Dear Dirk: Your comments are interesting, thank you very much, I have some points anyway: 2012/5/4 Dirk-Roger Schmitt <Dirk-Roger.Schmitt@xxxxxx>: > Dear Carlos, > > thank you very much for your anwer, > I have the following comments: > > 1) Well, the 1.4/55 seems to have an interesting story. So I was not aware > that this was licensed from Zeiss to Japanese Manufacturers. > It is true, that Rollei overtook the Voigtländer factory including > equipment. However, this took place in 1972 or a bit later. The factory was > completely closed down. Rollei did not manufacture anything there. At least > not 1977 or later. Of course they took personal, toolings and designs to the > factory at Salzdahlumer Straße. > I must admit I was never aware that Rolleinar Lenses were also made in > Singapore. Interesting pictures form Jan Böttcher. Anyway, these must be > complete designs from Mamiya including tooling which where brought to > Singapore. At this time this was a very strange thing, having a Zeiss line > of lenses made in Singapore (50 mm, 2.8/35, 135 mm, 200 mm etc.) with a > barrel quality say "not been from the best quality considering tolerances > etc." and then launching a parallel line from Mamiya with excellent optics > and very good and tolerance free barrels. O.k, you might say, the Zeiss line > from Singapore, performance of production not to be the best, and then the > other line from Japan. Even that decision shows that at that time at Rollei > no real agreement in the management how to proceed did exist. One wanted an > attractive line of lenses and realized, they could not come from Singapore. > So there must have been some kind of conflict between the Singapore > management and the "to buy in Japan" fraction. Even worse, later to start to > make the Mamiya lenses in Singapore shows the confusion of management at > that time. This must have ended in disaster as it did with the bankruptcy...." In 1972 Zeiss-Ikon shut down the Voigtländer optical factory they had bought previously, that year Carl Zeiss Oberkochen, Rollei and the Gemeinwirtschaft Bank had an agreement to found the "Optischen Werke Voigtländer GmbH" to keep alive the VO lenses production and considering the Rollei decision for large scale production. The OWV GmbH was dedicated to manufacture more common Zeiss lenses for the Rollei cameras (TLR lenses were not included) keeping the Zeiss lenses name but replacing "Carl Zeiss" by "made by Rollei" (and some Japanese lenses aferwards), this arrangement afterwards reached Zeiss lenses made by the Rollei Optical Co Singapore too (perhaps under the circumstances you commented in your post); the more difficult lenses to manufacture were made at Carl Zeiss Oberkochen anyway, with the name Carl Zeiss in the lens ring of course but with the Rollei term "HFT" (High Fidelity Transfer) for the T* multicoating process to keep the same name for this significant feature (at the time) regarding the Zeiss lenses made by Rollei. Rollei - CZ Oberkochen agreement was a bit beyond a simple license, it was a joint venture, at least initially, it allowed Rollei to use CZ lenses designs even for lenses with Voigtländer names for Voigtländer cameras made by Rollei. I have the Planar 1.8/50mm made by Rollei Singapore and it still is a great lens producing excellent results and looking very well and pristine and similar comment for my Rollei 35 Tessar 3,5/40 made by Rollei in Singapore. In spite of similar design for the external lens barrel cover, the color for the numbers are different regarding the Rolleinar Japanese lenses and you "feel" the construction is different someway, but I couldn't say that one is better than the other one. Rollei production in Singapore had high quality standards and the designs, prototypes and manufacture tooling were tried in Germany previously while the workers were trained by German instructors, (except for a few cases like the Rollei 35 LED). Problem with some Rollei Singapore products was that they had no time enough for a right pre-production devolopment for the models and problems for the quality control due to the massive production _sometimes_. Rollei found in the Rolleinar Japanese lenses (Mamiya several of them, but Kiron, Tokina, Sigma, Yabe too) a cheaper line of lenses than the CZ line, with modern designs in general and high optical quality and zoom lenses that were a strong sales point for the 35mm Japanese cameras. Claus Prochnow wrote that these Japanese lenses were as good as the CZ lenses in general, or with perfomance very close to them despite of the cheaper price, and he talked about the CZ lenses made in Oberkochen and Braunschweig, not only about those ones made in Singapore. Labour costs were cheaper in Singapore than in Japan and this was the reason they were made in Singapore afterwards, the Mamiya lenses specially. According the Rollei Report IV, the only reason for the Rolleinar Japanese lenses was the cheaper price for similar quality and some modern designs like the zooms, Singapore lenses quality had nothing to do with the decision, in fact Rollei Optical Co. Singapore manufactured lenses for lenses manufacturers like Schneider for no Rollei products. The famous Sonnar 2.8/40 HFT for the Rollei 35S was made in Singapore only after a few production prototypes were made in Germany initially. > 2) Considering the multicoatings: MC, HFT, Zeiss T*..... All these are only > trademarks and do not say anything about the type of coating or the quality. > The multicoatings are all quite similiar. The difference is just the color > of the remaining rest reflectance. This might be green, red, or red/blue. > The color of rest reflectance has been selected only for marketing reasons, > not for technical reasons. So Zeiss wants this dark/red colour as a > "branding". Even at that time, the coating designs have not more been > developed by the optics manufacturers but just bought together with the > coating machines from the coating machine industry like Balzers of Leybold. > So you buy a machine for multicoating, and the supplier asks you: What > colour of rest reflectance you prefer? Then you get the process with the > machine... They are trademarks and the same name could be applied for different multicoating processes indeed, however there are technical consequences for the multicoating predominant color reflectance, as Marc wrote,"...If there is a difference in the indicated color of the coating, then that shows that the peak effectiveness of the lens coating will also be different... " and then the coating will be more or less effective according the light wavelength. The _predominant_ general color reflectance can be different, multicoatings could show some minor similar reflectances. For example, the MC Mamiya and SMC Pentax multicoatings have a similar greenish general color reflectance, Tokina MC multicoating has a strange light blue predominant reflectance; CZ T* and Rollei HFT multicoating for CZ lenses made by Rollei have a dark red predominant color reflectance. I never saw the predominant color reflectance for the Rolleinar Japanese lenses marked "HFT" in the lens ring manufactured from 1984. Carlos --- 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 //www.freelists.org/archives/rollei_list