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Strange issue with Contax RX and Planar 1.4/50

Veselin Mihaylov

Member
Allowing Ads
Joined
Jul 2, 2020
Messages
9
Location
Sofia, Bulgaria
Format
Multi Format
Hello everyone!

I recently bought a Contax RX with Carl Zeiss Planar T* 1.4/50 MMJ lens and i am having some strange issues with the aperture of that lens.
The problem is that when i mount the lens with the aperture set at 1.4 it displays correctly at the viewfinder, if i turn the aperture up - it raises, however if i then turn it down it stays at the largest position i set it up previously.
Ex.: it's f/1.4, i raise it to f/8 and then lower it to f/1.4 again. It stays at f/8.
Need to note that this is only in the viewfinder and during shooting the aperture is at the correct opening, however the metering is wrong.
This issue happens only with this lens mounted. I have Yashica 50mm f/1.7 ML and Tokina 35-70mm f/3.5 lenses and they are working fine with the RX body.
The stranger thing is that if i mount the Planar on my RTS II body it works perfectly.

So i am out of ideas what causes the problem on the RX and i will appreciate if someone can point me where to look in order to fix it.

I need to note that the RX body has the slipping mirror issue which i will fix these days and had the aperture values misaligned in the viewfinder when i bought it. I had put it in test mode and used the Planar to calibrate the aperture resistance as described in the service manual and this was fixed.
 
OP
OP

Veselin Mihaylov

Member
Allowing Ads
Joined
Jul 2, 2020
Messages
9
Location
Sofia, Bulgaria
Format
Multi Format
Aand, after some fiddling with the lens i found the issue.
The mount was bent just slightly where the aperture coupling mechanism was, causing the aperture mechanism on the body to be stuck.
Unfortunately i didn't take a picture before i fixed it, so i this is the place but after the fix:


After the mount bent was fixed the lens now works.