[rollei_list] Re: Color Ultron AR 1.4/55 Made in Germany?
- From: CarlosMFreaza <cmfreaza@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2012 07:21:07 -0300
<Dirk-Roger.Schmitt@xxxxxx> escribió:
> I am really wondering where this lens comes from.
>
> All the lenses available are in the Mamiya type Rolleinar design.
> They look like the other Mamiya lenses for Rolleinar or Voigtländer.
> Most of them are marked Made in Japan.
>
> I have one marked Made in Germany which is very rare.
> However, the lens housing anyway looks like any other Mamiya stuff.
>
> So I am wondering where the Made in Germany comes from
>
> Anyway, the mechanics of the Mamiya Rolleinar lenses is clearly superior to
> the mechanics of the Zeiss lenses 1.8/50, 1.4/50, 2,8/80, 2.8/135 etc.
As I commented in a previous post, Rolleinar/Mamiya lenses were made
first in Japan and by Rollei Singapore (Rollei Optical Co) afterwards
according a post from Claus Prochnow talking about Rollei up to the
1981 bankruptcy, however I never saw a Rolleinar/Mamiya lens "made in
Singapore" (perhaps they exist, I don't know), I guess the lens barrel
was made in Japan anyway (then "Made in Japan") and the optics by
Rollei. It's interesting to note that Prochnow writes in the Report IV
that the Rolleinar/Mamiya/Color Ultron (I'd add Planar Contarex)MC
1.4/55mm lens was made through Mamiya Japan and _Rollei Braunschweig_
( Rollei had the former Voigtländer factory to manufacture lenses in
Braunschweig).
Mamiya no longer manufactured lenses for 35mm cameras from about 1984
(perhaps before this date), and Rollei lost the Rollei Optical Co in
Singapore from 1981, but Rollei provided several Rolleinar/Mamiya
lenses for the 3003 and 3001 cameras manufactured up to 1994 and for
the 3003 metric manufactured up to about 1998/2000, these lenses were
made by Rollei in Braunschweig under Mamiya license, perhaps Rollei
still had lenses barrels "Made in Japan" from the Rollei Singapore
factory as happened for the Rollei 35mm electronic shutters, the "Made
in Germany" barrels appeared when they used all the "Made in Japan"
barrels, this is a speculation, but the facts are that the
Rolleinar/Mamiya lenses, at least the optics, were made in Germany by
Rollei after the bankruptcy.
Every Rolleinar/Mamiya lens (they were manufactured from 1977) was
provided with the groove to give the wide open diaphragm data to the
camera body (QBM IV).
Rollei decided to offer the Japanese Rolleinar lenses for the 35mmm
SLR cameras because they were cheap and very good lenses, some of
these lenses designs were also very modern, the zooms specially. The
German optics industry produced a few zooms at the time and they
couldn't compete with the Japanese zooms, Zeiss Germany did not
manufacture zooms and Schneider manufactured two bulkies, heavies and
very expensive 45-100 and 80-240mm zooms, in the other hand the
Japanese 35mm cameras were provided with cheaper, lighter and computer
designed MC zoom lenses.
Carlos
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