[rollei_list] Re: Zeiss Lens Book

At 02:12 PM 2/25/06 -0800, Richard Knoppow wrote:

>  The book I got an excerpt of is a survey of lenses by all 
>German makers, a different book from the three volume set on 
>Zeiss.
>  I looked at Petra Keller's site but could not find this 
>one, perhaps I didn't use the right search terms so I will 
>look again. I was surprized because its just the sort of 
>thing she usually has.
>   Unfortunately, the book does not have schematic drawings. 
>It gives the lens types only as number of elements and 
>groups. This can be confusing because the same description 
>can apply to quite different lenses. For instance, both a 
>Planar and a Plasmat can be described as six elements in 
>four groups and both a simple double Gauss lens and a 
>Dialyte can be described as four air-spaced elements. 
>Nonethess the charts are very interesting and valuable. 
>Thiele also has an extensive list of German patents. The 
>book does not appear to be expensive.

Thiele has also authored several books on the German photo industry,
notably DIE DEUTSCHE PHOTOOINDUSTRIE WER WAR WER, which is HIGHLY
recommended.  None of his books to my knowledge contain lens diagrams but
these are readily available from THE LENS COLLECTOR'S VADE MECUM on CD-ROM.

There is a rich literature of German-language books on the German camera
and lens companies ranging from the abortive Zeiss official history (so
far, only one volume has been published and we cannot obtain data on the
next two volumes), the official Hensoldt history (so far, only the first
volume has appeared but we are HOPING that the second volume will be
released this year).  Prochnow is now cranking out a set of VOIGTLÄNDER
REPORTS which are most fascinating.  There are a slew of books on reflex
cameras, especially SPIEGELREFLEX KAMERAS AUS DRESDEN.  And Schulz' work on
the SPIEGEL-CONTAX is an exceptional work, especially now that an
English-language edition has appeared.  Many of these books are significant
to the Rolleiflex scholar as these companies all worked closely together,
sharing lenses, shutters, and often engineers and optical designers over
the decades.  (The Rolleiflex SL35E, for instance, clearly was produced
with attention to the final Praktica B cameras, and vice-versa:  eyes were
peering over the Iron Curtain, something not notable, for instance, in the
auto inducstry where I can only say that I can find little evidence that
BMW or Audi were much put upon to match their offerings to the Trabant.  

Thiele's work is based upon factory records:  he has managed to work
through the Carl Zeiss Jena archives which were stored, in proper attention
to the needs of the Great Laboring Masses, in terms which can only be
regarded by any decent researcher could only characterize as "a mess",
without regard to significance or order, and the Zeiss Foundation, which
promised to have them all in order in quick time, has cut the staff down to
one half-time librarian.  So Thiele deserves great credit for this work but
gaps and errors exist from the lousy state of the records.  His work at
Oberkochen is a fine start but, here, the Carl Zeiss guys do not see the
virtue in the work and, again, the Foundation has not been as open as they
might have been.  It would be wonderful if they saw their way clear to
establish something on the order of Eastman House or to place their records
in the public view as have most of the British lens companies.  Still,
Thiele has gotten farther into their archives than any other researcher.

Charlie Barringer has worked more closely with Thiele and his books than
any other researcher and I believe that it is fair to say that Charlie's
take is that Thiele has done remarkable and significant work but that the
missing and incorrect data can only be filled in by actual serial number
data from known lenses and the like.  And Simon Worseley's work on Compur
shutters provides us a lot of information not otherwise available.  I am
not certain what happened to the Deckel records after the Zeiss Fouindation
bankrupted them a decade back, but a lot of work needs done there as well,
and Simon's efforts are of great benefit.  

And that is why I still want ALL Zeiss-related serial numbers --
microscopes, telescopes, lenses, shutters, und so weiter.  We have made
huge progress over the past decade but we have many, many miles yet to go
before we sleep, so to say.  And it is important that we not allow our
researches to reach a fork in the road, to steal another phrase from the
same poetaster and one not a favorite of mine.

I am copying this missive to Charlie, incidentally.  If he has a response
or correction to my statement of his views on Thiele -- or on any other
part of this posting -- I will post it to the List ASAP.  Charlie is one of
the senior scholars in attempting to make sense out of the rather chaotic
history of the Zeiss entities.

Marc

msmall@xxxxxxxxxxxx 
Cha robh bàs fir gun ghràs fir!

NEW FAX NUMBER:  +540-343-8505



---
Rollei List

- Post to rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

- Subscribe at rollei_list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'subscribe'
in the subject field OR by logging into www.freelists.org

- Unsubscribe at rollei_list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with
'unsubscribe' in the subject field OR by logging into www.freelists.org

- Online, searchable archives are available at
http://www.freelists.org/archives/rollei_list

Other related posts: