The development history of camera lens

Let's talk about Leica first. Before the establishment of Leica brand 1849, the 23-year-old German mathematician Carl Chelner (Carl Ke

Llner) founded the "Optical Association" in Wezlar and started the research and development of lenses and microscopes. This is Leica's past life. 1869, Ernst Lai Ci took over the company and became the sole manager. He named the company after himself. This is the famous Lai Ci Company. Speaking of the birth of Leica brand, we have to say that 135 camera appeared. Oskar barnack, a talented German mechanic, is also a persistent photographer like us. At the beginning of the last century, the industrial revolution took place in Shengxing.

The history of Leica cameras began when oskar barnack was the research director of Leeds.

German optical hero, Leica sword takes a slant and pursues compactness. Schneider pays attention to tolerance and strong internal force. Rodenstein is most famous for his hidden weapons (that is, enlarger lens), and Chase is an all-round master. 135 carl zeiss T* lens is the only brand that can compete with Leica. Hasselblad in the 120 film also relies on the lens group of Zeiss T* to dominate the professional field. Even on a large scale, carl zeiss has a small field of view of plane T* 135mm/3.5, which is called the maximum aperture of a large-scale lens.

Jena, an ancient German town, is the hometown of carl zeiss optics. Perhaps no one expected that carl zeiss (18 16 ~ 1888), an apprentice who graduated from high school, would create a world optical giant here.

Relying on years of interest in optics and chemistry, Carl worked as an auditor at the local University of Jena for a long time after his apprenticeship. 1846, carl zeiss just turned 30, and he founded a studio with 20 employees. His early products were magnifying glasses and simple microscopes. Thanks to the help of two scientists, Ernst Abbe and Otto Short, the quality of optical lenses in Zeiss factory has always been in the leading position in the world. Before World War II, the workshop in Dresden was the largest camera factory in the world.

Disaster arrival, February 1945 night, Dresden camera factory was bombed by the US military, disaster arrival. At the end of World War II, General Patton's Third Army occupied Jena and originally planned to restart the factory. However, because the Yalta Treaty stipulated that the positions of American troops must retreat to the west, Germany was split in two, and Jena town and Dresden were occupied by Soviet troops. So, before Barton retreated from Dresden, in order to prevent the Soviet troops who were going to occupy Jena from acquiring and using the technology and factory of the world's optical capital, Barton ordered the bombing of the core part of the Dresden camera factory. The withdrawal of American troops also took away 126 key managers and technicians of Zeiss Company to rebuild the factory in Oberkochen, Baden-Wü rttemberg, the Federal Republic of Germany supported by the United States. Carl zeiss was reborn in the capitalist society. After the Soviet army invaded Jena, of course, the former Soviet Union would not take advantage of the wealth of this optical giant, so a large number of Zeiss technicians were transferred to Kipp, the Soviet Union. As compensation for the war, the Soviet army also dismantled the remaining 94% of carl zeiss's processing plants and manufacturing plants. Kiev camera factory was established in Kipp (so Russian lenses can still occupy a place in the field of optical imaging by relying on stolen technology). However, it seems that German technology cannot be taken away. With the support of the University of Jena, the symbol of carl zeiss Inclusive soon appeared in Dresden. But since then, the Zeiss factory has been split in two.

The product name of East Germany is: carl zeiss Jena (carl zeiss Jena), which was called "Cai Dong" in history. Production of Pan Taikang camera

Product name of West Germany: carl zeiss is called "Cai Xi" in history.

In fact, both East and West Cai have inherited the tradition of Zeiss in design, but they all flaunt themselves as authentic Zeiss. It is this competition that makes Zeiss go further in optical design.

After the reunification of Germany, Zeiss factories in East and West Germany jointly operated. Headquartered in Oberkochen, it has 3,500 employees and branches all over the world. At this time, Zeiss is the first strong player in a wide range of optical fields. Contax in 135 and Leica compete with it, but in the professional field of 120, carl zeiss T* has dominated the world, which is good for me and bad for me! Hasselblad and Lulai hold the top two positions with Zeiss lens, while mamia and Brownika are doomed to be unable to survive without Zeiss support.

In the digital age, it is Zeiss again, which makes Sony, originally an optical amateur, one of the big names in the consumer dc world.

Just like introducing Leica, let's meet a person: paul rudolph, one of the most famous designers in the history of lens manufacturing, has the greatest influence on the development of Zeiss. 1890, he designed the first Anastigmat, which initiated a new era of lens manufacturing in Zeiss factory. 1896, Rudolf published the famous plane lens with double Gaussian structure, which corrected all kinds of lens aberrations well. Since then, all kinds of standard lens designs produced around the world (including Leica) have benefited from Planner. 1902, he designed three sets of four-piece "Hawkeye"-Tessa lenses. Although the structure is simple and the price is moderate, the imaging quality is shocking, bright and sharp. There is an article in "Popular Photography" on "A Hundred Years of Tiansai", which is about this Tiansai and its evolution.

Sheng designed the lens. 1902 On April 25th, the Royal Patent Board in Berlin awarded the patent certificate with the number 142294 to the lens named Tesser produced by Carl Zeiss Jena. Since then, a brilliant lens family has gradually developed.

When we turn our eyes to the beginning of the history of optical development, we will see that in the early period of optical history (that is, the Daguerre period of 1839- 1855/60), there were actually only two dominant lenses in the market. Chevalier lens designed by 1839 and Petzcval lens developed by 1840 respectively. In 1839, Ch. Chevalier designed an achromatic lens with an aperture of 1: 18 for Daguerre camera in Paris. This is made up of a group of convex lenses and concave lenses bonded to each other. The chromatic aberration and spherical phase difference can be corrected, but the distortion and dispersion at the edge of the image field cannot be changed. (1924 C.P.Goerz improved this lens to make its maximum aperture reach1:1,named after Frontar, and sold together with Tengor square box camera).

The extremely small aperture causes the exposure time of Daguerre camera to be at least 15 minutes. Professor Josef Petzval of Vienna has been trying to solve the problem that the lens aperture is too small, and in 1840, he developed a new lens with full aperture 1:3.7. The appearance of large aperture lens obviously shortened the exposure time of Daguerre camera, in which Daguerre camera used to shoot portraits was exposed. The improved Petzval lens is still widely used in today's slide lens. Petzval lens also has its own optical limitations, mainly manifested in the blurred edge image field when used in landscape photography. Voigtlaender, the oldest camera manufacturer in the world, produced a metal camera with this lens in the same year. This kind of camera has become the object admired by collectors because of its small output. A metal camera with a Petzval lens was sold at a high price at that time, 120 gold shield. (Comparatively speaking, an excellent horse racing talent 100 gold shield. Nevertheless, the company has sold 600 such cameras.

1865, designer Karl August von Steinheil designed Perisco. This is a lens with double lens group structure, with two concave-convex lenses. (Each group of lenses contains a concave-convex lens. The so-called concave-convex lens is also called meniscus lens. As the name implies, it is shaped like a meniscus, which is formed by bonding a convex lens and a concave lens. )

1866, his son Hugo Adolph Steinleil further developed it and designed an aspherical lens, which also has a symmetrical double lens group structure. This kind of lens corrects spherical distortion and chromatic aberration well, but fails to solve the astigmatism problem at the edge of the image field. Successor types similar to this structure are Lynkeioskop produced by C.P.Goerz and Euryskop produced by Voigtlaender. It can be said that the spherical aberration is the originator of the lens with symmetrical double lens group structure, and many popular lenses draw lessons from the spherical aberration design.

With the appearance of 1879 dry camera, photography has become more popular. At the end of 19, the design of lens has made great progress. In the early days, designers have been able to design lenses with large aperture but small shooting angle, and by this time, photographers have put forward the demand of shooting with large aperture and large angle. Professor Petzval realized that if we want to design a large-angle lens, we must first solve the problem of astigmatism at the edge of the image field, but the types of glass that could be used at that time could not meet the needs of designers.

Adolph Steinheil obtained a patent for asymmetric double lens at 188 1 and named it Grup.

Pen-Antiplanet, this lens consists of two glued temples. Through the convex lens of the front lens group and the concave lens of the rear lens group, the shooting angle of 60 degrees can be achieved under the aperture of 1:6.5, and this lens overcomes the problem of astigmatism to some extent. In the same year, Adolph Steinheil designed a portrait lens "Portrait-Antiplanet". The difference between this lens and Gruppen-Antiplanet is that the rear lens group of this lens is separated, and this structure has become the design basis of the future triple lens. 1890, Ernst Abbe and Otto Schott of Jena, Germany tried a new kind of glass, and the production of this kind of glass played a decisive role in solving the astigmatism problem of lenses. British T. Cooke &; Harold dennis taylor, technical director of Son Optical Company, applied this new type of glass. By simplifying the design of Petzval, a kind of lens which can correct astigmatism well is obtained. The aperture of this Taylor lens is 1:4.5, and the structure is slightly asymmetric. It is worth mentioning that it only consists of three mirrors, that is, the so-called triad, two convex lenses and a concave lens to separate the diaphragm blade.

1889, Dr. paul rudolph, the designer of Jena carl zeiss, put forward his principle of image field edge astigmatism correction. The first lens that can really correct astigmatism was developed in 1890. This is a wide-angle lens, using two sets of four-piece structure of a telescope head designed by 1840 Gauss. Dr. Rudolph designed the plane and the lens-free in 1897 and 1900 respectively. During the ten years from 1890 to 1900, a total of 10000 astigmatism-free lenses were sold. These lenses produced by Zeiss are marked with astigmatism. Since this name has not been patented, Zeiss Company has marked its non-astigmatism lenses with three patent names since 1900: Protar, Planar and Unar. Unar consists of four independent lenses, the first is a convex lens, then a concave lens, and the end of the lens is two meniscus lenses. Protar consists of two groups of asymmetric mirrors bonded together. The barium silicate glass developed after 1900 can not only correct astigmatism, but also get a flat image field.

1902, Dr. Rudolf designed today's birthday girl Tesser, which is closely related to Unar and Protar. This lens consists of four lenses, which are asymmetrically distributed on both sides of the aperture in pairs, wherein the front group is two independent lenses, and the back group is formed by bonding a concave mirror and a convex mirror. The light is converged by the lens of the front group, then diverged by the bonding plane of the rear group and projected onto the bottom plane. Tessar lens has always been considered as a modification of triple lens. Through the modern study of optical history, we trace the origin of Tessa lens back to portrait-anti-portrait network.

1902, Zeiss Company began to sell Tessar lenses, including Tessar series with the maximum aperture of 6.3 for fast shooting and Tessar series with the maximum aperture of 10 for remake. In 1905 and 1906, designer E.Wanderleb raised the maximum aperture of Tessar to 4.5 and 3.5, which all depend on the production of new kinds of glass. 1912 Dr. Wanderleb further modified the Tessar lens to make it more popular. At this time, people can already install Tessar on fixed large landlines.

The calculation data of Tessar in 192 1 is further adjusted. This year, Dr. Wiley developed Tele Tessar with aperture of 6.3 and 8 respectively. The actual back intercepts of these two teltessar are shorter than the focal length of the lenses, and they are not typical TESSAR structures. Only Kino-Tele Tessar produced for film machine and Tele Tessar-K produced for Contax are typical telescope heads with Tessar structure. In order to meet the needs of aerial photography, Zeiss introduced f 4.5/250 f5/500 and f5/700 in the same year.

1927, Dr. Willy Merte further raised the aperture of Tessar lens to 1:2.7. At that time, this newly developed Tessar lens was used in most cameras and camcorders. However, compared with f/3.5, which was also popular at that time, the edge imaging clarity of this lens was slightly insufficient. In 193 1, Zeiss replaced 1: 2.7/ 135, 1:2.8/ 165 with bio-tessar1:2. The new Bio-Tessar is an achromatic triplet lens designed by Dr. Willy Merte, with a total of six lenses. The front lens group consists of concave lens and concave-convex lens with independent concave lens and concave-convex lens in the middle, and the rear lens group consists of concave-convex lens, concave mirror and convex mirror. The independent concave lens in the middle can effectively change the phase difference at the edge of the image field. Later, Zeiss designed apo-tessar f1:9/1200mm and S-Tessar F6.3/ 1200mm for remake.

In the early 1930s, Dr. Wiley. Mitt designed a Tessar lens for Zeiss. The structure of this lens comes from Tessar f3.5, but the aperture is raised to 1:2.8. This kind of lens was first used in Kolibri 3*4cm camera, and then used as the title by Contax 1 camera produced by Zeiss Ikon camera factory in Dresden. In 1934, Zeiss developed the foreground group coating Tessar f2. 1939 Tessar further improved the problem of image distortion of Tessar f2 at full aperture by correcting the sixth or seventh lens. In the field of wide-angle photography, Zeiss designed a 28mm lens with an aperture of f 1:8 for Contax. Although the aperture is very small, the imaging angle of this lens reaches 75 degrees. Until the end of 1930s, Zeiss always regarded Tessar as the sharpest lens produced by itself, just as Zeiss' advertisement at that time described "Zeiss Tessar- Hawkeye of camera".

After World War II (1947), Dr. Harry Zolena (now the technical director of Jena Factory in carl zeiss) designed Tessa f2.8/5cm, 195 1 year ago, which was officially put into the market and began to be sold. Compared with f3.5, except for aperture enlargement, Tessa lens images. 1965 Tessarf2.4, designed by Dr. Harry Zoellner, has reached the peak of optical level at that time, but the research and development of this lens was abandoned halfway because of the loss of image quality due to excessive aperture.

Carl Zeiss Oberkochen factory near Stuttgart is also committed to the research and development of Tessar lenses, which has made great contributions to the improvement of optical quality of Tessar series lenses. In 1956, Wandersleb improved the design of the original Tessar lens patented in 1938, and produced super Tessar f4/35mm and f4/85mm for Contaflex 3/4. 1962, the full aperture of Super Tessa was raised to 1:3.2. After that, Zeiss modified the front lens group of Wide Angle Tessa and Wangyuan Tessa, and made Tessa.

Finally, the R lens can be applied to Contaxflex camera in series to meet the needs of all focal lengths of users. At this point, the organizational construction of the Tess Lance family was basically completed. Since 1950s, more and more improved Tessar lenses have been used by photographers. At the same time, other camera factories also borrowed the design of Tessar lens and produced a series of variants, including Leitz's early Elmar series lenses. If someone wants to collect Tessar lenses, there are at least 400 different Tessar varieties to choose from in the world.

The huge Tessar family shows people how the progress of optical technology makes a simple four-piece mirror in 1840 develop into a lens that still plays an important role in today's photography field.