[rollei_list] Re: Planar for Leica M
- From: Marc James Small <marcsmall@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx,<rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2006 21:54:14 -0400
At 09:32 PM 9/27/2006, Jeffery Smith wrote:
That's the lens that was produced when Rollei released their disappointing
35RF a few years ago. I have the 40mm Sonnar, which is a very fine lens. I
believe that the lenses were produced by Cosina in Japan (which is who
produced the Rollei 35RF).
Jeffery
For once, I have to admit that I just do not
know. I do know that the Japanese are REALLY
fired up with concerns that the "Carl Zeiss" name
on a lens has to mean more than just a brand
name. This clocked the original deal to replace
Zeiss Ikon with a Japanese-produced SLR camera
body: The Zeiss Foundation worked with Asahi
from 1966 to 1971 to do this but Asahi kept
insisting that ALL "Zeiss" lenses had to be
manufactured in Germany to ensure product
acceptance in the Home Islands, and Zeiss was
then frantic to get out of photographic lens
production, so the deal foundered -- they both
got the rights to the multi-coating technology
they had mutually produced, and Asahi was given
the intended lens-mount as a sort of booby
prize: this became the K Mount, so that Asahi
made its fame on two Carl Zeiss designed mounts, M42 and the K mount.
Zeiss then turned to Yashica but the deal was
started with a Zeiss insistence that most lens
production be done in Japan. Yashica bought an
old Tominon plant and that became the dedicated
Zeiss plant in Japan -- final inspection is
conducted in a sealed part of the plant which is
supposedly known to the workers there as "the
round-eye room" as the inspectors were Germans
for many years, though a couple of Chinese and at
least on Japanese worked there in its last years.
Given this, I would not be surprised to learn
that Cosina is making these lenses, but I would
expect German inspectors and the like, as was the
case with the Contax RTS lenses.
And note that despite their best interests, Zeiss
STILL ended up making the specialty lenses in
Oberkochen and Geissen. Zeiss in 1970 was making
a LOT of money from military and industrial
contracts -- they made as much profit off of one
submarine periscope as they did from a hundred
Ha$$elblad lenses, for instance -- and so they
wanted to go to the money well. This changed
quite a bit with the death of the Cold War: nota
bene that Zeiss is now willing to once again do
one-off's and low-production runs of photographic
lenses. And digital gave them a boost: Zeiss
has produced more lenses for digital cameras, I
understand, than ALL photographic lenses at Jena,
Saalfeld, Eisfeld, Munich, Geissen, and
Oberkochen. Sony has made Zeiss quite a bit of money.
Marc
Marc James Small
Quo Usque Tandem Abutere, Catalina, Patientia Nostra?
Cha robh bàs fir gun ghràs fir!
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