Contaflex IV camera

[Niner]

Zeiss Contaflex IV. Made 1957 to 1959. I got one for cheap. It had one noticeable problem. Someone had taken the multi layered lens structure apart and put it back together wrong. This turned out to be a fix I was able to make surprisingly enough for me. I was feeling pretty proud of myself …until I tried to take some photos with it and found out that wasn’t the only problem.
This camera was pretty complex in it’s day. You took a reading from the meter. Matched up the floating arm reading with a circle on a pointer and read a number reading on a top dial. Then you set a serrated edged finger pincher on the inside row of the lens stack to the same number predicted by the light meter. Then, amazing, all the possible shutter speeds and apertures are linked up for you. All you had to do now was focus the split screen.
The camera came with a 50mm lens insert. You could buy a couple of other choices that would screw in once you unlocked a catch on the bottom of the lens housing.
The most complex thing about this camera was the between the lens leaf shutter. “Such an arrangement requires the shutter to stay open before the picture is taken, in order to see through the reflex finder. This in consequence, requires a second shutter behind the mirror to stay closed. When the release button is depressed, a series of events must take place very fast: Close the lens shutter, reduce the lens aperture to the preset f-stop, raise the reflex mirror and open auxiliary shutter. Then the exposure can take place by opening and closing the lens shutter. Note that the shutter moves three times.” Once the photo was taken the through the lens view went away until you turned the film advance knob and cocked the shutter for the next exposure.
My test roll showed some problems. About every fifth frame was totally blank suggesting the mirror didn’t move out of the way. Others were all fuzzy and of unknown actual aperture or shutter speed. But…. It is a wonder of German engineering. Probably when it was new it was great.