Nicht immer nur Kaviar ... (English Version)

[willeica]

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5 hours ago, Ambro51 said:

BTW, petzval lenses were usually constructed so they could be easily converted to “landscape lenses”. This was simply a matter of unscrewing the lens from the flange mounted on the camera, unscrewing and stowing away the rear element and its cell.  The front lens hood is then unscrewed, and stowed away.  The front element, which is a longer focus cemented Plano convex achromat, is, with its cell, screwed into the rear position of the lens barrel. ( with the curved convex element toward the plate.  Screw the barrel back onto the camera, and insert a Waterhouse stop about 1/3 the lens diameter into the slot••••••. Now the lens works at about f14 and you lose ALL that petzval bokeh and vignetting.  Your focal length is increased....pull the bellows out further, and you’ll see Pin Sharp corner to corner coverage.  There’s not too much extra exposure, not unmanageable.  That’s how I’d pull group shot whole plate negs of lines of troops.  All sharp.  Dont underestimate the ability of the single achromat to form a perfect image.  Most stereo cameras of that era relied on them. The stop in front of the lens, usually placed one lens diameter in front, is the key.  Take it down fo f64 if you like..... I’d put That image up against any modern lens for sharpness.  

Interesting, but the collector in me would resist against doing this. Have you used a Grubb Aplanatic lens? There were some in the US in the 1860s, including the Grubb C used by Carleton Watkins to photograph Yosemite.

William 

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[Pyrogallol]

Something different. Cheaper than collecting lenses or cameras.

I bought another Tewe zoom viewfinder, in its box.

This one goes from 35mm to 135mm. The other one goes up to 200mm. 

I would like to find one for Robot cameras.

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[pgk]

7 hours ago, Ambro51 said:

BTW, petzval lenses were usually constructed so they could be easily converted to “landscape lenses”. 

Grubb also made Petzvals (I have a couple) but the Patent Aplanatic lens was an improvement on existing landscape lenses including the Petzval when used as you describe. Grubb also made a Patent Doublet (two patent Aplanats around a central stop) which was basically a Rapid Rectilinear. He produced these prior to Dallmeyer patenting the design but never chased it up because by then he was building world class telescopes and photographic lenses were no longer a core product. The early days of photographic lenses are documented well in some areas but exceptionally poorly in others. Carleton Watkins may have used a Grubb C lens with the stop closer than optimum to increase the angle of view (needing a greater plate size) to take some landscapes, at the expense of some distortion. What I also find fascinating is the precision to which glass could be ground even using machinery powered by water or steam. I have read that lenses can even be hand ground to a quarter wavelength accuracy by a skilled grinder (using Newton's rings to check) which is extraordinary.

[pgk]

A slight digression but one of potential interest to Leica collectors and collectors of other cameras. In the early days of photography there as only flint and crown glass. Breakthroughs in the 1890s made many better glass types available, sepcially from Jena. I assume that Leica (Leitz) obtained much of its glass from the Jena makers as Jena was well known as alocation for  leanding optical glass manufacture (Schneider?). I wonder if the same was true of makers like TTH (Taylor, Taylor & Hobson(? If so would their designs, including the Summarit, have needed glass made by UK based makers like the Chance Brothers? Or was glass sourced, even in the early days of 35mm lenses, from whovever made the appropriately specified glass as it is now?

[zeitz]

1 hour ago, pgk said:

sepcially from Jena

Paul, I think you are referring to the Schott glass company, with Carl Zeiss as one of the founders with Otto Schott.  Initially Schott was in Jena as an independent company, and a few years later was merged into the Zeiss Stiftung.  "Jena Glass" is a borosilicate.  Schott glass was and is still used worldwide by many lens manufacturers.

[pgk]

Just now, zeitz said:

Paul, I think you are referring to the Schott glass company, with Carl Zeiss as one of the founders with Otto Schott.  Initially Schott was in Jena as an independent company, and a few years later was merged into the Zeiss Stiftung.  "Jena Glass" is a borosilicate.  Schott glass was and is still used worldwide by many lens manufacturers.

Indeed. But today designers simply select a glass based on their needs and from the company who makes a glass to their required specification. I wonder was it the same back in the 1920s & 1930s, or whether local producers were favoured?

[wlaidlaw]

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Schott glass make all sorts of specialist glass, not just photographic. The cover glass on the radiant electric hob and the front glass window of the electric pyrolytic oven I have in France, are both made by Schott.

During WW2, British lens makers such as T,T&H, Cooke, National Optical, Wray, Ross, Dallmeyer, Barr and Stroud plus others, would not have been able to source glass from Jena, so must have found other sources. My guess would be that Pilkington, the largest UK glass maker for many years, would have been involved. They make various specialist glasses today. 

Wilson

[Ambro51]

Pilkington made the windows in my Range Rover.

[pgk]

Chance Brothers were owned by Pilkington for a period. There are numerous aspects to glass production and not all makers/divisions produce optical glass.

[romanus53]

Chance Brothers is quoted for making the Thorium-lenses used in the first version of the Summicron; the use of Thorium or Lanthanium was developed by Kodak in the 1930ies

Edited December 28, 2021 by romanus53

[Ambro51]

Is that 127 format?

[willeica]

1 hour ago, Al Brown said:

Here is my Adox Adrette II. Such a beautiful little gem.

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Another one for my Compur list. The evidence that is emerging from my research so far is that Zeiss ran a cartel through its shareholdings (sometimes secret) in F. Deckel and its main competitor Gauthier. However, the interesting thing is that Zeiss still permitted other makes of lens to go into such mounts e.g. this one is a Schneider. However, it seems that a payment was coming back to Zeiss no matter what make of camera or lens was involved. There were advantages and disadvantages for both central and focal plane shutters, but Zeiss realised that the wind was blowing in the direction of the focal plane shutter, popularised by Leitz with its Leica cameras. The Zeiss version of the focal plane shutter with metal parts and silk ribbons was over-engineered and much more difficult to repair than the cloth shutter of the Leica.

Central shutters, as Compurs etc were called, continued for many years and only really began decline with the success of SLRs from the 1950s onwards. My research is largely related to how such shutters facilitated lens choice, but there is a bigger picture here and any comments would be most welcome. There is a paucity of good written material in English about this era in the German camera industry.

William 

[willeica]

2 hours ago, Al Brown said:

Interestingly, central shutters (typically leaf shutters) lingered on medium format cameras long after their SLR decline due to their ability to sync with strobes at all speeds and even if the camera had a SLR type focal plane shutter (like Pentax 67, which had a lousy sync speed of 1/30s) there were always several lenses with a leaf shutter built inside available for purchase that allowed strobe shooting in the sun at short speeds.

Thanks. My talk for the British Photographic Collectors Club will concentrate on the 1920s and 1930s when central shutters were at their peak, but I will have to tie up what happened later. What I would really like to find is material about the general German photographic equipment industry (outside of Leitz and Zeiss) in the prewar years when the Compur and other similar shutters were of considerable significance. I’m surprised that there seems to be no book in English on this topic.

William 

[zeitz]

13 hours ago, willeica said:

Zeiss ran a cartel

The word cartel is an absolute mischaracterization of the Carl Zeiss Stiftung.  The following information is from Gubas' book Zeiss and Photography.

After Carl Zeiss' death Ernst Abbe established the Stiftung in 1889 as a not-for-profit entity that included profit sharing with the employees.  The charter clearly stated that the Stiftung was "to preserve the precision mechanical and optical instrument industries in Germany."  Also "when considering participation in another company, it was necessary to adhere to the following guidelines:  The Stiftung could only participate if the current owner has expressed interest in such an agreement; only companies whose products are of high quality and hold a good position on the market would be considered; must not exceed Zeiss' ability to contribute effectively to growth of the concern; these companies should operate independently in their manufacturing programs and policies; the former proprietors should remain active as partners or as members of the board of directors."  In the end this meant companies with financial problems were candidates.  The Stifung grew notably after World War I in the severe financial crisis that spawned Hitler.  These considerations are why the assimilation of Contessa Nettel without August Nagel is significant.  The creation of Zeiss Ikon was a recognition that loose affiliations were limiting all parties involved.

Deckel Compur did not become part of the Stiftung until 1957, but Deckel was founded with the technical and financial assistance of Zeiss.  In 1928, Zeiss hold 32% of the shares.

Gauthier Prontor sought financial help from the Stiftung in 1931.  At that time Zeiss purchased 80% of the Gauthier.

[willeica]

4 hours ago, zeitz said:

The word cartel is an absolute mischaracterization of the Carl Zeiss Stiftung.  The following information is from Gubas' book Zeiss and Photography.

After Carl Zeiss' death Ernst Abbe established the Stiftung in 1889 as a not-for-profit entity that included profit sharing with the employees.  The charter clearly stated that the Stiftung was "to preserve the precision mechanical and optical instrument industries in Germany."  Also "when considering participation in another company, it was necessary to adhere to the following guidelines:  The Stiftung could only participate if the current owner has expressed interest in such an agreement; only companies whose products are of high quality and hold a good position on the market would be considered; must not exceed Zeiss' ability to contribute effectively to growth of the concern; these companies should operate independently in their manufacturing programs and policies; the former proprietors should remain active as partners or as members of the board of directors."  In the end this meant companies with financial problems were candidates.  The Stifung grew notably after World War I in the severe financial crisis that spawned Hitler.  These considerations are why the assimilation of Contessa Nettel without August Nagel is significant.  The creation of Zeiss Ikon was a recognition that loose affiliations were limiting all parties involved.

Deckel Compur did not become part of the Stiftung until 1957, but Deckel was founded with the technical and financial assistance of Zeiss.  In 1928, Zeiss hold 32% of the shares.

Gauthier Prontor sought financial help from the Stiftung in 1931.  At that time Zeiss purchased 80% of the Gauthier.

I should probably have said 'cartel' in parentheses as I did take this from a German language site dedicated to Zeiss matters. Zeiss owned 32 % of Deckel and 80% of its main competitor Gauthier. I have a background in competition law and the normal threshold for 'control' is about 30%. I think I also said that Zeiss did not stop the lenses of other manufacturers going into such shutters, so all the characteristics of dominant firm behaviour did not exist. It was, however, a nice little sideline and it did ensure that quality shutters were supplied into the market. 

There were staggering numbers of German camera manufacturers in the first half of the last Century as this list shows:

https://collectiblend.com/Cameras/DE/

A large number of those firms had gone by the end of WWII. The glue that had held that industry together included the central shutters which made it much easier to make cameras and source a supply of suitable lenses that would fit, often from more than one manufacturer for the same model. The level of cooperation among German firms was quite striking. Also many key figures such as Nagel, Barnack and Rudolph had moved around the industry. There is a story there which has not been written up fully in English and the Compur type shutters were a key element of that story. I hope that I am making what I am after more clear. If you can point me towards information about the Stiftung I would be most grateful. The Gubas book seems to have sold out. I am, of course, interested in a broader picture than just the Zeiss group eg Kodak's entry in Germany. People like Deckel, Bruns and Nagel and others were some of the many key players in the German industry. There are also some fascinating side shoots like the Kochmann Korelle K which had a different way of combining the features needed with a Compur shutter. And, of course, the disposable 35mm cassette was designed for the Retina, a camera with a Compur shutter. It is a wide scope that I am looking at but all related to those shutters and what they could facilitate.

William

[UliWer]

4 hours ago, zeitz said:

The word cartel is an absolute mischaracterization of the Carl Zeiss Stiftung.

I beg to differ.

You might even call Zeiss an archetype to illustrate Karl Marx's concept of "concentration of capital". Before WW I there were many small producers of photographic cameras: Hüttig, Krügener, Wünsche, Palmos, Körner&Meyer; Drexler&Nagel, Goerz and Ernemann. Until 1925 half of them were acquired by ICA Camera AG, which was owned by Zeiss Jena. In 1926 Goerz and Nettel (formerly Nagel&Drexler) and last, but not least Ernemann were part of the merger to Zeiss Ikon AG. Ernemann, where Zeiss had only a minority share before, was a victim of a hostile takeover by Zeiss Ikon.

Many other still independant producers were dependant of Zeiss as they needed lenses - especially the Tessar: take Balda, Welta or Rollei. Since they also needed shutters Zeiss was eager to dominate this sector as well. As early as 1910 Zeiss acquired a share in the Deckel company (together with Bausch&Lomb and Gauthier)  which produced the Compur shutter. More important: Zeiss hold the patent for the Compur shutter, and Deckel produced it only under license by Zeiss.

 So there was a manyfold direct or indirect dependance from Zeiss in a very large part of the German camera industry at the end of the 1920 years. Only producers who had a strong backing by other industrial sectors stayed free from the Zeiss influence: Voigtländer and AGFA as parts of the Schering or IG Farben chemical trusts, Kodak (former Nagel) with its US background. Yes, there was another producer of microscopes at Wetzlar who dared to go into camera production in 1925, but this was ridiculous and could be neglected...

It is not clear what happened to the Compur patents owned by Zeiss after WWII, but the Compur shutter production stayed an important factor for the Carl Zeiss Stuttgart camera production: take the post war Contaflex, which was the most produced camera by Zeiss. Even though it was an SLR you were not free with lenses, but had to use the "Satz-Objektive" with Compur shutters offered for this camera. It was said that this was a strategical decision to back the Compur production. - as part of the Carl Zeiss agglomerat. 

[zeitz]

37 minutes ago, willeica said:

If you can point me towards information about the Stiftung I would be most grateful.

I have never seen any book on camera history that is anywhere close to the detail in the Gubas book.  The tome is 890 pages with period illustrations that you would love.  Keep looking.  Perhaps there libraries in the UK that would have a copy.

I use the German word "stiftung" because I don't know of any adequate English translation.  "Foundation" is a too broad a term.  The only other company I know of that might be consider a stiftung is Hughes Aircraft, set up as a non-profit as Howard Hughes got less capable of running the company.

The US camera industry that was in Rochester, NY, is under-represented in its complexity.  At the peak there were about 20 manufacturing firms.

http://bvipirate.com/Kodak/Rochester.html

Ilex was the US equivalent of Compur.

https://skgrimes.com/products/shutters/ilex-shutters/

[zeitz]

2 minutes ago, UliWer said:

You might even call Zeiss an archetype to illustrate Karl Marx's concept of "concentration of capital".

The definition of cartel is something like "A cartel is a group of independent market participants who collude with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the market. ... Cartels are distinguished from other forms of collusion or anti-competitive organization such as corporate mergers."  Perhaps the stiftung is better thought of as a being an emergence of socialism, but it is not communist.

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[UliWer]

1 minute ago, zeitz said:

Perhaps the stiftung is better thought of as a being an emergence of socialism, but it is not communist.

No, it was completely capitalist and behaved in a capitalist manner. Yes, Zeiss did not fit the definition of a "cartel" - it did not need to collude with others, since it dominated the industry (almost) alone.  Ernst Abbe's moitivation for the Zeiss Foundation (this is the right translation for "Stiftung") was a social one as far as relation to workers were concerned (limited hours of labor, better wages). But they they were hostile towards trade unions. You find many parallels with Ernst Leitz's approach at the same time. On the market the Zeiss Foundation was a fierce capitalist.  

 Only Zeiss Jena in East Germany after WW II until 1990 was not "capitalist" by denomination but a "socialist" "Volkseigener Betrieb" though they acted in the same manner by acquiring all other parts of photographic industry in Eastern Germany to dominate the whole sector. 

[zeitz]

28 minutes ago, UliWer said:

completely capitalist and behaved in a capitalist manner

National Socialism in Germany (as I understand it and I am not a historian) was completely capitalist.  I was referring to the seeds that lead to the Nationalist Socialist Party.

34 minutes ago, UliWer said:

it dominated the industry (almost) alone

There remained lens manufactures, such as Schneider, Steinheil, Rodenstock and Voigtlander, who did fine.  And the other camera manufacturers, including Leitz, Ihagee and F&H, with much smaller product catalogs, who did fine.  Until the Japanese became serious after WWII.

41 minutes ago, UliWer said:

Foundation (this is the right translation for "Stiftung")

A foundation in the US does not operate as a manufacturing corporation.  That is why Hughes Aircraft is the only example I can think of that is similar to Carl Zeiss in terms of being a non-profit manufacturer.  In regards to unions, George Eastman also went to extremes to give workers shares of Kodak stock and avoid labor unions.

I appreciate corrections and clarifications from forum members who are closer to European corporate practices over history.  Your knowledge is not easy to come by in the US.