Founded in 1995, Kanyuan Optics Product Co., Ltd., is a Sino-foreign joint venture China contax rangefinder manufacturer and wholesaler of all kinds of optics products, optical instrument and optical components. All our Oem contax rangefinders have already been used in many kinds of companies, such as electronic and fine mechanics, medicine, chemical, education, printing, authenticate, lab and science explore. Insisting on manufacturing military and civilian products simultaneously, integrating optics with electronics, and combining research, production and trade, our company will become a competitive optics and optoelectronic enterprise. We have passed the evaluations of ISO9001 and CE certifications.

Designed by Porsche, Carl Zeiss and Yashica in 1984 the Contax T is a camera of outstanding pedigree. Flexible metering, external flash for increased power and less red-eye, tack-sharp Zeiss lens and unlike the Minox 35 and Rollei 35 ranges you don't have to guess at focusing. Palm size and metal clad. The Viewfinder is very bright; possibly the brightest and clearest finder Contax/Yashica ever made. It's not parallax-corrected (you can't have everything). The lens is a unit-focusing 38mm f/2.8(16) Sonnar T* (5-element) with a seven-blade aperture. It is T* multicoated. Minimum focus distance is 1m. DOF scale for f/8; dot for hyperfocal distance. No filter thread. The shutter is a behind the lens type. All of this folds into the body. Exposure is aperture priority (8 sec to 1/500 sec). Self timer is on the camera body. Runs for years on two MS76 silver batteries. The T is a tiny camera, barely wider than a film canister, a 35mm frame, and a tiny take-up spool. You take off the back to load, and the film goes under a swing-up pressure plate. Exposure counting is via a digital display, even though winding is by hand. The wind crank is flush with the body when it is closed.

The Contax, introduced around 1933, was a major competitor to Leica. The Soviets were making imitations of both these camera lines, their FED and Zorki Leica clones being more pedestrian, the Kievs — more sophisticated (and much more expensive). From my own experience: in the Sixties Kiev was selling in Poland for about 40% of the price of an Exakta, which made it as expensive as the Practica IV SLR, slightly more than a two month's pay. Among rangefinders, a Zorki would cost about 60% of Kiev's price, and was also considered more reliable. You cannot talk about Kiev without mentioning Contax. Then you cannot talk about Contax without comparing it to Leica. This is because both cameras, while aiming at the same market, are so different. While Leica (FED, Zorki) had a cloth shutter traveling horizontally, Contax (Kiev) had a metal one, with vertical movement. While Leicas were focused by turning a ring on the lens, in Contax the focusing mechanism was a part of the lens mount, and driven by a thumbwheel on the top of camera body. Leicas (the earlier ones, at least) were loaded from the bottom, Contax had a removable back. Contax was also significantly larger and had a rangefinder with a huge base, a boost for focusing accuracy. Leica lenses were screw-mounted, while Contax used a bayonet mount, really two (internal and external), one for short, and one for long lenses.

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