zeiss mouinting

[nhodgkinson]

Hi, I'm trying to get my head round buying a set of primes for a new camera. After spending many hours reading across forums and checking the situation on e bay it looks to me like the best value will be the Ziess Contax/Yashica lenses. The Zeiss lenses with the Contax/Yashica mount are especially good value so I started searching for lenses but many come up saying just Contax. I tried searching for this but had no luck clarifying if these are the same or if Contax and Contax/Yashica are different?

 

[compur]

There are different Contax cameras that use different mounts. There's the older Contax rangefinders and SLRs made in Germany plus the newer Contax cameras made by Kyocera of Japan in both 35mm and medium formats. All use different lens mounts.

The Kyocera-made Contax 35mm SLRs use the same mount as the Kyocera-made Yashica bayonet mount SLRs and this is what is called the Contax/Yashica or C/Y mount. To make it even more complicated there are some minor differences between earlier and later versions of the C/Y mount though all versions fit both lines of cameras. And, though most C/Y lenses were made in Japan, some were made in Germany so the country of manufacture isn't a definite indication either.

If the seller's ad merely says "Contax" mount and you are not sure I suggest asking for clarification before buying.

 

[nhodgkinson]

Well thank you for your reply. So it dose seem very confusing. To clarify the modern cameras started in the move to Japan which was in 1975. I have read many artistic where they mention Zeiss Contax glass starting in 1975 but they started making cameras in 1935! There was a fight for the name with the western company winning but still there seems like there should be a lot of old pre 1975 Contax lenses.
I found the way to tell in the end it was the serial numbers. Starting in 5 onwards is post 1975 I think. But when I looked on E bay every lense there was post 1975, I've not come across one of these mysterious pre Japan lenses. Maybe they made a different format lenses before 1975 specific to the cameras or such that would now be redundant?

 

[compur]

I forgot to mention there are also the Contax G-series (Kyocera) lenses made from the 1990s which have their own mount.

In any case, if you are not sure I suggest asking the seller. Most "Contax mount" lenses on eBay are probably the C/Y mount but they could be one of the other, later mounts and some eBay listings are not very clear on this.

 

[nhodgkinson]

G's are out, N's are too expensive to convert and 654's are Medium formats so all to be avoided. This turned out to a complicated subject but the Zeiss history is interesting. Here is a link to a page showing all the easily usable Zeiss C/Y lenses about:USING CONTAX C/Y LENSES ON CANON dSLRs
Thanks for you help.