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Post by belgiumreporter on Jun 9, 2017 3:45:45 GMT -5
Not a stills camera, but it looks like one. Somewhere in the late fifties some Zeiss engineers came up with the idea of making a movie camera wich would look like a photo camera. And so the movinette (and some other types with the same design) was born. For such a simple camera it is amazingly well build, this and its strange looks made me decide to buy it even though (once again) it is wide out of the scope of my main collection of 35mm SLR's. For what it is it wasn't cheap, these camera's aren't exactly hard to find or rare, but sometimes one of those "i got to have it" moments override rational thinking. The movinette 8B  A rather unusual film path needed to be created to allow for the photocamera design  The leather case is a work of art  |
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Post by camfiend on Jun 9, 2017 17:22:02 GMT -5
That film path looks as if it would lead to a lot of problems
Bob
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Post by hannes on Jun 10, 2017 2:18:19 GMT -5
That's the result when function has to follow form. I prefer the form follows function aproach.
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hansz
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Hans
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Post by hansz on Jun 11, 2017 4:13:41 GMT -5
Movinette 8B, 1959, follow-on product of the Movikon 8 and 8B from 1956-59.
Same film channel, but a real Carl Zeiss lens, the triplet Triotar. The Movikon was equipped with the Movitar, a bought-in lens by the Zeiss Ikon company.
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Post by belgiumreporter on Jun 11, 2017 7:48:30 GMT -5
No matter how you put it, Zeiss or not this camera seems to me a like recipe for disaster  |
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Post by yashica1943 on Jun 14, 2017 9:51:10 GMT -5
When I was waving my Kodak double 8 camera around in about 1958 I remember these being in the shops new and knowing that the film had to 'squirm' through 90 degrees, twice, but I have never seen inside one until now.
I suppose I imagined that there would be more space inside and that there would be some nice polished rollers or guides to assist the film path. Quite disappointed although I would be quite tempted to buy one now as a novelty.
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Post by philbirch on Jul 3, 2017 15:54:13 GMT -5
I had one of these, the film path was odd but it was stable and I got some great shots with it
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Post by yashica1943 on Jul 4, 2017 11:44:28 GMT -5
Hello Phil. Nice to see you back!
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Post by conan on Jul 4, 2017 16:10:06 GMT -5
Zeiss Movinette
Camera historians will remember that there was a little was more than a little antagonism and legal action between East and West Germany over the Zeiss name in the early fifties. The East German government were not happy about the outcome and managed to get a couple of Stasi agents implanted in the Zeiss West factory where they managed to put hallucinogenic drugs into the coffee of the Zeiss design team which subsequently resulted in the Movinette.
Flushed with this success they then expanded their operation and started drugging the entire design team, marketing and management at Zeiss and achieved their ultimate revenge on Zeiss West – the Contarex.
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mickeyobe
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Post by mickeyobe on Jul 4, 2017 20:42:42 GMT -5
Zeiss Movinette Camera historians will remember that there was a little was more than a little antagonism and legal action between East and West Germany over the Zeiss name in the early fifties. The East German government were not happy about the outcome and managed to get a couple of Stasi agents implanted in the Zeiss West factory where they managed to put hallucinogenic drugs into the coffee of the Zeiss design team which subsequently resulted in the Movinette. Flushed with this success they then expanded their operation and started drugging the entire design team, marketing and management at Zeiss and achieved their ultimate revenge on Zeiss West – the Contarex. Conan, Is this tongue in cheek? Quickly. I am afraid to swallow. Mickey |
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Post by conan on Jul 4, 2017 22:02:24 GMT -5
Zeiss Movinette Camera historians will remember that there was a little was more than a little antagonism and legal action between East and West Germany over the Zeiss name in the early fifties. The East German government were not happy about the outcome and managed to get a couple of Stasi agents implanted in the Zeiss West factory where they managed to put hallucinogenic drugs into the coffee of the Zeiss design team which subsequently resulted in the Movinette. Flushed with this success they then expanded their operation and started drugging the entire design team, marketing and management at Zeiss and achieved their ultimate revenge on Zeiss West – the Contarex. Conan, Is this tongue in cheek? Quickly. I am afraid to swallow. Mickey Mickey, can anyone offer a more rational explanation for the Contarex and why Zeiss management, the designers and marketing considered and marketed it as the “Crowning achievement of Zeiss” ..waiting for Hansz…. |
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mickeyobe
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Post by mickeyobe on Jul 4, 2017 23:19:53 GMT -5
Conan, Is this tongue in cheek? Quickly. I am afraid to swallow. Mickey Mickey, can anyone offer a more rational explanation for the Contarex and why Zeiss management, the designers and marketing considered and marketed it as the “Crowning achievement of Zeiss” ..waiting for Hansz…. Conan, Enthusiasm. Hyperbole that comes naturally to those wishing to sell something. An honest but unrealistic belief in a product. Desperation. Sometimes even dishonesty. Competition. Hope. And I can not omit poisoning by the competitors. |
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Post by paulhofseth on Jul 9, 2017 6:55:43 GMT -5
Consider the alternative from Bolex at the time. Zeiss may have reasoned that a body that was easier to grip was preferable to a body that needed a separate grip (with a linkage to the release that might occasionally break).
p.
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mickeyobe
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Post by mickeyobe on Jul 9, 2017 9:08:12 GMT -5
Consider the alternative from Bolex at the time. Zeiss may have reasoned that a body that was easier to grip was preferable to a body that needed a separate grip (with a linkage to the release that might occasionally break). p. Paul, A simpler solution without twisting the film would have been to lower this guy's ears a bit.  Mickey |
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hansz
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Post by hansz on Jul 9, 2017 10:53:21 GMT -5
Mickey, can anyone offer a more rational explanation for the Contarex and why Zeiss management, the designers and marketing considered and marketed it as the “Crowning achievement of Zeiss” ..waiting for Hansz…. Conan, Enthusiasm. Hyperbole that comes naturally to those wishing to sell something. An honest but unrealistic belief in a product. Desperation. Sometimes even dishonesty. Competition. Hope. And I can not omit poisoning by the competitors. One, I'm a Dutchman and two, we live at driving distance of Germany. So, two ingredients necessary to know why Zeiss Ikon ever did this to us, humble people trying to get some pictures. There is an old joke, talking about the three smallest books of this world, one was the famous German work, "a thousand years of German humour"... Germans are serious people and they make serious things, taking everything seriously - also in engineering. So why not make the best camera ever? That is serious business! (BTW, in reality they left that one to the Japanese). No, if you make the best it should look like the best, use as much parts you can imagine, weigh a ton, use the best glass (which imho is actually true, but that feature came from the gnomes of Carl Zeiss), imagine a user interface which is the best (or most difficult to use, which was the same for them), etc. etc. Fact was, that Kuppenbender, CEO of Carl Zeiss, and designer of the Contax shutter (Leica patent avoidance), was a very conservative engineer in his later years. He made decisions that were not perfect, to put it mildly; His dream of perfection couldn't cope with the economic reality any more, and we all know the history... Easy to say anyway, in hindsight...:-) On display I have several Contarexes and like to fumble with them in the winter with a good fire in hearth. (not my words, but from Ivor Mantanle, he is a so much better writer than me - and a native speaker:-). Sometimes a film is loaded in one of the Contarexes and will be used if the fitness is closed for a week - a perfect replacement... But the CZ Contarex lenses are always in use on my Sony NEX systems and are among the best you can shoot with. They were actually hand picked and individually adusted for the camera. (no notion of expense reduction here:-( The Icarex line is muchh easier to work with, but they were from Voigtlander and in Braunsweig they knew how to make cameras. There is a lot of information about this subject at the ZHS and musings about the Zeiss Ikon future if Kuppenbender had followed the acquired Voigtlander people and their designs in the first place. One of my favourite dumbells:  IMG_1662 by Hans de Groot, on Flickr |
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