Contax RTS

The Contax RTS was the first, and the standard by which others would be measured, camera produced by Yashica under the Contax name, which it licensed in the early 1970s.

Previewed at photo shows in 1974 and hitting the streets in1975, the Contax RTS was an SLR to be reckoned with. From its Porsche-designed body to the interchangeable focus screens, available power winder and motor drive, and - especially - its Carl Zeiss T* lenses (which used the Yashica bayonet mount), the RTS was an elegant camera.

Its cloth focal-plane shutter had speeds from 4 seconds to 1/2000th. Its electronics included apertury-priority automatic exposure control, with exposure compensation. It also featured a 250-exposure bulk film back.

The RTS (which stands for "real time system") was available until 1982, when the RTS 2 was introduced.

You can read more about the Contax RTS at Camerapedia or cdegroot.com.

In a totally unrelated (?) subject, on Labour Day in 1977, I lost a multi-bit screwdriver under mysterious circumstances. Its disappearance was total and sudden. I suspect it fell through some sort of wormhole into either a parallel universe, or it went through a timewarp to some far off date in the past or future.