A major reason I shifted from a DSLR to mirrorless in the late 2000s was the ability to collect, adapt and use vintage lenses. One of the earliest non-Nikon lenses I picked up at that time was a Contax 45mm G-series autofocus rangefinder lens. At the time I knew that rangefinder lenses tended to be exceptionally high quality and the Contax, with an appropriate focusing adapter, would be an amazing 90mm-equivalent telephoto on my m4/3 camera. I wasn’t wrong.
Given the limitations of small sensors back then, I tended to underexpose all of my photos by about 1 stop and the little Contax just seemed to be the right lens for what I was capturing. Yes, the lens is crisp and clinical but unlike most vintage glass, I find its character comes out when it is not gathering all of the light it is capable of rendering. There’s a dimensionality that pops out of that Zeiss formula that I can’t replicate with other lenses.
Contax G lenses are designed to be fully autofocus — there’s no way around it. Without a screw drive Contax G rangefinder body or a mirrorless adapter, the lens is a fixed focus hunk of metal, plastic, and glass. I used my first 45mm a lot and over time, the screw drive started to stick to the point that my adapters struggled to achieve smooth focus. I was missing focus more than hitting with my street shots. At that point, I had picked up a Voigtlander 40mm M mount lens and decided to bid the 45mm G adieu.
Regret set in shortly thereafter.
When I switched from m4/3 to Sony years later, I knew I had to get another 45mm G and I did. As before, I adapted it to my E-mount bodies and switched to a higher quality Metabones adapter as it seemed like the way to avoid the screw drive issue. The two worked well together, but one thing I immediately noticed was that the focus drive of the Metabones was notably slower than some of the less expensive adapters. To gain quality, I had to give up speed. Eventually, the Contax 45mm G, despite its optical precision, ended up on the shelf more than on my cameras.
I tried to use a Techart autofocus G adapter and that failed the first week I had it in the field. It literally fell apart in my hands, and even if it wasn’t in pieces, the autofocus was painfully slow. My situation went from bad to worse.
Years later, Funleader came up with a Contax 45mm G rehousing kit. I thought about picking one up, but missed my chance. It came around again, and I did the math. The price of the lens and the M-mount rehousing kit was way more than a comparable autofocus 45mm lens. I should have been logical and ditched the idea BUT I, like so many photographers, am a creative person and the aesthetic quality that I grew to love out of that piece of glass was too hard to resist.
I purchased a rehousing kit, completed the swap, and have an amazing lens in a form factor that works with the near universal M-mount, adapts to close-focus and auto focus adapters, and frankly, brings me a lot of joy. When I need manual focus, it is quick. When I want autofocus, my adapter does its thing, and when I look at the images it renders they just blow me away. Does it make economic sense? No, but that doesn’t matter.
My Contax 45mm “M” is a lovely, solid restomodded piece of kit that is off the shelf and back on a camera where it belongs.
