Contax is the name of the now defunct brand of high quality cameras. The camera is noted for its use of the Carl Zeiss lens, which is famous for its high optical quality. The original Contax brand of cameras was made in Dresden, Germany. Between 1975 and 2005, Contax became a Japanese brand when Zeiss formed an alliance first with Pentax, then with Yashica, and finally in 1983 with Kyocera, when it took over Yashica. On 12 April 2005, Kyocera announced that they have decided to terminate the Contax brand due to difficulties in competing with the rapidly changing market.
Contax camera was first produced in Dresden, Germany, by the firm of Carl Zeiss, which was named after one of its founder, the 19th century German optician Carl Zeiss (1816-1888). The Contax brand was the choice of the employees in a poll.
The first Contax model, the Contax I, was made between 1932 and 1936. It uses a die-cast alloy body housing a vertically traveling metal focal-plane shutter made out of interlocking titanium slats. This design allows for a comparatively faster shutter speed (1/1250 second) compared to other cameras of its time (1/500 second). Its main competitor at that time was the Leica brand. Contax lenses, designed by a young designer named Ludwig Bertele, was comparatively superior to Leica models of that time, for over two decades.
It was Contax which worked on the technology for the SLR, single-lens reflex camera. It started during the Second World War under Hubert Nerwin. After the war was over, production of Contax cameras continued in East Germany, in locations including Dresden and Jena as well as in Kiev in Ukraine. The chief designer after the war was Wilhelm Winzenberg. His development of the SLR resulted in the release of Contax S, where the S stands for "Spiegelreflex" meaning SLR. The "S" does not appear on the camera though.
The Contax S is the mother of all SLR cameras today. It was introduced in 1949. Much of its design became an industry standard, including its lens-mount, its focal-plane shutter and its pentaprism. The company that produced it, VEB Zeiss Ikon, in the Soviet-occupied side of Germany, was under pressure from Zeiss Ikon AG, the company on the US-occupied side of Germany, resulting in the Zeiss Ikon and Contax brands being dropped and replaced with the short-lived Pentacon brand which was never well accepted by the public. Eventually, the Pentacon brand was abandoned.
Meanwhile, on the US-occupied side of Germany, three arms of the Zeiss company was established: Carl Zeiss Stiftung (Carl Zeiss Foundation), Carl Zeiss and Zeiss Ikon. Now production of Contax models continued in the West German city of Stuttgart, where it continued until 1962.
The emergence of the Japanese camera makers put enormous pressure on the Zeiss company, which although produced extremely elegant and high quality cameras, which are also extremely expensive. Eventually Zeiss found it necessary to team up with a Japanese partner. At first, it was Asahi, which produces Pentax cameras. The partnership with Asahi resulted in Zeiss designing a lens-mount that became known as Pentax K-mount. Then the two companies went separate ways, and Zeiss found another partner in the form of Yashica. Under Yashica's fold, Contax brought out a new line of SLR cameras starting with the Contax RTS in 1975.
When Kyocera (portmanteau for Kyoto Ceramic Company) bought over Yashica in 1983, it continued to produce cameras under the Yashica and Contax brands. However, Kyocera faced fierce competition from existing camera makers, mounting production costs, and failure to increase its market share for Yashica and Contax. Eventually, Kyocera decided to terminate all its film and digital camera production, affecting the Yashica, Contax and Kyocera brands. The shipment of Contax cameras ended in September 2005. Kyocera continued to provide after-sales service to its customers for a maximum of 10 years for each model.
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