# The secret project that brought Contax back

> How a German optics giant, a Japanese underdog and a Porsche designer rebuilt a legendary camera brand from scratch.
- Title: The secret project that brought Contax back | Shortify
- Summary: How a German optics giant, a Japanese underdog and a Porsche designer rebuilt a legendary camera brand from scratch. Contax came back not from German…
- Keywords: contax, carl zeiss, yashica, film cameras, camera history, secret, project, brought, back, Digital Camera World
- Source: Digital Camera World — https://digitalcameraworld.com/cameras/film-cameras/how-porsche-carl-zeiss-and-yashica-teamed-up-in-secret-to-build-the-legendary-contax-rts-camera-after-pentax-walked-away
- Published: 2026-09-13T09:10:00+00:00
- Read time: 2 min
- Topics: contax, carl zeiss, yashica, film cameras, camera history
## Zeiss lost its own camera
When Germany split after World War II, Carl Zeiss lost the original Contax business. It still designed world-class optics, but high German labor costs left it without a competitive 35mm SLR.
## Japan owned the market
Pentax, Nikon, Canon and Minolta were dominating 35mm SLRs by the late Sixties. If Zeiss wanted back in, it needed a Japanese factory behind it.
## Pentax looked perfect
Asahi Optical was arguably Japan's strongest SLR maker, with the Spotmatic a roaring success and a reputation for mechanical precision and lens coatings.
## The deal fell apart
The partnership produced the Pentax K-mount and an exchange of optical design methods, then ended around 1972. Pentax wanted to build its own brand, and Zeiss wanted more control than Pentax would give.
## Yashica wanted up
Yashica had the manufacturing and the electronics know-how but had never cracked the professional market. It agreed to build a whole new system around Zeiss's requirements.

> Yashica was willing to build an entirely new professional camera system around Zeiss's requirements.
## Top Secret Project 130
That was the internal codename for the Zeiss and Yashica partnership. Zeiss designed the lenses and shaped the viewfinder; Yashica engineered the body and its electronic shutter.
## Styled by a Porsche
Porsche Design handled the look, under Professor Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, grandson of Ferdinand and the designer of the 911.
## The RTS arrives
Shown at Photokina 1974 and sold from 1975, the Contax RTS brought a new C/Y bayonet mount, an electronic shutter to 1/2000 sec, and Zeiss T* glass, all aimed at professionals.
## The poor man's Contax
Yashica's FR and FX bodies shared the mount, so buyers could pair cheap Yashica glass with a Contax body, or real Zeiss lenses with a cheap body. They outsold the RTS roughly four to one.
## Vacuum-flat film
The RTS III of 1990 added a 1/8000 sec shutter and spot metering, but its party trick was a vacuum pump that sucked film flat against a ceramic plate at the moment of exposure.
## Three unsolved mysteries
Nobody ever explained the number 130. The budget FX-3 was secretly built by Cosina. And a rumor claimed Yashica gave Zeiss a room no Japanese staff could enter.

> Your scribe has been unable to confirm this rumor.
## Key takeaway

Contax came back not from German manufacturing but from a partnership: Zeiss glass, Yashica electronics, Porsche styling, and a shared lens mount that let buyers mix all three.