[rollei_list] Re: 2.8 80mm Opton-Tessar

At 04:12 AM 11/15/2006, Carlos Manuel Freaza wrote:
>Marc:
>      In the Rollei Report 1, page 7-190 you can see
>the photograph about the Rolleiflex Standard prototype
>with Tessar 2.8/80 and size 0 Compur shutter PR 061,
>the comment says that on 1934 CZJ developed this
>faster lens for the prototype but the design was
>shelved because the lens performance was not yet
>satisfactory, Prochnow also adds that on 1938 the idea
>was taken up again "and the lens recomputed". I have
>no doubt that the two lenses Rollei bought on 1938
>from CZ were to develope the 2.8A prototype.
>In the Rollei Report II, page 16-345 you can see the
>1939 2.8A prototype PR 149 and you can read the
>reasons F&H couldn't manufacture for the market the
>camera before the WWII, the camera was developed again
>10 years later.
>Perhaps I did not use right the word "re-designed",
>the exact word is "recomputed", you could recompute
>the same design, but both words have similar practical
>effects.-
With all credit to Prochnow, Zeiss denies that this happened. All of the 2.8/8cm CZJ Tessars were made to the formula computed in 1931. There was no redesign, recomputation, or the like according to the factory records. And these records are meticulous in detail.
Now, in support of your position, every version of the 2.8/8cm Tessar save for those three Muster lenses are credited to the same 1931 design; this includes the front-cell focusing lenses used on the Super Ikonta B and BX along with the front-standard focusing lenses used on the Ikoflex III. It is not impossible, of course, that the 1931 design accommodated both types but it is certain that the 2.8/8cm used on the Super Ikonta cameras could not have been identical to that used on the Ikoflex III.
Against your position is the fact that Carl Zeiss Jena was then a VERY slow-moving behemoth which insisted on great precision and which acted with glacial slowness in lens formulations. We DO know that the 2.8/8cm design for the Ikoflex III was finished by mid- or late 1936, so it is doubtful if any redesign was made in 1938: I doubt that CZJ would produce those four linked production batches of lenses with different designs.
Incidentally, there are separate production batches with a mounting listed as Compur 0. These batches are destinct from those made for the Ikoflex III and for Rollei, though these also used Compur 0 shutters.
Prochnow spent his career as a Rolleiflex publicity hack and his book has to be read in that light. A possible resolution can be found. Could the following explain the possible discrepancy? 

1931:   CZJ produced a master design for the 2.8/8cm Tessar
1934:   F&H rejected the design
1935: Zeiss Ikon requested a tweaking of the 1931 design for its intended Ikoflex III 1936: CZJ developed a slightly improved design to meet Zeiss Ikon's requirements. 1938: F&H decided to revisit production of a camera with a 2.8/8cm Tessar. (F&H by this point knew of the impending Ikoflex III and was most concerned over a possible loss of the professional market to Zeiss Ikon.) Contact with CZJ afforded them the opportunity to hop on the bandwagon of the Ikoflex III design with reduced charges due to production economics, and they did so. This was not a reformulation to meet F&H's needs but, rather, F&H agreeing to accept the tweaking requested by Zeiss Ikon as their standard -- F&H's interest, after all, was to meet the challenge of the Ikoflex III and not to produce a world-busting superior camera. F&H then owned the professional MF market, though there were challengers such as the Primarflex and the Exakta 66. The Ikoflex had to this point been only a camera for advanced amateurs and had enjoyed little professional use, but the appearance of the Ikoflex III was really the placing of an elephant on a dinner table. 1939: CZJ produces matched lots of lenses to a common (Ikoflex III) design for both Zeiss Ikon and F&H orders. 1994: With Zeiss Ikon safely long gone, Prochnow re-invents the past to make it seem that the tweaking of the 1931 design was done to please F&H where it actually had been conducted to meet the needs of Heinz Küppenbender's Zeiss Ikon.
So, yes, I agree that there might well have been an improvement of the 1931 design but that any such improvements would have been minor: Ernst Wandersleb, that most honest of men, was then the chief of optical design at Jena, and he would not have permitted the factory records to continue to reflect a 1931 design date unless the changes were minor ones.
This is fascinating stuff. Again, I need more numbers from Ikoflex III and Rolleiflex 2.8 cameras, in both cases with body and lens details. We are on to something here, folks, and, as the indomitable Sherlock Holmes often noted, "Watson! The game is afoot!" 

Marc


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Cha robh bàs fir gun ghràs fir!

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