<p>Here is a strange little camera. It is a Zeiss Ikon Taxona, a 35mm square format 24mm x 24mm camera with a 37.5mm f3.5 Zeiss Jena Tessar lens. I found this little guy in an antique shop in Moritzburg Germany.</p>
<p><img src="http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/427079_4337873410001_741322408_n.jpg" alt="" width="650" height="497" /></p>
<p>While this camera is tiny it is solid metal and is surprisingly heavy. The camera has some nice features for it's time with slow shutter speeds and a combined film advance and shutter cocking mechanism. The one major drawback is that it is zone focus, but with a 37.5 mm lens this is not a deal breaker.</p>
<p>The camera does win the "Strangest Focal Length" award for the 37.5mm lens. 37.5mm translates to about 48mm for 24x35mm. Also, it is odd for a camera with slow shutter speeds to be missing a cable release.</p>
<p>I took the camera out shooting with an Olympus RC as a light meter and to get the range for focusing on close up objects. A zone focus camera like this benefits from fast film, so I loaded it with Tmax 400. The shutter proved to be very accurate and all photos were well exposed. The lens was another story, as shown in the next set of photos. The camera can take Lomo-style soft-focus shots, but even knowing the range and stopping the lens down getting sharp photos is extremely challenging. Out of dozens of photos I had about three in focus. The first photo is a typical image while the next two are the best I could get.</p>
