The Contax 139 is a beautiful thing to look at, the result of a collaboration between Carl Zeiss, Yashica and Porsche who styled the body. Ebay to the rescue, and I now have three serviceable bodies, and a small but growing collection of lenses. The body turned out to be dead with a failed shutter, but the lens was serviced and is as good as new. The Yashica was duly traded in for a shiny new Contax 139 Quartz, which I used for the next 20 years until I bought my first digital camera.Įarly last year I picked it up again, not working and with a frozen lens. A prosumer camera aimed at advanced enthusiasts and the semi-professional market, its Carl Zeiss lens, TTL flash metering and aperture-priority exposure control won me over. The salesman had other ideas though, and drew my attention to a brand I had not heard of before, Contax, and their advanced for the time 139 Quartz. The Canon AE-1 had made a big impression in the market at this time, with great optics and a level of automation that seemed attractive to an amateur photographer like me, so off I went to the camera shop in Melbourne expecting to buy a Canon. KF article top The Contax 139 Quartz (All pics: Steve Mitchell)īack in 1984 I thought it was time I upgraded from the Yashica TL Electro X I had been using for a number of years.
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