[rollei_list] Re: Zeiss Ikon OOB in 1971

  • From: Marc James Small <marcsmall@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 23:32:44 -0400

At 11:08 PM 7/21/2010, Peter K. wrote:
OK, Zeiss Ikon or whatever. Same company no? They ceased camera production in 1971 and assembly stopped in 1972. Why? Costs? I mean they went to Yashica and made them there based on costs I would assume.

While Zeiss does make manual focus lenses that fit Canon, I wish they would come out with an AF zoom lens in a Canon mount. I would be the first in line to buy it.

Peter

No, Zeiss Ikon and Zeiss are NOT the same company. They are two independent companies both controlled by the same charitable Foundation, the Zeiss Stiftung, which also controls Schott und Genossen Glasswerke, Jenaer Glasswerke, Gauthier and Deckel (now merged), Winkel, and the Leitz wooden woodworking tool concern. The Zeiss Foundation never owned Zeiss Ikon outright: at most, it owned about 2/3, with the rest being owned by various private investors. The Zeiss lensworks is owned outright by the Foundation, as are the two Schott entities. From 1953 until 1973, the Foundation also owned the Voigtländer concern.

It was the Contarex which bankrupted Zeiss Ikon. Had they avoided that baleful brand and stayed with the revamped Contax IV, their would still be a Zeiss Ikon active today: Zeiss Ikon was suffering minor losses with the Contax IIa and IIIa but minor ones. As it was, the Contarex just made the balance sheets bleed red from 1957 until 1973.

In 1965, the Foundation -- not Zeiss Ikon -- began negotiating with Asahi about the possibility of a Japanese built quality SLR with Japanese-built Zeiss lenses. Asahi insisted that the lenses be built in Germany, and that killed the deal, as the Zeiss Foundation wanted to get Zeiss out of producing photographic lenses. (Zeiss made a LOT more profit from a single submarine periscope or artillery gunsight or hospital microscope than it did from a hundred Planar lenses: the Foundation showed great business sense in trying to get Asahi to produce the lenses in Japan.) Asahi just did not think that the Japanese home market would cozen to a Japanese camera with Japanese-built lenses bearing the Zeiss name, so the two companies parted ways in 1969, Asahi taking with it the K-Mount, the joint multi-coating process, and access to the Voigtländer electronic shutter patents. (Asahi made its name on the M42 mount, developed at Carl Zeiss Jena i 1938, and in the K-Mount, developed at Oberkochen in the late 1960's.)

The Zeiss Foundation then turned to Yashica, and the Contax RTS resulted. Yashica agreed to have all but the exotic lenses produced in Japan. Of course, Yashica went belly-up and was taken over by Kyoto Ceramics, and that led to the great success of the Contax SLR system and the later Contax G.

Note that all Rolleiflex Zeiss lenses save for the exotics have been produced in Braunschweig since the early 1970's, with the exception of those lenses made in Singapore for six or seven years. There have been very few Zeiss-made Zeiss lenses on Rolleiflex cameras since 1970. Even the Sonnar on my Singapore 35S was made by Rollei.

Marc



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Cha robh bàs fir gun ghràs fir!

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