{"id":34726,"date":"2026-08-10T01:03:30","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T05:03:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/?p=34726"},"modified":"2026-08-10T00:38:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T04:38:20","slug":"a-fatal-flaw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/a-fatal-flaw\/","title":{"rendered":"a fatal flaw"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Contarex ad from the book “Zeiss and Photography” by the late Larry Gubas<\/p><\/div>\n

Toronto<\/strong>. In the late 1950s Zeiss Ikon decided to leap on the high end SLR bandwagon, announcing their Contarex<\/a> in 1958. This massive 35mm camera hit the North American shores in early 1960 after the camera’s lens system was redesigned.<\/p>\n

The camera was heavily over-engineered, to put it mildly, but very rugged in design. The first model, dubbed the Cyclops, had nearly 1100 discrete parts. It took a specially trained technician to do even the most basic ‘repair’. For example over 40 parts had to be removed to take off the top plate alone.<\/p>\n

This weighty and expensive brute of a camera lasted until 1972 when Zeiss Ikon folded. \u00a0A few models were made with the Zeiss logo. All models were intended for high-end\/professional use. Unfortunately, the delay between the 1958 announcement and the 1960 arrival for consumption gave the Japanese rivals of Zeiss-Ikon time to do many redesigns to their product lines. This resulted in smaller, lighter, easier to use, and cheaper cameras with many Contarex features.<\/p>\n

Of course the collector looks at rarity, not practical use, making the camera a true collectible today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toronto. In the late 1950s Zeiss Ikon decided to leap on the high end SLR bandwagon, announcing their Contarex in 1958. This massive 35mm camera hit the North American shores in early 1960 after the camera’s lens system was redesigned. … 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":[398,681,23],"class_list":["post-34726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","tag-camera","tag-slr","tag-zeiss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34726","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=34726"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34732,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34726\/revisions\/34732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}