[rollei_list] Re: Fw: Re: Re: 'Old' Zeiss glass question

  • From: "Richard Knoppow" <dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 18:02:29 -0700


----- Original Message ----- From: "Marc James Small" <msmall@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, April 28, 2006 1:01 PM
Subject: [rollei_list] Re: Fw: Re: Re: 'Old' Zeiss glass question



At 12:47 PM 4/28/06 -0500, Peter J Nebergall wrote:



-NOT exactly what I meant. Was the uncoated Sonnar 50mm 1.5 produced
alongisde the coated one? Were the Rollei Tessars produced concurrently,
or does the1 replace the other?


PJN

This begs a question: If Zeiss was producing coated lenses since 1937,
were they simultaneously continuing uncoated lenses in the same formulae?
I have 2 Contax Sonnar f1.5s and 2 more f2s... 1 of each is coated.
When did they stop making uncoated lenses?

Almost all Zeiss lens production was uncoated through the War and some
afterwards. By 1950 or so, almost all photographic lenses were coated
though uncoated lenses could be purchased for special uses such as
surveillance work. Prewar production was of only a few lenses per batch
and was done for testing purposes in the marketplace and at least some of
these lenses were sold in the US. Coated camera lenses made during the War
were sold in Sweden and Switzerland and Spain and Portugal, these being the
only nations with whom Germany was still able to trade!


So, yes, uncoated and coated lens production continued in parallel.

Marc

Why would an uncoated lens be desirable for surveillance work?

In the US Kodak and Bausch & Lomb had been hard coating military lenses from sometime in the mid 1940s. These were vacuum deposited, baked, hard coatings. Both companies and Wollensak began to offer hard coated lenses commercially about 1946. Other manuacturers were slower to adopt coating. Goerz evidently had to farm out their coating work so many of its lenses continued to be sold without coating or one could get a coated version if one was willing to wait. I am not sure when Ilex began to coat lenes but I think early on. Ilex and Wollensak built tremendous numbers of lenses on an OEM basis.

---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx


---
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

Other related posts: