Zeiss Ikon Contarex
The Zeiss Ikon Contarex is one of the more interesting - and complex - 35mm SLRs you will come across. Introduced to the world at Photokina in 1958, it was commonly referred to as the "Bullseye" or "Cyclops" due to the large metering cell located above the lens.
The real story to the Contarex is the lengths that Zeiss Ikon went to when designing and building this camera. If you need a poster child for extensive German engineering you would be hard-pressed to find a more appropriate example. The camera apparently included over 1100 parts and requires over 40 steps just to get the top cover off the camera for servicing. This meant that the camera was prohibitively expensive at the time when it was released to the market. Even though it was meant to compete with the Leica M3, it was half again more expensive than the Leica. It was twice as much as a Kodak Retina Reflex III. And it was nearly three times the price of an Exakta Varex IIa with a similar lens. Its astronomically high price led to it being considered a commercial failure and it was vastly outsold by its competition.
Having said that, there is still a lot to be impressed by this camera. First off, it makes use of Carl Zeiss lenses, so image quality is going to be remarkable. The camera also was the first of its kind to have a meter that was directly coupled to shutter, aperture and film speed settings. Even more nifty, it had interchangeable film backs, something you don't see that often on a 35mm SLR camera. And of course, it has its unique look.
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