Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

Contax FBM / Pentacon FBM

Zeiss Ikon Dresden · M42 mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film (Pentacon F manual) · 1958

our own finding

Also known as: Pentacon FBM · Contax FBM · VEB Pentacon FBM · Zeiss Ikon Contax FBM

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Pentacon FBM M42 1958–1962 — Counted by Hummel within the 13,939 of the FBM series, September 1958 to March 1962 (praktica-collector.de), with no separate figure for either name. Marco Kröger warns against trusting Hummel's production figures, and no factory record has been published.
Contax FBM M42 — — Counted by Hummel within the 13,939 of the FBM series; no numbered example has been recorded
  1. Consol FBM (order number 141 000, 'Contax FBM 139 000 in USA Bezeichnung') is left out as a variant: the order list says the Consol F series existed only on paper.
  2. praktica-collector.de's Pentacon FBM page (Hummel no. 107, Schulz version 36, Kadlubek ZIK 5300) gives body no. 136043 and lens no. 5234748, the numbers of the same site's Pentacon FB page, and a purchase price of 90 euros. Its five photographs show a different camera: 'Pentacon FBM' on the meter flap, a Tessar 2.8/50 numbered 5751639, and a red carton printed 'Pentacon' with the Ernemann tower. The numbers in its text are therefore not used here; the camera in its photographs is.
  3. Hummel, via praktica-collector.de, has the F, FB and FM ending in June 1961 (one of the site's two Pentacon FM pages says July) and the FBM in March 1962, which would leave the FBM alone in production for its last nine months; no other source gives model-by-model end dates.
  4. Market, 2024 to 2026: the only FBM on Kleinanzeigen in October 2026 was the Waltershausen listing of 17 November 2024, the camera with Tessar 2.8/50 and case at 100 euros, offered together with a Pentacon 4/300 for 250 euros or nearest offer. No FBM had sold on Yahoo! Auctions in Japan in the 180 days of closed listings it showed in October 2026 (searched as 'Pentacon FBM' and 'Contax FBM'), and none was on offer on Marktplaats or willhaben.at that month. No Contax FBM was found on any of them.
  5. Lenses recorded on FBM bodies: Tessar 2.8/50 nos. 5751639 and 5752559, and Biotar 2/58 no. 5631748 on the museum camera. The English Pentacon F manual says the F, FM and FBM take any of the Pentacon lenses with or without the preset device; Jena spring-diaphragm lenses close automatically, as do Meyer-Optik Görlitz's pressure-diaphragm lenses such as the Primotar E, and others are stopped down by hand. No East German outfit price for an FBM with a lens has been found.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • A squared-off meter housing on top of the prism with the name on its hinged front flap, 'Pentacon' (or, on paper, 'Contax') over 'FBM'. 'FB' alone is the Contax FB, with a plain screen; 'FM' on the prism front with no meter housing is the Contax FM
  • Two split-image wedges in a clear circle at the centre of the screen (Pentacon F manual)
  • Behind the flap, the selenium cell under a ribbed window; on top of the housing, a curved scale window with a red follower pointer and a black needle, and a knurled calculator disc with DIN and ASA film speeds (praktica-collector.de's top view; Kleinanzeigen, November 2024; the Technikmuseum photograph)
  • Otherwise the Contax F: a bar in the lens throat that trips a spring-diaphragm lens (pentaconsix.com), large wind and rewind knobs, the flash nipple beside the rewind knob, a self-timer lever below the sloping front release, no accessory shoe

Pentacon FBM:

  • 'Pentacon' with a small 'FBM' centred beneath it on the hinged flap at the front of the meter housing on top of the prism (praktica-collector.de's photographs on its Pentacon FBM page; the Kleinanzeigen camera of November 2024)
  • Order number 140 000, listed as 'PENTACON FBM (= Contax FBM 139 000 in neuer Bezeichnung)', the Contax FBM under its new name (Yves Strobelt's order-number list on zeissikonveb.de, compiled from brochures, manuals, original cartons and an item-number register of Kombinat VEB Pentacon)
  • 'MADE IN GERMANY' engraved along the chrome edge at the right-hand end of the back, reading from top to bottom, on both cameras photographed from behind (praktica-collector.de; Kleinanzeigen, November 2024)

Contax FBM:

  • By analogy with the Contax FB and Contax FM, 'Contax' over 'FBM' on the meter flap; no photograph of such a camera has been found, so the engraving is unconfirmed
  • Order number 139 000: 'Contax FBM Spiegelreflex-Kleinbildkamera ohne Optik (mit Meßkeil, Springblende, Bildfeldlinse und Belichtungsmesser)', a body without lens, with wedges, spring-diaphragm release, field lens and exposure meter, sold with guarantee card, instructions and an empty spool in a carton (Yves Strobelt's order-number list)

Serial-range notes

two numbers on every body
VEB Zeiss Ikon gave its cameras a Kameranummer, counted through the whole reflex Contax line from the S onward, and a Fabrikationsnummer, a factory-wide lot number shared with other products and found for example on the back (Kröger and Yves Strobelt). Kröger adds that the system was later not kept up consistently; when is not known, but the break seems to go with the gradual winding-down of VEB Zeiss Ikon between 1956 and 1958.
about 100000
The 100,000th camera of the line was shown at the Leipzig autumn fair of 1956 as a gift for the most successful German athlete at the Melbourne Olympics; it went to the runner Christa Stubnick on 8 January 1957, who had to hand it back days later to keep her amateur status (Kröger). That was two years before Hummel's start date for the FBM.
188867
The Pentacon FBM that Kröger shows on zeissikonveb.de, the only FBM body number recorded here (the 136043 on praktica-collector.de's FBM page is copied from its Pentacon FB page). His photograph, taken from the wind-knob end with the back open, shows the number in white on the black body casting beside the take-up chamber. It lies above Hummel's total of 186,990 for the whole line, which is Kröger's point in showing it; Kröger also knows of bodies numbered well above 190,000, and his Pentacon FM 190106 is one. Pentacon FM 161744, from the same sequence, was tested at the factory in October 1959.
Tessar 5751639 and 5752559
The two FBMs photographed with a Tessar 2.8/50 carry lenses 920 numbers apart (praktica-collector.de's camera and the Kleinanzeigen camera of 2024). Kröger documents a Jena production lot of 1,000 Tessars 2.8/50, nos. 3,683,001 to 3,684,000, assembled from 2 October 1952, and believes Zeiss Ikon ordered lenses in lots to complete matching runs of cameras. Two cameras are too few to show that these lenses came with their bodies.

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film (Pentacon F manual) · 36 from the ordinary daylight cartridge; the manual also allows the other standard fillings and perforated film cut to lengths of up to 1.60 m exposures
Finder
fixed eye-level pentaprism, shortened at its base with a thin field lens cemented beneath it; a split-image wedge pair in a clear circle at the centre of the field lens, ground glass around it; no meter reading in the finder
Shutter
horizontal-travel rubberised-cloth focal plane (praktica-collector.de) · B and 1, 1/2, 1/5, 1/10, 1/20 s in red; 1/50, 1/100, 1/200, 1/500, 1/1000 s in black. The range is chosen with a separate knob, which brings the black or red pointer into the window of the speed disc, then the speed knob is pressed and turned (Pentacon F manual; praktica-collector.de) · flash sync X (praktica-collector.de): a single-pole contact nipple on the top cover beside the rewind knob, for flash units of up to 24 V and 2 A, with no restriction on electronic flash units that draw no considerable ignition current; the manual's bulb table gives 1/10 s or longer for most bulbs and 1/50 s for a few types (Pentacon F manual). No accessory shoe (praktica-collector.de) · self-timer
Film advance
knob: one full turn winds the shutter, advances film and frame counter and lowers the mirror; loose take-up spool; frame counter set by hand on loading (Pentacon F manual; praktica-collector.de)
Back
opened by pushing up a bolt on the right-hand side and pulling the back open by its edge; a film-marking disc records the type and speed of the loaded film; a release knob in the base is pressed for rewinding (Pentacon F manual). 'MADE IN GERMANY' is engraved on the right-hand end of the back of the two FBMs photographed from behind
Meter
Uncoupled selenium meter built into the top cover over the prism (praktica-collector.de), the meter of the Contax FB according to camera-wiki. Kröger identifies the meter of the metered Spiegel-Contax as the Werralux hand meter of the Feingerätewerk Weimar of VEB Carl Zeiss Jena, first built in for the Contax E. The English Pentacon F manual has no FBM chapter of its own; its chapter on the Pentacon FB gives the method: the film speed is set once on a disc with DIN and ASA scales, a light press on a pin at the left of the hinged cover opens it and uncovers the cell, the milled disc is turned until the red follower pointer covers the black needle in the meter window, and pairs of speeds and apertures are read off, the speeds coloured like those of the shutter dial. The scale on the Pentacon FBM offered in November 2024 runs from f/1.4 to f/22. No battery.
Designed by
Winzenburg Wilhelm — led the design of the Contax S of 1949, on which the FBM is built · Hennig Walter — given design responsibility for the Spiegel-Contax in 1951, leading the redesign that became the Contax D (Kröger); named as responsible designer of the Pentacon FBM in Hummel's model data on praktica-collector.de, which spells it Henning. Kröger places the Contax F of 1956 in an apparently gradual takeover of the design by the Kamera-Werke Niedersedlitz
Country
East Germany
Original price
In East Germany, Kröger's price list gives the Pentacon FBM body at 578 Mark in 1959 and 447 Mark in 1960. The list does not date the 1960 figure within the year; its introduction records a general price cut on 28 May 1960, which the fall would match. It was the dearest body of the line on both lists: the Pentacon F body cost 445 and 337 Mark, the FM 508 and 382, the FB 515 and 397. No Contax FBM price, no outfit price with a lens and no export price have been found, and the list's figures are in East German marks, which have no numeric field here.
Accessories
The Pentacon F manual's list of extra equipment: copying stand, transparency copying device, close-up bellows, micro attachment, focusing slide, focusing telescope, angle finder, intermediate tube and rings, a special intermediate ring with double cable release that keeps the automatic diaphragm working, eyecup, lens hood, colour filters, cable release, flashgun, universal tripod, chestpod, light box, developing tank and ever-ready cases. The manual says the direct-vision frame finder does not suit the Pentacon FB, and the FBM has the same meter housing · Leather ever-ready case: one came with the Kleinanzeigen FBM of 2024

The finder of the Contax FM. Kröger explains that from 1956 the prism was shortened and a flat field lens cemented to it, which brightened the image a little and for the first time allowed a Contax to be offered with a wedge pair, 'Contax FM bzw. FBM'. The English Pentacon F manual describes the focusing of the 'Pentacon FM, or Pentacon FBM with exposure meter': in the clear centre of the field lens two part images, displaced against each other and divided by a straight line, meet exactly when the lens is in focus, most easily seen where strong lines cross the dividing line at a right angle. The same manual gives the finder image as upright, right way round and, with the automatic-diaphragm standard lens, life size. praktica-collector.de lists a ground-glass screen with a central split-image rangefinder and no aperture display in the finder. The mirror is not instant-return: the finder stays dark after the exposure until the knob is wound.

Figures we worked out rather than found: On Kröger's 1959 price list the FBM's extras cost exactly what they cost separately: the split image added 63 Mark to the Pentacon F body (FM 508 against F 445), the meter 70 Mark (FB 515), and the FBM at 578 Mark is 445 + 63 + 70. On the 1960 list the sum is 105 Mark and the FBM costs 110 Mark more than the F. · Between the 100,000th body (autumn 1956) and Pentacon FM 161744 (factory-tested October 1959) the line averaged about 1,700 numbers a month. At that rate 188867 would date from about early 1961. Numbers need not have been issued evenly, so this is a rough guide only. · The years for the pentacon-fbm variant follow Hummel's span for the whole FBM series; the earliest dated evidence of the Pentacon FBM name is the 1959 price list.

Where sources disagree

First
  • September 1958 — praktica-collector.de (Hummel); camera-wiki dates the FM, whose finder the FBM shares, to 1958
  • 1957 — the title of Danipuntocom's photograph of the Pentacon FBM in the Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin

Better supported: 1958

The photograph's title does not say where its date comes from. On Wikimedia Commons one photographer captions a Contax FM 'Baujahr 1957' and another gives a Pentacon FM numbered 189xxx as '1957-19??' (see the Contax FM page); neither gives a source. No fair report or catalogue dating either model has been found.

Production
  • 13,939 Contax FBM and Pentacon FBM, September 1958 to March 1962 — praktica-collector.de (Hummel)
  • Hummel's total for the whole line, 186,990 (as relayed by Kröger) or about 187,000 (praktica-collector.de), is exceeded by the Pentacon FBM 188867 and Pentacon FM 190106 that Kröger shows

Kröger cites Hummel's line total only to refute it, under the heading 'Trauen Sie keinen Zahlenangaben von Richard Hummel!' (do not trust any of Richard Hummel's figures), and Hummel's per-model figures on praktica-collector.de add up to 159,703 against the 160,703 he states for the D-to-FBM models. No factory figure for the FBM has been published.

Maker
  • VEB Zeiss Ikon Dresden — praktica-collector.de's Pentacon FBM page
  • VEB Kamera-Werke Niedersedlitz — Kröger: VEB Zeiss Ikon had to hand its whole still-camera sector to the much smaller Kamera-Werke during 1957 and was all but dissolved the following year
  • VEB Kamera- und Kinowerke Dresden — the merged Dresden camera makers from 1959, renamed Pentacon in 1964 (camera-wiki)

The FBM was launched after the 1957 handover, and its run spans the 1959 merger; each name fits part of it. The brand field follows the convention of the other Dresden reflex Contax pages.

What reviewers say

History

The Contax FBM is the Contax FM with the exposure meter of the Contax FB: the split-image finder and the selenium meter on one body, and the last model of the reflex Contax that VEB Zeiss Ikon in Dresden had launched in 1949. The list of order numbers that Yves Strobelt compiled from brochures, manuals, original cartons and a Pentacon item-number register describes it in full: a 35mm reflex sold without a lens, “with wedges, spring-diaphragm release, field lens and exposure meter”. Richard Hummel’s figures, relayed by praktica-collector.de, put production at 13,939 between September 1958 and March 1962, export bodies included. Hummel also has the F, FB and FM ending in June 1961, which would make the FBM the model the line finished on. Marco Kröger of zeissikonveb.de warns against trusting any of Hummel’s figures, and no fair report or catalogue announcing the FBM has been found.

The finder is the FM’s. When the F arrived in 1956 the Dresden works had shortened the base of the prism and cemented a thin field lens under it, and Kröger notes that this brightened the image only a little but for the first time allowed a Contax with a pair of split-image wedges, “Contax FM or FBM”. The English Pentacon F manual describes focusing the “Pentacon FM, or Pentacon FBM with exposure meter”: two part images in the clear centre of the field lens, divided by a line, meet when the lens is in focus. The meter is the FB’s, in a squared-off housing on top of the prism, coupled to nothing and reading the scene directly. Kröger identifies the meter of the metered Spiegel-Contax as the Werralux hand meter from the Feingerätewerk Weimar of VEB Carl Zeiss Jena, first built in for the Contax E, and judges it a step back from what had already been achieved in the 1930s. A press on the pin at the left of the flap opens it; the knurled disc is turned until the red pointer covers the needle, and a pair of speed and aperture is read off and set by hand. Everything else is the Contax F: a horizontal cloth shutter from 1 s to 1/1000 in a red and a black range, a knob wind that also lowers the mirror, a bar in the lens throat that trips a Jena spring-diaphragm lens, the flash nipple beside the rewind knob and a self-timer on the front. The manual says the F, FM and FBM take any Pentacon lens with or without the preset device. Meyer-Optik Görlitz’s pressure-diaphragm lenses also close by themselves, and anything else is stopped down by hand.

The camera carries two names, but only one has been seen. In the order list the Contax FBM is 139 000, with the full description, and the Pentacon FBM is 140 000, “the Contax FBM under its new name”. A Consol FBM for the United States was given a number too, and the list says the Consol F series existed only on paper. Pentacon, from pentaprism and Contax, was registered in October 1952 according to Hummel and had been engraved on export bodies since 1953, during the long dispute with Zeiss Ikon AG in Stuttgart over the old trademarks. The same works had filed “Pentax” in September 1952, and Kröger writes that Asahi had to buy that name from it, probably in 1957. Hummel’s model list gives a Contax FBM its own number, 106, and camera-wiki says the Pentacon FBM is the same camera. Still, no Contax FBM has turned up: the site that carries Hummel’s list shows only a Pentacon FBM, and Kröger’s East German price lists carry only the Pentacon FBM, at 578 Mark for the body in 1959 and 447 Mark in 1960. In both years it was the dearest body of the line, and in 1959 its price was exactly the Pentacon F’s plus what the split image and the meter each added. The maker changed during the run as well. During 1957 VEB Zeiss Ikon had to hand its still cameras to the much smaller Kamera-Werke Niedersedlitz, in 1958 it was all but dissolved, and in 1959 the Dresden camera makers were merged as VEB Kamera- und Kinowerke, which took the name Pentacon in 1964.

Every body carries a camera number counted through the whole line from the first Contax S. The 100,000th camera was shown at the Leipzig autumn fair of 1956, two years before Hummel’s start date for the FBM. The one FBM number recorded is 188867, which Kröger shows with the back open, the number in white on the body casting beside the take-up chamber. He shows it to make a point: it is higher than Hummel’s 186,990 for the entire line, and Kröger knows of bodies numbered well above 190,000. The Pentacon FBM in the Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin appears in a photograph titled 1957, a year earlier than the written sources, and on Commons a Contax FM is captioned 1957 and a Pentacon FM “1957-19??”, neither with a source. Two FBMs photographed with a Tessar 2.8/50 carry lenses numbered 5751639 and 5752559, only 920 apart. Kröger describes Jena numbering lenses in lots that were ordered to complete runs of cameras, which would fit, but two cameras prove nothing about whether a lens is original.

The FBM is rarely offered for sale. The only one on Kleinanzeigen in October 2026 was a listing from November 2024, a Pentacon FBM with Tessar and leather case at 100 euros. None was on offer on Marktplaats or willhaben.at that month, and none had sold on Yahoo! Auctions in Japan in the 180 days its closed listings covered. To identify one, read the meter flap: “FBM” under the name. “FB” alone is the FB, with a plain screen, and an “FM” on the prism front with no meter housing is the FM. Look through the finder for the two wedges at the centre, and open the flap and point the camera at a light to see that the needle moves. The rest of the checklist is the line’s. Camera-wiki warns that the cloth curtains of every model perish and gather pinholes even when they look sound, so a body with replaced curtains is the safer buy. A finder that stays dark after an exposure only means the camera has not been wound. The FBMs recorded carry Tessars and a Biotar, but a lens should be treated as original only where papers show it.

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This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Photographs

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Related: Contax FB / Pentacon FB · Contax FM / Pentacon FM

Lenses for this body: Biotar 58mm f/2 · Tessar 50mm f/2.8 (Jena, 1947 design) · Flektogon 35mm f/2.8 · Biotar 7.5cm f/1.5 · Tessar 5cm f/3.5 · Sonnar 13.5cm f/4 · Triotar 135mm f/4 · Biometar 80mm f/2.8 (35mm SLR, 1948 design) · Sonnar 180mm f/2.8 (Olympia-Sonnar) · Primotar 50mm f/3.5 (Primotar E) · Tessar 40mm f/4.5 (Jena, 1938 design)

Sources (22)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this camera, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.