two large wheels, one to advance the film and one to rewind, and a button in the centre of the advance wheel that disengages the wind-on mechanism to rewind the film. In the middle of the bottom of the camera is the frame counter. All of the other controls of the camera are hidden behind the lens flap.

Like many folding cameras from the Zeiss Ikon range, the Contessa has a flap on the front that pops out to reveal the lens. The shutter release button is also in this assembly, and this can be disconcerting when you’re turning the folded camera around in your hands as there’s no obvious shutter button on the top plate, where these things are normally found. It has a Compur-Rapid shutter, which makes it an early version of the Contessa, and from the serial number (O45505), I reckon it was made between 1956/57. The shutter has nominal speeds of 1s—1/500s (+ B), but according to the description the camera overexposes, so my first attempts at using this camera will probably be a bit of a guess. It comes with a Zeiss-Opton 45mm f2.8 Tessar lens, with apertures from f2.8 to f22. 

It has an uncoupled light meter, which is behind a flap on the front right of the camera, but of course that doesn’t work in my Contessa. Outside in the daylight, the meter is used with the flap down. But indoors, and in low light situations, the flap can be raised to reveal the full selenium cell. I did come across a method of revitalising the selenium cell, and I may well give this a try later. Similarly, the rangefinder is out of alignment and at some stage I might try working on that. The most serious fault with this Contessa is that the shutter speeds overexpose, but I have a ‘plan’ for that.

The interesting thing about this camera is that it’ll only work with film loaded. There are two sprocket wheels below the film gate that lock on to the film sprockets and a hold the film firmly against the film plate. These turn for the required spacing between frames then lock the film in place. The wind on wheel only turns the sprocket wheels while the film is loaded, and the shutter cannot be cocked until the next frame is locked in place. It can actually be done with the back open and the wheels turned by hand, but it’s fiddly.

To load the camera, open the film back and load a 35mm cassette. Pull a length of film to the wind on spindle, making sure that the film sprockets feed through the sprocket wheels. When the film is secure on the spool, close the back. On the bottom of the camera, rotate the film counter dial until the arrow is pointing at the diamond. Then wind on the film. It will automatically stop when the counter reaches ‘1’ and the camera is ready to use. When the film is finished, and the wind on wheel can’t turn any more, press the button in the centre of the wind on wheel and using the rewind wheel wind the film back into the cassette. The button disengages the wind-on mechanism and allows the film to be rewound. Keep pressure on the button when rewinding. 

I have a whole load of offcuts in the refrigerator, little rolls of film that were left over after respooling 35mm films into Rapid canisters. Each 12-exposure Rapid canister requires a length of about 60cm of film, and generally I can get two Rapid canisters worth out of a 36-exposure roll of film. However, I discovered that the offcut left over from each roll is about 8 exposures long, so I’ve started making one Rapid canister from each roll, and using the rest in a regular 35mm camera, which works out at about 20 exposures. 

I took an offcut of Harman Phoenix I (expired 12/2025), and loaded it into the Contessa. I’m aware that the Contessa is over exposing, so I assumed that the 1/200s shutter speed setting was actually exposing at 1/100s. Using the Camera Meter app, I set the aperture accordingly for a 1/100s exposure. We took the Contessa to Vagueira, along with the Ilford Pixie with some really expired film, and used the camera around the town. It turned out that I must have tried to make two Rapid canisters worth out of this 35mm roll, since I only got 8 exposures out of the roll.

After respooling the film into the cassette, I took the exposed film to the Forever Blue in Aveiro for development. I wasn’t sure what I was going to get from this, if anything at all, so I went for the ‘develop only’ option. When I got the negatives back (forty-five minute turnaround from Forever Blue, thank you lads) they were absolutely  amazing and it looks like I might have nailed the exposure. The negatives were scanned with an Epson Perfection v750 Pro flat bed scanner and Epson Scan software. If you’re interested, I’ve posted the whole series in an album on my Flickr.

https://flic.kr/p/2sjGa4B

There were only a few images on this offcut, but I absolutely loved them. The photographs shown are basically how they came out of the scanner. I didn’t have to (or want to) make any adjustments at all. The Contessa is definitely going to be one of my ‘day out’ cameras, even with its limitations.

https://flic.kr/p/2sjE1zx

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A Small Collection Of Cameras From The ‘Bay

A week or so ago, while I was searching for a Bolta Photavit IV on eBay (not to buy, I already have one but just for the craic), the algorithm suggested an entry that caught my eye: ‘Zeiss Ikon; Leidolf, Regular; Pouva; Collection; read!’ said the heading. The text continued (all machine translated from the original German), ‘Collection from a collection liquidation. These … have certainly not been used for a very long time. … Zeiss Ikon Nettar 515/16 (exteriorly above average) • Pouva Start • Leidox with case • (King Regula) Haponette LK. All are in good external condition for their age, with minor signs of wear’. 

My interest was immediately piqued by the Zeiss Ikon Nettar 515/16, and the Buy It Now price of 22€ (35€ including delivery) was tempting for that alone, the others were a bonus. I like the Zeiss Ikon folding cameras, I have a 517/16 from the 1950s that is a most wonderful medium format camera, and I fancied comparing it with the 515/16 from the 1930s. I was a little put off by the statement in the text that the collection, ‘accurately depict the condition. Technically, they have not been tested at all; defects or functional limitations may be present, but are not guaranteed’. So none of them might not actually work and it was a bit of a punt whether my 35€ investment might be four useless cameras. Oh well, we’ll see.

A week or so later, a beautifully wrapped box turned up. That the seller had packed the box so well was encouraging, and inside the cameras were securely packaged, too. I unpacked them individually, and what follows are my first impressions of each camera. The first one out of the box was the Haponette LK. I wasn’t familiar with this camera, but from what I can tell it’s a rebadged King Regula L. Apparently, the German company Porst would licence and rebrand other manufacturers cameras as their own, much like the British high street store Dixons did with their Miranda brand cameras in the 1980s (and Kodak does with Reto today).

The Haponette LK was in really nice condition externally, and it even came with a black plastic lens hood that I’m sure is quite unusual to have survived with the camera. The shutter seemed to work well at all speeds, and hopefully are accurate, and the self-timer also works. In fact, I thought the self timer was the shutter cocking lever for a while and spent some time trying to find how to turn this off. It was only when I found a YouTube video on the King Regula that I realised what it was and I didn’t need to cock the shutter each time, the wind-on did that. Inside,  the camera looked clean enough, but the back of the lens was quite grubby and will need some attention.

Next out of the box was the Leidolf  Leidox, from another German camera manufacturer that I was unaware of. The Leidox was Leidolf’s first camera, produced in 1950, and it’s a 127 format camera. Even better, there was a film still in it. Of course, I only discovered the presence of the film after opening the back, so I’ve lost a couple of frames, but all being well the remainder will be … good? Playing with the camera, I think the shutter is a little sticky, so I might wind the film to the end of roll then respool it back to make an ‘unexposed’ roll. Then I can reload it into another 127 camera and use the remainder of the film while I see if I can loosen up the shutter mechanism of the Leidox. 

The penultimate camera from the box was an early version of the East German Pouva Start. This was a cheap bakelite medium format camera produced between the 1950s and 1970s, and this version, with the pop-up viewfinder, was made until 1956. Of all of the cameras in the box, this is the one that didn’t work straight away, so I think I’m going to have to try and fix the spring inside. I do have a working model from the same period, the Pouva Start is a favourite of mine from when I was looking for something to get me back into film, so it’s not a complete failure if it doesn’t work.

Of course, I saved the best until last: the Zeiss Ikon Nettar 515/16. This was the whole reason for getting this collection, and I hoped it was functional. As described, the exterior of the Nettar was ‘above average’, though for a 90-year-old camera it definitely looked old. Unlike the later models, the 515/16 features a pop-up viewfinder and this will certainly need a clean. Likewise, the rear lens will need some attention. Unusually, the Nettar contained two empty plastic spools, but I can always use more of these. The shutter speeds and the aperture were fine, so after giving it a clean I’m looking forward to taking this out for a test run.

Over the next few instalments, I’ll give a more in-depth overview of each camera, and a test with film. In the meantime, if you are on Mastodon, you can now follow this blog directly. Just go to Mastodon and follow the ‘Snapshot’ WordPress account at @keithdevereux.wordpress.com. All new posts will be automatically updated to your timeline.

2023/106

https://karlender.net/3455/

Die Vereinten Nationen haben es gerade nicht einfach. Das sieht man auch am Gebäude. War die UNO City in Wien zuerst das Zentrum des Neuen Wiens in Kaisermühlen, ist es jetzt ein gestrandetes Raumschiff inmitten von gläsernen Egotürmen der großen Corporates. Hatte die Stadt ein Konzept verfolgt und wurde hier einmal ausnahmsweise groß gedacht, zeigt der Fleckerlteppich rundherum, dass der freie Markt von Planung nichts versteht. Diese Zeiten sind vorbei und der Politik fehlt die Vision. Vertane Chance. Die Welt würde funktionierende Vereinte Nationen benötigen, stattdessen haben wir dysfunktionale Nationalitäten gekaufter Hohlköpfe.

Foto: Flickr
Location: ///durst.wertvolle.richtet

Sortie #vélo avec l'appareil photo. Il fait pas chaud, mais grand soleil. Je fais le tour des points hauts autour de la maison.

#ZeissIkon #Voigtländer #IlfordFP4