The Universal Stand consists of several attachments based around a folding U shaped base, a pillar and a bracket to attach the camera.

The attachments could be purchased individually or assembled into an outfit. Some of the attachments (such a the Tripod Focusing Head and Focusing Adapter) were components in other Zeiss products.

A key element was the Focusing Head (Tripod Focusing Head). This gave an initial extension to the lens and incorporated a helical focusing mount. Using the Focusing Head alone, the scale of reproduction (Contax 11 and 111) was 1:2 (i.e. 48 x 72 mm image size), with rigid mount lenses or 1:3 with collapsible lenses. To reduce this initial magnification negative supplementary lenses called Deltas were used, these gave reproduction ratios of 1:12 with rigid mount lenses or 1:20 with collapsible mounts. Two Delta lenses were supplied for the collapsible lenses (2 , 3.5) and three for the rigid mounts (2, 3.5, 5).

Lengthening tubes were provided giving reproduction ratios of 1:1, 2:1 and 4:1. Further magnification was possible by using the Mikrotar, microscope objective.

The lengthening tubes and the Focusing Head attach to the Contax using the outer bayonet on the camera. The lens fits onto the Focusing Head, if a collapsible lens is used it can be retracted into the Focusing Head or attach in the external position.

Coupling rings allowed the unit to be used with the Nettax.

Short focus lenses could be used to give greater magnification, they would fit the bayonet of the lengthening tube. The Focusing Head could only be used with the 5cm lenses.

The compensation weight has the weight of a camera and is used when focusing at very high magnifications where attaching the camera would cause a small but noticeable deflection. It fits onto the Focusing Adapter.

The unit is very well made but does not have the flexibility of the Leica equivalent which does not require negative lenses and provides a greater reproduction range, the heads of long-focus lenses could also be used on the Leica.