[rollei_list] Interesting Rollei info in Prochnow's Voigländer Reports
- From: bigler@xxxxxxxx
- To: RUG List <rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2006 15:34:19 +0100 (CET)
An interesting Rollei info in Prochnow's Voigländer Reports
Logically, speaking here about vintage pre-1972 Voigtländer equipment
should be 100% off-topic here and therefore banned with the harshest
severity.
However, having succumbed to temptation of buying the 2 already
published Voigtländer Reports (the 3-rd is due for 2007) by one of our
favourite gurus, Claus Prochnow, I was pleased to find several
historical Rollei-related stories unknown to me... but may be not not
you !
__Disclaimer__ : those of you who swear only by post-1981
Rollei-Braunschweig-made cameras & equipment, please close your eyes
and let the old guys chat a little ;-)
The first story is that there has been a very limited series of R-TLRs
fitted with a Voigtländer Skopar lens !
The second story is related to how the ideas of the first R-TLR came.
Claus P. has found several Voigtländer patents showing that several
ideas that we naturally associate with the Rollei came in fact from
Voigtländer where Reinhold Heidecke had been an employee for 20 years.
the different ides are : saving space by putting film rolls in the
space left empty in a rectangular box, and coupling a taking lens with a
viewing lens, with or without a reflex mirror. Before WWI there was a
twin lens non reflex (TLNR, we should create the acronym !!)
Voigtländer plate camera and the Voigtländer stereoflektoskop is so
close to a Rollei stereo camera or, later, to a TLR in its
viewing/focusing principle that I wonder how F&H could be protected by
a special patent !
So the subtle thing is : did actually Heidecke propose the TLR design
to Voigtländer before resigning and founding his company ? (this is
suggested by some reading on the 'net, I am sceptical) What were
actually the claims in patents that allowed the young F&H company to
start without infringing voigtländer's patents ?
It seems that Voigtländer's Brilliant could be marketed without
infringing F&H patents simply because there was no ground glass in the
viewer, but conversely, how did F&H could manage not to infringe prior
Voigtländer's patents ?
A fascinating story !!
--
Emmanuel BIGLER
<bigler@xxxxxxxx>
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