Contina II is a 35mm folding camera developed upon Zeiss Ikon's technology in manufacturing 35mm camera and the accumulated experiences through Ikonta series.
By the way, the original name of Contina II was just "Contina". Afterward, "Contina" was changed to "Contina II", just as "Ikonta 35" was changed to "Contina I".
As Zeiss-Ikon introduced several series of this type of camera such as Contessa series or Ikonta 35 series previouly, Contina II was launched as the popular version of Contessa 35, which came on the market three years before it.
Like Contessa 35, Contina II has the film wind knob and rewind knob, and the frame counter at the camera bottom, and adopts the double-exposure prevention. Also, the shutter needs to be charged each time it is released.
One thing that has to be mentioned is that the rangefinder of it dose not couple with the lens movements, means that focusing is done by reading the rangefinder index first, and then coinciding the lens distance scale with the rangefinder index. This system is as same as that of 6x6cm folding camera "Super Ikonta B MX", introduced in 1951.
Well, let's take a look at it.
- First introduced in 1953.
- Camera type : 35mm folding camera
- Lens : Novar f3.5/45mm, three elements (or Opton Tessar f2.8/45mm)
- Shutter : Prontor SV (or Synchro-Compur)
- Shutter speeds : B, 1-1/300sec. (or B, 1-1/500sec.)
- Viewfinder : fixed reverse-Galilean finder
- Focusing : for-element focusing by visual distance estimation
double-image coincidence rangefinder
- Body dimensions : 120 x 85 x 43mm (when folded.)
- Body weight : 508g.