CONTAX 1 has the longest ranging baseline (100mm), longitudinal walking focal plane shutter, consisting of 11 pieces of metal, relying on the dial can set the shutter speed, up to 1/1000 s. At that time, Leica is screw-port camera, the era should be Leica 1 model, curtain the highest shutter 1/500, visible at the time of CONTAX technology is a lot of leading Leica. And when it came to CONTAXII, it was the world's first rangefinder viewfinder, shutter speeds up to 1/1250s, when the Leica has not yet launched rangefinder models. By the time of CONTAXIII, it was the built-in light meter, which was close to 20 years earlier than Leica's built-in metering M5, and then the inventor of the DSLR camera was also CONTAX, which was basically IKON's world in those days, and Leica only counted the low and mid-range cameras at that time, and the high-end camera was only CONTAX, which was technologically ahead of Leica in all aspects.
After that, it was World War 2, Zeiss was too bullish to be controlled by the military, for the German army to produce artillery, tanks, aircraft sights, all civilian products suspended production, Leica did not reach the qualification of armaments material production at that time, escaped, but instead of obtaining a large number of German army orders for the production of ordinary cameras, this stage is the stage of the Leica turnaround, and also created the legend of the Leica Camera World War 2, because that At that time Zeiss inventory are sold out, the factory was requisitioned by the army can not be produced, the eyes of the Leica popped up. Then later is the defeat of Germany, Leica luck factory in the Allied occupation zone, and Zeiss is very sad, the entire Zeiss all the property in the Soviet occupation zone, although the Americans vigorously maneuvered but the Soviets are still almost empty of the Zeiss, which led to the post-war East Zeiss and West Zeiss two brands existed for the sake of the. This turn of events amounted to Zeiss being divided up alive, including technology, equipment, patents and a large number of engineers. This is not the most important, the most important is the Zeiss accumulated patents and technology, almost all taken away by the Soviet Union, for the Soviet Union for capitalism patents and technology do not need to be protected, resulting in the outflow of the Zeiss many top-secret technology, a direct break in the lifeblood of the Zeiss to the many brands of lenses now optical design are Zeiss invented by the Soviets directly openly become unprotected by patents technology, we now Look at Leica now many classic lenses, essentially still a variation of the patented design pioneered by Zeiss back then. When Zeiss is not easy to recover when, at that time the world's photographic equipment is basically to Leica as a label, the back of the Zeiss continue to make efforts to catch up, are powerless to return to the sky, and then later on, we all know, Zeiss directly cut off the civilian photography product line, only to the core of the industrial, aerospace, science and film optical equipment. Zeiss's strength in optics rather than specific product manufacturing, for example, Zeiss's most awesome zero expansion glass, high temperature and low cold environment in space to achieve zero expansion, manufacturing space telescopes, space shuttle lenses excellent material, these are Leica does not have the ability. Zeiss is also a company protected by the German Takeover Act, belonging to the national strategic resources not allowed to be acquired by foreign capital, while Leica is constantly being sold around, and at one point was acquired by Hermes.
The essence of the story is that in the camera class Zeiss pressed Leica on the floor and then got arrested by the teacher, then later transferred to the optics class. In the camera market Zeiss did not lose to Leica, but to fate.