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

PA-Curtagon 35mm f/4 (Contarex)

Schneider-Kreuznach · Contarex · 1967

our own finding

Also known as: PA-Curtagon 35mm f/4 Contarex · Schneider PA-Curtagon 35mm f/4 Contarex · Schneider-Kreuznach PA-Curtagon 35mm F4 Contarex · Contarex PA-Curtagon 35mm f/4 · Contarex PA-Curtagon 4/35 · Contarex Schneider PA-Curtagon 4/35mm · Schneider Contarex PA-Curtagon 4/35 · Contarex Curtagon 35mm f/4 · Contarex Curtagon 4/35 · PA-Curtagon 4/35 Contarex · PA Curtagon 35mm f4 Contarex · PA-Curtagon 35mm f/4 · PA-Curtagon 4/35 · PA-Curtagon 1:4/35 · PA-Curtagon 1:4 35mm · シュナイダー PA-Curtagon 35mm F4 コンタレックス用

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
PA-Curtagon 1:4/35 in Contarex mount (Zeiss Ikon 11.2430) Contarex 1967 — Unpublished
  1. Construction and focus: seven elements in six groups in Burleigh Brooks's Schneider catalogue, in English Wikipedia's Contarex lens table and in its Schneider Kreuznach article, which gives that construction for the PA-Curtagon in every mount. Smallest stop f/22 is in the Brooks table and on the aperture ring of the October 2026 Yahoo! example. Closest focus is a conflict: Brooks gives ∞–0.35 m, but the distance scale of the Yahoo! example is engraved on past 0.35 to 0.3 m and 1 ft, and Kamerastore gives 0.3 m for the Leica R lens. The photographs do not show where the focusing stops. Brooks gives the length as 47.5 mm and the largest diameter as 65 mm for the PA-Curtagon in general; no source gives figures for the Contarex-mount lens in particular, so the table carries none.
  2. Angle of view: 63° on Pacific Rim's page, 76° in the Brooks table. 63° is the diagonal of a 24 × 36 mm frame at 35 mm; the larger figure is close to what the 57 mm image circle Brooks quotes would cover at that focal length, which would explain the difference, but Brooks does not say so.
  3. Filter: Zeiss Ikon's US list of October 1971 and Pacific Rim both give the Contarex B56 bayonet. Burleigh Brooks's US Schneider catalogue gives an M46 × 0.75 screw-in thread and a 48 mm slip-on for the PA-Curtagon in general. No source says whether the Contarex lens has both fittings.
  4. Diaphragm: Pacific Rim says it is manual and does not couple to the meter, and the lens in the Yahoo! photographs has its own aperture ring. The Brooks table prints 'Auto & Man'l' on the PA-Curtagon row, as on every lens in it except the 200 mm and 360 mm Tele-Xenars; the catalogue's own text describes automatic diaphragms for its lenses generally and does not address the shift lens.
  5. Shift: Brooks's text gives a 57 mm image circle, 43 mm of it needed for the frame, and says the lens 'can, therefore, be moved 14 mm out of the optical axis'. English Wikipedia's Schneider Kreuznach article and Kamerastore (for the Leica R lens) give a shift of 7 mm, which matches the 0 to 7 scale on the Contarex lens. 14 mm is the difference between Brooks's two diameters, and half of it is 7.
  6. Weight: Brooks prints 220 g, but the same figure stands against all five of the first lenses in its table, from the 28 mm Curtagon to the Xenar. This site's Alpa page gives 280 g for the Alpa-mount lens, after The Lens DB, and Kamerastore gives 290 g for the Leica R lens. None is a figure for the Contarex lens, so the table carries no weight.
  7. Dates: 1967 from Pacific Rim and English Wikipedia; Leitz dated no. 11275674 to c.1966. The lens is not on Zeiss Ikon-Voigtländer's US list of March 1, 1968 but is on the list of October 1, 1971. No end date is recorded; Zeiss Ikon stopped camera production in 1972.
  8. Burleigh Brooks also sold the PA-Curtagon with interchangeable mounts, numbered by camera, at $10 suggested list each extra: from 2A (Pentax, Edixa, Praktica, Pentacon) to 14A Leicaflex and 15A Contarex. No lens with a Schneider 15A Contarex mount has been described in trade or in photographs, so it is not given a row of its own here.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • PA-Curtagon 1:4/35 with 'Contarex' engraved on the same front ring as Schneider-Kreuznach (Yahoo! example, October 2026); lenses for Leica R are engraved PA-Curtagon-R, and the bayonet itself is the surest check
  • An aperture ring of its own on the barrel, with no automatic diaphragm: the Zeiss lenses listed as 'automatic preset' in 1968 (18 mm to 250 mm) are stopped down from the body and have no aperture ring, though the 21 mm Biogon and first 250 mm Sonnar had hand-worked diaphragms (US list, 1961) and the bellows Tessar 115 is 'manually preset'
  • Not a Leicaflex or Leica R example (some are engraved PA-Curtagon-R), and not the Contax/Yashica PC-Distagon 35mm f/2.8, which is a Zeiss design

PA-Curtagon 1:4/35 in Contarex mount (Zeiss Ikon 11.2430):

  • Front ring engraved 'Contarex PA-Curtagon 1:4/35 Schneider-Kreuznach', with PA in red (Yahoo! Auctions example, October 2026)
  • Its own aperture ring, f/4 to f/22, on the lens barrel, because the diaphragm is manual and not worked from the body (Pacific Rim); the automatic Zeiss lenses of the system have none
  • Black-and-white chequered ring with red figures 0 to 7 next to the black rear barrel and chrome Contarex bayonet; distance scale engraved in metres down to 0.3 and in feet down to 1
  • Zeiss Ikon code 11.2430; shipped in a Zeiss 'bubble' inside a blue Schneider box (Pacific Rim); Leitz describes 'matching plastic keeper' with auctioned examples

Serial-range notes

11275674, 11275684
Two Contarex-mount lenses ten numbers apart: 11275674, sold by Leitz Auction (auction 10), which dated it c.1966, and 11 275 684, engraved on the rear bayonet flange of the example sold on Yahoo! Auctions Japan in October 2026. Leitz's c.1966 is a year earlier than the 1967 introduction given by Pacific Rim and English Wikipedia.
11556216, 11556252
Two more Contarex lenses from one block: 11556252 (Leitz Auction 32, dated 1969 by Leitz) and 11556216 (Leitz Auction 44, dated 1970). The lower number carries the later date, so these are Leitz's own estimates, not factory dates. For comparison, Leitz dated an M42-mount PA-Curtagon, no. 10601123, to 1967 (auction 14).

Specifications

Formula
7 elements in 6 groups, a retrofocus design whose optics shift off-axis
Construction
7 elements / 6 groups
Aperture range
f/4–f/22
Min. focus
0.3 m
Filter
Contarex B56 bayonet (Zeiss Ikon list, Pacific Rim); Burleigh Brooks's Schneider catalogue gives M46 × 0.75 screw-in
Years manufactured
1967
Country
Germany
Original price
$297, US list, Zeiss Ikon-Voigtländer price list of October 1, 1971 (no tax stated). Burleigh Brooks's US Schneider catalogue, undated, gives the PA-Curtagon in any mount at $249 suggested list ($123.50 net to dealer). (today $2,300)

What reviewers say

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History

The PA-Curtagon (PA for perspective adjustment) was Schneider’s 35mm f/4 shift lens for 35mm reflexes, and from 1967 Zeiss Ikon offered it in Contarex mount under its own code, 11.2430. It is the one lens in the first-party Contarex catalogue that Carl Zeiss did not design and make. That holds for Zeiss Ikon’s own list only. Other lenses were made to fit the mount: the US Schneider catalogue of Burleigh Brooks, which also sold the PA-Curtagon, offered a Contarex socket, No. 15, for Schneider’s Variogon and Tele-Variogon zooms. Pacific Rim Camera records that the lens came in a Zeiss “bubble” inside a blue Schneider box, and Leitz Auction describes examples with a matching plastic keeper. Zeiss Ikon-Voigtländer’s US price list of October 1971 sells it simply as “Curtagon f/4, 35mm w/perspective adj.” at $297, between the B-Distagon 35/4 at $264 and the Distagon 35/2 at $366.

It works the way a view camera’s rising front does. Brooks explained that moving the lens off-axis keeps a tall building from looking as if it is collapsing. Its catalogue gives the lens a 57 mm image circle, of which a 24 × 36 frame uses 43 mm. Brooks says the lens can therefore be moved 14 mm off the axis; English Wikipedia’s Schneider article and Kamerastore give 7 mm, which is what the ring marked 0 to 7 on the Contarex lens reads. The whole lens turns in its bayonet so the shift can go in any direction. Because of that rotation the diaphragm cannot be linked to the body, Pacific Rim notes, so it is set by hand and does not couple to the meter. The lens therefore has an aperture ring of its own, f/4 to f/22, on the barrel. The Zeiss lenses that Zeiss Ikon’s 1968 US list calls “automatic preset”, from 18 mm to 250 mm, are stopped down from the camera and have none. The PA-Curtagon is not the system’s only hand-set lens, though: the 1961 list gives the 21 mm Biogon and the first 250 mm Sonnar “conventional, hand-operated diaphragms without interlock”, and the bellows Tessar 115 is “manually preset”.

The optical design is not specific to this mount. Brooks’s specification table lists one PA-Curtagon, seven elements in six groups, and Brooks sold it with interchangeable mounts numbered by camera, from 2A for Pentax, Edixa and Praktica to 14A for the Leicaflex and 15A for the Contarex. English Wikipedia’s Schneider Kreuznach article gives the same seven-element, six-group construction for the PA-Curtagon in all its mounts, Contarex and Alpa among them, and this site’s Alpa-mount page carries the same figures. The pages stay separate because the mounts do, but on that evidence the glass is one Schneider computation. The Contarex lens is told apart by “Contarex” engraved on the front ring beside “PA-Curtagon 1:4/35” and “Schneider-Kreuznach”. Leicaflex and Leica R examples, some engraved PA-Curtagon-R, are not covered here.

Some specifications differ between sources, and the variant table’s notes keep both readings. Pacific Rim gives the angle of view as 63° and the filter as the Contarex B56 bayonet, which matches Zeiss Ikon’s own list. Brooks gives 76°, an M46 thread and an automatic diaphragm for the PA-Curtagon in general, along with a weight of 220 g that it prints against five different lenses. Closest focus is 0.35 m in Brooks’s table, but the distance scale on a Contarex example is engraved on to 0.3 m and 1 ft, and Kamerastore gives 0.3 m for the Leica R lens. Dating is loose too: Pacific Rim and Wikipedia give 1967, Leitz dated no. 11275674 to c.1966, and the lens is missing from Zeiss Ikon-Voigtländer’s US list of March 1968 though it is on the list of October 1971.

For a buyer, the shift and rotation are what matter. Both should move smoothly across the full 0–7 scale and in every direction, and the aperture ring should turn cleanly from f/4 to f/22, since nothing on the body will move the diaphragm. The Contarex numbers recorded so far sit in two blocks, around 11275674 and around 11556216–11556252. At Leitz Auction, Contarex-mount examples sold for €528 (auction 10), €408 (auction 32, with VAT added on top within the EU) and €480 (auction 44), all hammer prices including buyer’s premium. A four-lens Contarex lot that included one went unsold in auction 17. On Yahoo! Auctions Japan a store-listed example made ¥32,069 including tax after 25 bids in October 2026. Many auction titles name only “Schneider PA-Curtagon 4/35mm”, and Leitz used that wording for an M42 lens too, so check the mount in the photographs before bidding.

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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.

Example photos

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Related: Distagon 35mm f/4 (Contarex) · Distagon 35mm f/2 (Contarex)

Sources (14)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this lens, 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.