What's the difference between Contax and Chase Icahn cameras? All cameras are made by Zeiss. Why are there two brands?

Both are camera brands owned by Zeiss, including a series of fuselage and supporting lenses.

Before 1970s, "Zeiss Yikang" was the general name of all cameras produced by Zeiss ikon ag, a camera manufacturer under Zeiss in Germany. It involves four manufacturers under Zeiss, such as Contessa-Nettel AG in Stuttgart, Ernemann AG in Dresden, Optische Anstalt C.P. Goertz in Berlin and Ica AG in Dresden. Camera manufacturing began in 1926, which is the response of optical giant Zeiss to the birth of Leica camera in 1925. Ikon is a combination of Ica and Contessa-Nettel, which is also equivalent to the Greek eikon.

Contax is an independent brand of the top products in Zeiss Yikang series, and its production started at 1932.

After World War II, Zeiss was also divided into East Germany and West Germany. East carl zeiss is committed to producing unfinished SLR cameras, while Zeiss of West Carl has modernized its original Contax paraxial camera. Among them, East Carl Zeiss finally changed the camera brand to Pentacon. Contax brand can continue to be manufactured in West Germany.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, with the continuous influx of low-priced Japanese products into Europe, Zeiss began to cooperate with Kyocera Corporation of Japan and F. Alexander Porsche Group of Italy. Zeiss is responsible for lens design and high-end lens manufacturing, Kyocera is responsible for camera body and low-end lens manufacturing, and Porsche is responsible for camera ergonomic design. 1974 Contax RTS exhibited in Photokina is the first crystallization of tripartite cooperation, and Contax brand continues; Zeiss Yikang brand disappeared with the closure of Zeiss Ikon AG in the early 1970s.

Subsequently, from 1974 to 2005, contax became the best carrier of Zeiss fuselage and top-level lens, portable T series, automatic paraxial G series, top-level 135 SLR N 1 and autofocus 120 SLR Contax 645, and Canon/kloc-0. However, due to the arrival of the digital image era, contax can't stand the cruel market competition. At the beginning of March 2005, Kyocera announced that CONTAX brand had withdrawn from the digital camera market. On April 12, 2005, Kyocera announced that it would officially close the contax product line in September of that year. Seventy years of wonderful interpretation is over. Contax brand disappears.

Zeiss obviously anticipated this day. In order to match its excellent optical lens, carl zeiss designed a new Zeiss Ikon. In September 2004, at the Photokina 2004 photographic equipment exhibition held in Cologne, Germany, Zeiss Ikon, a paraxial camera with interchangeable lenses, was released. Zeiss Ikon is an iconic model for Zeiss to revive its camera brand. At the same time of introducing Zeiss Ikon, ZM system lens was also developed. In addition to a variety of Zeiss ZM lenses, it is fully compatible with Leica M mount, giving users of high-end paraxial cameras another high-quality choice after Leica.