Traduction de Manuel M

Here what the “advertizing agents” Zeiss Ikon said in 1952:

“Here a new camera small format with built-in rangefinder and very luminous lenses.

The Contina, new creation, is placed between the well-known models Ikonta 24 x 36 and Contessa.
It is the camera small format perfect for the amateur who cannot permit himself to go to the Contessa camera, but which nevertheless wants to ensure the possibility of always obtaining negative small size extremely detailed. Thanks to the shortest focal distance of the normally used lenses], the camera of small size profits of a more great depth of field which cameras of large format. This fact has largely contributed to the great favor which the small size enjoys. This more great depth of field, which eliminates the necessity of for a precise focusing of the lens on the distance of the subject, intervenes however only in the clichés at rather long distance and only when the diaphragm aperture is reduced.

In the case of closer clichés, it is necessary in any case to proceed to a precise focusing, if it is wanted that the small negative offering the excellent neatness which the enlargement requires imperiously.
In new Contina, the crucial problem which the realization of a camera of high quelity constituted, of absolutely sure functioning, at a moderated price, was brilliantly solved. The build-in rangefinder, which works with all the precision Zeiss Ikon, makes it possible to determine exactly the distance from the subject in a fraction of second; one can then exactly focusing the lens at the distance founded. A look in the large very clear viewfinder makes it possible to seize the picture in all its details. All the conditions of success are thus met…

New Contina is besides, by all these details, a true realization Zeiss Ikon.
The lenses, that they behave of Novar 1:3,5 or Tessar 1:2,8, whose great sharpness is universally well-known, produce the negatives extremely detailed which allow without difficulty strong enlargements. These 2 lenses are obviously treated and include excellent chromatic correction, so that Contina gives itself also well with the colours clichés, under the most difficult conditions.
The shutter Prontor SV and the shutter Synchro Compur are also synchronized. They allow the association of the Contina with all the flash-torches, under all the exposure times envisaged. The contina naturally includes a locking against the double exposure and the premature drive of film.
The cocking on the body, very easily accessible, facilitates considerably the successive exposures.
Thanks to the very practical arrangement of the graduated scales, all the adjustments can be
controlled at the top of only one look. Scales of depth of field which the lens carries indicate, for each combination of the diaphragm and the distance, the field of the sharpness in-depth. The basis of the camera includes a nut of foot for exposures posed.