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

Contax S

Zeiss Ikon Dresden · M42 mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film (Ercona manual) · 1949

Known as “Spiegel-Contax”

Also known as: Contax S · Zeiss Ikon Contax S · Zeiss Ikon VEB Contax S · Contax S Zeiss Ikon · Contax S Biotar · Contax S Dresden · Contax S M42 · Contax S Spiegelreflexkamera · コンタックスS · コンタックス S

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
First series, plug in place of the self-timer (1949–50) · [object Object] M42 1949–1950 — —
With self-timer, sold in the US as 'the 1951 Contax-S' (1950–52) · [object Object] M42 1950–1952 — 7,730 between August 1950 and December 1951 for Hummel's variant C, as given on praktica-collector.de. Kröger warns against trusting Hummel's figures in general, though he allows that the counts for A to C may be right; many S bodies were later refitted with the D shutter
  1. Richard Hummel's numbering, as used on praktica-collector.de, divides the S into 086 Contax S, 087 variant A, 088 variant B and 089 variant C, followed by 090 and 091, the D-1 and D-2, which are the S Typ D. Here 086 to 088 fall under the first series and 089 under the self-timer variant; the S Typ D is on the Contax D page. Kröger rejects the black prism front Hummel gives the first 2,400 bodies and the re-engraved speeds he gives variant A, and finds nothing outward that separates 086 to 088.
  2. Body 2159 was offered on Kleinanzeigen on 26 July 2026 at 170 € asking, titled 'seltene Contax D (frühe S)' and described as a very early first-series S with no other number, sold with a Tessar 4.5/40. Whether it is an unconverted S or an S Typ D cannot be told from the listing.
  3. A Contax S with Biotar T 58mm f/2 and case was offered on Kleinanzeigen on 25 October 2026 at 260 € asking, the seller reporting a working shutter and sound curtains.
  4. A Contax S with the Zeiss Ikon Sonnar 57mm f/2 it was designed around survives at the Technische Sammlungen Dresden (camera-wiki photograph). The lens never reached series production; Kröger concludes from serial numbers outside the Zeiss scheme that a pre-series was made in Dresden. It is not the Contax RF Sonnar.
  5. An ivory-lacquered S with brown covering, in the Baumgartner collection, is of doubtful authenticity in Kröger's view; praktica-collector.de mentions cameras with brown covering and beige paint without comment.
  6. The 753 g in the Wolfen museum's record (museum-digital) is for an S 'D-2', an S Typ D with Biotar, not an original S; no weight or dimensions for the S itself are given here.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • 'Contax' alone on the prism front, under the Zeiss Ikon logo: 'Contax S' is the name in brochures and advertising, not on the camera (pentaconsix.com, citing Hummel; the Pehlemann and Dean photographs)
  • Flash contact inside the tripod socket on the base; the D and the S Typ D have a flash socket on the top cover beside the rewind knob (camera-wiki; Kröger)
  • Shutter release that locks down for time exposures when turned to the left (Ercona manual); the S Typ D's release does not lock (Kröger)
  • A small D under the Zeiss Ikon logo means an S Typ D, built new in 1952 or converted from an S; it belongs with the Contax D
  • Speed dial with black figures from 1/50 to 1/1000 and red figures from 1/20 to 1 s; knob wind; a small foot under the lens mount pulls out as a stand (Ercona manual)

First series, plug in place of the self-timer (1949–50):

  • A round plug fills the self-timer opening on the front, below the release, and there is no self-timer lever. Kröger describes the plug as chrome; pentaconsix.com, working from a 1989 VEB Pentacon book illustration, calls it a black stud; Wolfgang Pehlemann's photograph, captioned 'Earliest version without self timer', shows a chrome plug
  • On the earliest bodies the engraving on the prism front is not yet filled with black, and the Biotar is often black rather than chrome (black lacquered in Kröger, black anodised in camera-wiki)
  • Many bodies of this series stop at 1/500 rather than 1/1000 (Kröger)

With self-timer, sold in the US as 'the 1951 Contax-S' (1950–52):

  • Self-timer lever on the front below the release, where the first series has the plug. It is set by pushing it to the left and started by a milled knob beside it; the delay is about 11 seconds, or 2 to 3 seconds if the lever is stopped at 45 degrees (Ercona manual)
  • Still 'Contax' alone on the prism front, the flash contact in the tripod socket and the locking release, which together separate it from the S Typ D (Kröger)
  • Original S shutter, with an anchor escapement for the slow speeds that sounds different at 1 s from the quieter centrifugal governor of the D shutter (Kröger). He allows that the governor may already have been introduced during 1951, so the sound is an indication rather than proof

Serial-range notes

980–2012
First-series bodies documented by Kröger: 980, photographed by Jacques Morin as typical of the first series; 1030/1034 of December 1949, the month the 1,000th Contax S was celebrated; and 2012, assembled from parts numbered for other bodies.
1527
The Technische Sammlungen Dresden body long shown as a first-series S with a black prism front. Kröger calls it a fake: the front was painted over to match retouched brochure pictures, and no production body had a black front. It is no longer on display.
8041
praktica-collector.de's example of Hummel's variant C, with self-timer, shown with a Tessar 2.8/50 T no. 4174938.
13045
Kröger's example of the 'Contax S Typ C', Fabrikationsnummer 57443, with the flash contact in the tripod socket and the locking release; it came to him with the curtains torn out, the drum shaft bent and the escapement damaged.
24672
Bought new through the Kulturbund at the end of May 1952, failed within days, repaired, and released for conversion to the Contax D shutter in August 1955 at 87 Mark (the owner's correspondence, published by Kröger). On Hummel's total of 26,287 it would be one of the last.
Kameranummer and Fabrikationsnummer
Each body carries a Kameranummer counted along the line from the S through the D, E and F series, and a factory-wide Fabrikationsnummer, on the back, shared with Zeiss Ikon's other products. Low numbers mix S, S Typ D and D bodies because S cameras were converted. The 100,000th body of the line was shown at the autumn 1956 Leipzig fair, presented to the runner Christa Stubnick on 8 January 1957 and handed back days later (Kröger).

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film (Ercona manual) · 36 from a standard daylight cartridge; the manual allows bulk film up to 1.60 m exposures
Finder
fixed eye-level pentaprism; the prism's ground lower face is the focusing screen, with no separate screen or field lens
Shutter
horizontal rubberised-cloth focal plane (praktica-collector.de; 'fabric' in the Science Museum record) on large-diameter drums, the curtains held by latches and released by a separate clockwork timing unit that is wound with each film advance (Kröger, from patents DD5395 and DD5403); no instant-return mirror (Ercona manual) · B, 1, 1/2, 1/5, 1/10, 1/20 in red and 1/50, 1/100, 1/200, 1/500, 1/1000 in black (the steps from Kröger and the Science Museum record), the group chosen with a separate control: a knob next to the speed dial in the Ercona manual, a slider on the back of the top cover in Kröger; many early bodies reach only 1/500 · flash sync contact inside the tripod socket for flash units up to 24 V and 2 A, with the shutter at 1/10 s or slower; an errata sheet in the Ercona manual allows faster settings when the flash's delay and duration are known
Film advance
knob; one full turn winds the shutter, advances film and counter and lowers the mirror (Ercona manual)
Back
back opened by a sliding catch on the right side; frame counter set by hand on loading; film-type and speed reminder on the rewind knob (Ercona manual)
Meter
none
Designed by
Wilhelm Winzenburg — chief designer; led the work from 1945 · Rudolf Kuhnert — shutter, with Winzenburg · Walter Hennig — shutter redesign from 1951, which became the Contax D
Country
East Germany
Original price
3,000 Mark with the Biotar 2/58 in East Germany in 1950, 1,950 Mark from December 1951 and 880 Mark from 26 October 1953 (Kröger's price list; his Contax page puts the December 1951 price at 2,000 Mark). In the United States $475 with the 'T' coated Biotar in Ercona's Popular Photography advertisement of March 1950, and still $475 for 'the 1951 Contax-S' with self-timer in December 1950 (both advertisements reproduced by Kröger) (today $6,180)
Accessories
Zeiss Ikon flash units 222 20, 222 201, 222 23 and 222 231, marked 'nur für Contax S' in the factory order list, which notes they work only on S bodies with the tripod-socket contact; each was made for a 3/8-inch or a 1/4-inch tripod thread (Yves Strobelt's order-number list, zeissikonveb.de) · Distance rings 208/04 and 208/03 for close work: with the Biotar, up to three rings take the scale to about 1:2.5 (Ercona manual) · Eyepiece light hood and corrective eyepiece lenses (Ercona manual); eyecup 20702 and folding frame finder 20710, both listed by the seller as 'Contax S' parts in their original boxes, in an estate lot with Contax D 65607 (Kleinanzeigen, May 2023) · Lens hood 20601 for 40.5mm, listed as 'Contax D' in its original box in the same lot

The whole lower face of the prism is ground, so the image is dim and darkens toward the edges; the prism's faceted edges draw a bright frame line round the picture area (Kröger), which the Ercona manual describes as somewhat smaller than the negative. camera-wiki's user notes call the finder of every model before the F small. The mirror stays up after the exposure and comes down when the knob is wound, so an uncocked camera shows nothing (Ercona manual).

Figures we worked out rather than found: Tessar 4174938 on body 8041 is numbered above the lot of 3,683,001–3,684,000 that Jena began assembling on 2 October 1952 (Kröger's serial-number page), so it was made after S production had ended and cannot be the body's original lens · $475 in March 1950 against $385 for the Stuttgart Contax IIa with f/2 in Abe Cohen's April 1950 advertisement: the Dresden camera cost about 23% more

Where sources disagree

Announced
  • Autumn (November) 1948 in Sweden, then the Leipzig spring fair of March 1949 — Kröger, from period press, brochures and the patent filings of 6 March 1949
  • A prototype at the St. Erik Fair, Stockholm, in 1948, then Leipzig in March 1949 — Mike Eckman
  • Prototypes shown to selected visitors at the Leipzig spring fair of 1948 — Hummel, as quoted by Kröger and repeated on praktica-collector.de

Better supported: Sweden in 1948, Leipzig in March 1949

Kröger finds no press mention of a 1948 Leipzig showing. pentaconsix.com says the camera was produced in 1948, and the Science Museum's record gives 1948 in its date field and 1949 in its text.

Last
  • December 1951 — Hummel's series-production span of September 1949 to December 1951 (praktica-collector.de)
  • 1952 — Kröger: the old shutter stayed in production until shortly before the D's presentation at the autumn 1952 fair, and S 24672 was sold new at the end of May 1952

Better supported: 1952

The S was still on the East German price list at 880 Mark from 26 October 1953 (Kröger's price list).

Variants (Hummel's A, B and C)
  • A: 1/25 and 1/250 re-engraved as 1/20 and 1/200; B: prepared for a self-timer but delivered with a chrome plug; C: self-timer fitted — Hummel, via praktica-collector.de, which calls A to C internal names (Kröger quotes Hummel's book for B from May 1950)
  • The 1-2-5 sequence was deliberate and the speed that could not be held was 1/1000; the plug was on all early bodies; A to C were real shutter revisions that cannot be told apart from outside, and any unconverted S is best called Typ C — Kröger
  • A to C a deliberate fabrication by Hummel, described in Schulz's earlier German book and left out of his English book of 2008 — Alexander Schulz, as reported by Kröger

Better supported: Kröger

This page uses the two versions a buyer can see: plug or self-timer.

Black prism front
  • The first 2,400 bodies, September to December 1949, had a black-painted prism front — Hummel, as quoted by Kröger
  • No production body had one; brochure pictures from December 1948 on were retouched, and museum body 1527 was painted to match — Kröger

Better supported: Kröger

Self-timer plug
  • Post-war shortages left the lever and mechanism unavailable; a black stud — pentaconsix.com, from a 1989 VEB Pentacon book illustration
  • Prepared for a self-timer but delivered without one, the hole closed with a small chrome patch — Hummel (praktica-collector.de; Kröger quotes his book for May 1950)
  • A chrome plug on all early bodies, because the timer's coupling to mirror and shutter was not yet reliable; the March 1949 prototypes had self-timers — Kröger

Better supported: Kröger

Production
  • 26,287 for Hummel's six S-series models, including the D-1 and D-2 that are S Typ D bodies; 7,730 of them variant C (praktica-collector.de)
  • Kröger reads the same 26,287, 'if one believes Hummel's figures', as the count of original Contax S; he warns against trusting Hummel's numbers, though he allows the counts for A to C may be right

No factory record of S production has been published.

Original price
  • 1,950 Mark with Biotar from December 1951 — Kröger's price list
  • 2,000 Mark with Biotar from December 1951 — Kröger's Contax page

The same author; neither figure has been corrected.

1,000th body
  • 2 December 1949 — Deutsche Fotothek caption
  • 3 December 1949 — the commemorative badge and the symbolic ticket (Kröger)

Better supported: 3 December 1949

Self-timer delay
  • About 11 seconds — Ercona manual
  • About 10 seconds — praktica-collector.de
Maker
  • Zeiss Ikon VEB, Dresden — the engraving and the Ercona manual ('MECHANIK. ZEISS IKON VEB – DRESDEN')
  • VEB Carl Zeiss Ikon Jena — Science Museum catalogue record

Better supported: Dresden

Carl Zeiss Jena made the lenses; the camera came from Dresden.

First pentaprism SLR
  • The first SLR with a prism finder — VEB Zeiss Ikon advertising of 1950–51, repeated by Hummel, Schulz and Jehmlich
  • Second to the Rectaflex, which had a roof pentaprism by the Milan fair of April/May 1948 and was in series production at the start of 1949 — Kröger, from Corsi's patents

Better supported: Rectaflex first

What reviewers say

History

The Contax S is the first of the Dresden reflex Contaxes. It took its 42mm screw mount from the Praktiflex, a thread that camera-wiki notes became close to an industry standard. Zeiss Ikon in Dresden had been working toward a 35mm reflex with an eye-level, right-way-round finder since a patent application of September 1938 and through the wartime Syntax project; the prototypes and drawings burned in the raid of February 1945, and a team under Wilhelm Winzenburg started again that summer. The result is engraved simply “Contax” under the Zeiss Ikon logo. “Contax S” is the name in the brochures and advertisements, and collectors also call the whole line the Spiegel-Contax. The works, expropriated in 1946 and named VEB Zeiss Ikon from 1948, showed the camera in Sweden in the autumn of 1948, presented it at the Leipzig spring fair of March 1949 and began series production that autumn; the first cameras reached buyers early in 1950.

It was designed around a Sonnar 2/57 computed in Dresden, after a 2/55 of December 1945 had left too little room behind the lens for the mirror. Harry Zöllner of the Jena computing office then argued in Foto-Kino-Technik that the Biotar type was the better design, and the camera appeared at the March 1949 fair with the Carl Zeiss Jena Biotar 58mm f/2 instead; a Contax S with the Sonnar 57mm survives at the Technische Sammlungen Dresden. The first Biotars were black, and the New York importer Steelmasters reported in January 1950 that American customers would not take them. The Science Museum’s self-timer S carries a Tessar 5cm f/3.5, and the mount takes any 42mm screw-thread lens.

The finder has no separate screen or field lens. The whole lower face of the prism is ground to act as the screen, so the image is dim and falls off toward the edges, and the prism’s faceted edges draw a bright line round a field slightly smaller than the negative. The mirror stays up after each exposure until the knob is wound. Winzenburg and Rudolf Kuhnert’s shutter runs rubberised cloth curtains horizontally on large drums, as a Leica does, but a separate clockwork unit, wound with each film advance, releases them; the shutter speeds run 1/50 to 1/1000 in black and 1 to 1/20 s in red, switched by a separate control. The flash contact is inside the tripod socket. The sloping release on the front, covered by a third patent of March 1949, became a Dresden signature, used later on the Praktina, the Praktisix and the Praktica L series.

The shutter was not ready. Its curtains bounced at the end of their travel, fogging film and jamming the wind, and owners who forced the knob tore the curtain tapes and bent the shafts. Marco Kröger of zeissikonveb.de puts complaints at more than half the cameras delivered, and cites Alexander Schulz for American agents taking about half back as total failures. Reducing curtain tension tamed the bounce but left many early bodies unable to reach 1/1000. The technical director, Kurt Maul, was removed and in 1952 jailed for several months; Walter Hennig spent 1951 redesigning the shutter with an anti-bounce lever and a quieter centrifugal governor, and the result was the Contax D. Prices fell with the reputation. By the end of the autumn 1949 fair, $500,000 of East German cameras had been sold to the United States through Steelmasters, more than half of it Contax S. In March 1950 Ercona advertised the camera at $475 with the Biotar; a month later an advertisement by the dealer Abe Cohen set it beside the Stuttgart Contax IIa with an f/2 lens at $385. In East Germany it cost 3,000 Mark with the Biotar in 1950, 1,950 Mark from December 1951 (2,000 on Kröger’s Contax page) and 880 Mark by October 1953.

It was not the first pentaprism SLR, although VEB Zeiss Ikon advertised it as such in 1950–51: Telemaco Corsi’s Rectaflex had a roof pentaprism by the Milan fair of April and May 1948 and was in series production at the start of 1949 (Kröger, from Corsi’s patents and Italian sources). Much of the early history was also embroidered later. Richard Hummel’s account, which most collector literature follows, has a debut at the 1948 Leipzig fair, a first series of 2,400 bodies with a black prism front and early speeds re-engraved from 1/25 and 1/250 to 1/20 and 1/200. Kröger, who has repaired these cameras and works from period press, patents and the bodies themselves, rejects all three, and identifies the Dresden museum’s black-fronted no. 1527 as a later camera painted to match retouched brochure photographs.

Two versions can be told apart from outside. The first series has a plug in the self-timer opening below the release; the self-timer came in the second half of 1950 (Hummel dates his variant C from August), and Ercona announced it in December as “the 1951 Contax-S”. Both read “Contax” alone, both have the flash contact in the tripod socket, and both have a release that locks for time exposures. A body with a small D under the logo, a flash socket on the top cover and a release that does not lock is an S Typ D and belongs with the Contax D: a manual printed in March 1952 suggests, in Kröger’s reading, that some were built new, and thousands were S bodies refitted with the D shutter, at the factory or in contract workshops, for years afterwards, some keeping the plug and some receiving a later front. One East German owner was charged 87 Mark when his camera was released for conversion in August 1955. The other names came later. Pentacon, from pentaprism and Contax, was registered in October 1952 and engraved on export bodies of the D as the dispute with Zeiss Ikon AG in Stuttgart over the old names went on; VEB Zeiss Ikon also filed “Pentax” in September 1952, and Asahi later had to buy that name from it. In 1957 VEB Zeiss Ikon handed its still cameras to the Kamera-Werke Niedersedlitz, and the merged Dresden makers became VEB Kamera- und Kinowerke in 1959 and Pentacon in 1964.

On Hummel’s figures the later bodies of the line outnumber the S six to one, and many S cameras were converted, so one in original condition is uncommon. Check for “Contax” alone on the prism, the flash contact in the tripod socket and the locking release; then wind, set 1 s and listen, since the S’s anchor escapement sounds different from the D’s governor, though Kröger allows that the governor may have reached some late S bodies. With the covers off, a recess milled into the chassis for the D’s tower bearing and a spring-anchor bolt with nothing attached to it mark a converted camera. Many early bodies stop at 1/500. Curtains on every model of the line perish and gather pinholes even when they look sound, and the stamped mild-steel gears wear, so a body with replaced curtains is the safer buy; and if the wind will not turn, do not force it, because that is how the original shutters were destroyed.

Expand Collapse

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

Contax S
Contax S of the first series, with the plug in the self-timer opening below the release, and a Biotar 58mm f/2 — Foto Wolfgang Pehlemann, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0 DE)
Contax S
Contax S with the self-timer lever below the release — Jeff Dean, via Wikimedia Commons (Attribution (any use, with credit to Jeff Dean))

More sample photos elsewhere

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Related: Contax D / Pentacon

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 (24)

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.