Contarex I
The Contarex , also known as the Bullseye and the Cyclops, is a 35mm SLR camera launched by Zeiss Ikon in 1959 as their contribution to the professional photographer, meant to carter for any task what so ever. It is extremely heavy and beautifully made. It weighs almost net 1.2kg and is so complicated that it requires a skilled person even for the simplest repair. Event removal of the top cover is a major task involving removal several complex assemblies. A simple matter of winding the film back into its cassette involves two gear trains and three axels, in addition to a complex rewind knob with wind lever in order to avoid the meter movement visible in the finder, and it is even likely to break down, due to a missing support close to the winding gear.
The Zeiss Ikon AG, closely associated with the famous Carl Zeiss lenses, was once the world's largest camera maker. ZI, always wanting to make cameras for every kind of customer, had little concern whether each investment actually made any net returns, and the Contarex no exception. Despite the fact that the Contarex cameras never sold in any appreciable quantity, a huge amount of lenses and accessories were made available, including Contarex Special and the fixed lens Contarex Hologon cameras.
A little more than ten years after the introduction of the king of all 35mm SLR cameras, both the camera and the manufacturer was history. The reason was the cameras from the land of the rising sun, which in a little more than a decade had developed reasonable priced camera systems for both amateurs and professionals alike.
The Contarex "Bullseye" was launched in 1959, the same year as also Nikon and Canon, among others, introduced their 35mm SLR cameras, but only the Contarex has a built-in external exposure meter, and the meter is coupled to the aperture wheel by means of an aperture simulator, as well as to the shutter and film speed settings. The lens aperture wheel is situated at the front of the camera, a familiar place for a focusing wheel on the rangefinder Contax and its derivates. There is no aperture ring on the Contax lens itself. It is set on the camera. The aperture simulator is an iris replicating the lens iris opening in front of the selenium meter cell. The cell is in the Bull's eye, at the front of the finder housing.
The Contarex has a removable back replaceable with an accessory film magazine back with dark slide, enabling mid-film change.
