{"id":20483,"date":"2021-05-03T01:22:21","date_gmt":"2021-05-03T05:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/?p=20483"},"modified":"2021-05-03T17:34:10","modified_gmt":"2021-05-03T21:34:10","slug":"not-with-a-bang-but-a-whimper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/not-with-a-bang-but-a-whimper\/","title":{"rendered":"not with a bang, but a whimper"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Zeiss Contarex Bullseye Advertisement brochure<\/p><\/div>\n

Toronto<\/strong>. Talk about bad timing laced with bad decisions! Zeiss introduced the Contarex<\/a> SLR just as Nippon Kogaku<\/a> introduced it’s Nikon F<\/a>. The Contarex was an engineer’s dream – a massive three pounds; over 1,000 parts per camera body; every part of high precision and tolerance; and so complex only a talented and well trained technician could do any repair\/adjustment needed. And it was both very expensive and difficult for the photographer to use.<\/p>\n

In Larry Gubas’s epic book, “Zeiss and Photography<\/a>“, all of chapter 37 is devoted to this line of cameras. McKeown’s list availability as 1959-1972 with the bullseye version shown here running 1959-1966.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for Zeiss, the Nikon F was well built, much less expensive, lighter, and easier to use and adjust. It became a world-wide winner. The Contarex fizzled.<\/p>\n

Note. The title of this post is the last line of T S Eliot’s famous 1925 poem, “The Hollow Men<\/a>“. I always enjoyed reading his works.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toronto. Talk about bad timing laced with bad decisions! Zeiss introduced the Contarex SLR just as Nippon Kogaku introduced it’s Nikon F. The Contarex was an engineer’s dream – a massive three pounds; over 1,000 parts per camera body; every … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1944],"tags":[398,3076,2209,681,23],"class_list":["post-20483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","tag-camera","tag-contarex","tag-nikon-f","tag-slr","tag-zeiss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20483"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20515,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20483\/revisions\/20515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}