Tragedy before the sinking of the German camera manufacturing ship.

There are already several 135 film cameras with ZEISSIKONGVOIGTLANDER trademark in my bookcase. On this small nameplate, ZEISSIKON is above, VOIGTLANDER is below, and there is a horizontal line in the middle. The dense 20 capital letters occupy almost all the space of the logo, which is neither eye-catching nor beautiful (Figure 1). It is this humble little brand that recorded a history of joys and sorrows between two camera manufacturers in Germany in the middle of last century. It is a difficult course for enterprises to struggle for survival, and it is also an important part of the story of the sinking of the German camera manufacturing ship.

In the first half of the last century, the four largest camera manufacturers in Germany were fragmented, each with its own specialized fields and competing markets. Ernst Leitz Wezlar (hereinafter referred to as Leitz) has the most stable business direction. In addition to optical instruments such as telescopes and microscopes, we have been committed to the research and development and manufacture of small paraxial cameras with 135 film specifications, and Leica cameras have almost become the standard specifications of 135 film machines. Lorai-Frank factory; Heideko (hereinafter referred to as "Lulai") strives to build a medium format film dual-lens reflex camera, and the Rolex camera is imitated by camera manufacturers all over the world. Fu Lunda &; Sohn A.G (hereinafter referred to as Fu Lunda) has the widest business scope, including film and chemical materials besides optical instruments, and has been fully developing cameras of various specifications. Zeiss Ikon A.G (hereinafter referred to as Zeiss Ikong) was founded in 1926, but its five founding companies have a long history. Its core brand is carl zeiss, which mainly promotes all kinds of lenses except the widely used optical instruments. In camera manufacturing, Fu Lunda and Chase Icahn can design and produce cameras of various specifications. They are competitors for many years.

Although the German camera manufacturing industry experienced a short-term prosperity after the full recovery after World War II, due to soaring raw material prices and rising labor costs, a large-scale loss situation soon appeared. Frinda is no exception, and its major shareholder Scheering Company decided to get rid of this loss burden and return to the old road of main chemical products. 1956 Scheering Company decided to sell Fu Lunda and make it public. Kodak and some Japanese companies are very interested in this, because Fu Lunda is the oldest photographic equipment company after all. He has accumulated rich experience in camera and lens manufacturing, and also gathered a group of outstanding designers and skilled workers. Fu Lunda's brand has a high reputation and a good reputation. While these foreign companies were eager to buy this famous brand, they didn't notice that the German local brand Chase Ikong was actually ready for competition.

After the Second World War, Chase Ikong stood up from the ruins of the war and has been looking for the opportunity to annex Fu Lunda. Since he bought 20% shares in Fu Lunda in the late1940s, he has failed to achieve the goal of comprehensive acquisition. Now, of course, he will not miss this good opportunity easily. 1956, Chase Ikong attacked again on a large scale, defeated foreign rivals, bought 89.7% shares of Fu Lunda and became the absolute controlling shareholder of Fu Lunda. Completed the plan to completely annex this competitor. Since then, Fu Lunda has become a branch of Chase Ikong, and the desperate struggle between two famous German camera brands in the market has stopped.

In the next ten years, Chase Ikong gave Fu Lunda enough respect and tolerance, and kept the original design team and manufacturing workers in Fu Lunda to the greatest extent. The design concept of Fu Lunda products has been approved, and the remaining factory production lines can continue to produce. Fu Lunda's design, production and sales management teams have always been relatively independent, and they can freely decide their own new product development direction. From the middle period of 1950s to the middle period of 1960s, Fu Lunda basically launched new products according to the original product development route. The famous paraxial camera Vitomatic series (Figure 2) and SLR camera Bessamatic series (Figure 3) were introduced to the market during this period.

Since 1950' s, 135 film cameras began to occupy an increasing share in the market, and all camera manufacturers shifted their development focus to this relatively narrow field. The pattern of Zeiss Icahn and Frenda maintaining the original development direction has brought great problems, and the phenomenon of repeated development of 135 film cameras has appeared. 1960, the new 135 SLR camera Bessaflex (Figure 4) with CdS metering function painstakingly developed by Fu Lunda for several years was abolished when it was about to be put into production, because it was prevented from competing with Contaflex and Contarex SLR models with Datong Ikong's own trademarks, and the conflict between the two brands was put on the table for the first time. The abolition of Bessaflex has brought a great impact to the design team in Fu Lunda, because it means that the Fu Lunda brand has lost the autonomy to independently develop new products.

Since 1960s, the financial situation of Chase Ikong Company has been deteriorating. In order to reduce management costs, the management of Chase Ikong finally decided to merge the two long-term independent management teams of 1965 and two independent product design departments, thus ending the conflict between the two brands. When trying to carry out new marketing, the trademarks of the two brand names mentioned above appeared. The designer of this logo must think that the names of these two companies are too important. Only by showing them completely can we express the real strength represented behind the nameplate. 1967, Icarex 35 S camera with ZEISSIKONVOIGTLANDER logo (Figure 5) entered the market.

Although Fu Lunda's name is added to the nameplate, the Icarex 35 S camera is actually more like a chase Icahn-style SLR camera, which is almost the same as the original Icarex with chase Ikong's exclusive trademark. Icarex is a huge series, and its models include: Icarex, Icarex 35, Icarex35S, Icarex 35CS, etc. The interchangeable lens has two different interfaces, BM and TM. The fuselage is divided into interchangeable viewfinder and fixed viewfinder, and the viewfinder is divided into overlooking viewfinder and viewfinder with CdS metering prism (Figure 6-9). Icarex has a complete set of lenses, covering all the focus parts. Later, some original Fu Lunda brand lens names were added to the lens.

Adding the possibility of Fu Lunda's name can only bring a little psychological comfort to the developers of Fu Lunda brand, except the market benefits, because Icarex is a Zeiss Icarus camera series from appearance to essence.

Since 1966, Chase Ikong Company has taken a unified step in foreign sales. In the brochure with the logo of Chase Confreunda, there are both cars with the logo of Chase Ikong and cars with the logo of Chase Confreunda (Figure 10). Although the oval body of Fu Lunda camera has been gradually replaced by the octagonal rectangular body of Chase Ikong, at least the name Fu Lunda still plays an irreplaceable role in marketing. Fu Lunda brand has gradually integrated into the whole Chase Ikong.

From 1968 to 1970, another paraxial camera series named after Chase Icahn and Franda * * * came on the market, which is the brand-new Vitessa series (Figure 1 1- 12). This series includes 126 and 135 film specifications. Although this series of cameras is defined as middle and low grade, it is unambiguous in terms of camera quality. Most of the eight cameras in this series have CdS metering, and the shutter speed reaches the fastest11000 seconds in Vitessa 13 (Figure13). Some cameras also have linkage ranging function, and the fuselage is small, exquisite and advanced. Unfortunately, just when these cameras were put on the market, Chase Ikong's life had already entered the countdown.

197 1 year, Chase Ikong Company declared bankruptcy due to continuous losses and ended all camera production. 1972, all pipelines are closed. Neither Fu Lunda nor its parent company expected that their trip to the group was so short that it came to an end in more than ten years. Although Lulai accepted the Fu Lunda camera brand and its production line, and continued to design new cameras, it also quickly resumed production. However, at this time, Fu Lunda is getting farther and farther away from the tradition of Fu Lunda in terms of logo, appearance and camera design concept. Even this situation did not last long. With the decline of the road, Fu Lunda brand changed hands several times and finally fell into the hands of Japanese companies. In addition to developing some homemade models, I also started another journey of working for Lycra. This is another story. Fu Lunda's brand has reappeared in the market after many years, and the only relationship between New Fu Lunda and Fu Lunda, which once created brilliant achievements, is its name.

Chase Ikong is the second of four German camera manufacturers to fall. Its bankruptcy is different from that of Fu Lunda, because Zeiss Ikong's acquisition of Fu Lunda has basically not affected the continuation of this famous brand. The end of Chase Ikong has dealt a heavy blow to these two brands and seriously affected the development of German camera manufacturing industry. In fact, the ultimate fate of the two companies, Lulai and Leeds, is similar, and the overall collapse of the German camera manufacturing industry stems from the strong competition of the Japanese. For the victory of Japanese camera manufacturers, we will have a more in-depth analysis in the future, but at least we can draw the following three painful lessons from the loss of Chase Ikong.

First of all, from the concept of camera design and development, we should insist on integrating the most advanced technology into new products as soon as possible. The 20th century is 65,438+000 years of rapid progress in camera manufacturing technology. In the first 50 years, most of the new technologies and inventions came from German enterprises. Zeiss Icahn and Frieda have always been pioneers in camera technology innovation. Japanese camera companies started from imitation and entered the international market in 1960s+0950s. However, since the 1960s, new technologies have been applied to their products for the first time. More and more world first brands are owned by Japanese brands. Chase Icahn and Frieda's new product development process is too long. While still committed to developing more complex mechanical devices, Japanese companies have put more advanced and reliable electronic device design at the center of new product development, and the research and development results have been quickly applied to new products, and novel and practical new technologies have immediately attracted more consumers' attention.

Secondly, in terms of camera production cost, the principle of "cost first" is to open up higher standards in the market. Although German cameras are famous for their high-precision mechanical functions, each new function means higher parts cost. For example, the Contarex series of advanced professional cameras developed by Chase Ikong pushed the complicated mechanical structure of German cameras to the extreme (Figure 14). Take the famous Cantareil Ox Eye (Figure 15) as an example. This camera, which has been developed for nine years, has more than 1 100 high-precision parts, all produced by Chase Ikong himself. The design and manufacturing costs are very high, and such a complex structure needs very professional technicians to assemble and test. Chase Ikong appears in all the designs. Japan's major camera manufacturers emphasize cost first everywhere, and adopt various ways to reduce costs and simplify things. Facts have proved that the German camera that strives for perfection is in a very unfavorable position in the competition with the Japanese camera that is mass-produced by assembly line.

Third, in terms of market sales, we should make timely adjustments according to market characteristics. In this respect, German enterprises obviously lag behind Japanese enterprises. For example, Chase Ikong Company had a long product line since its establishment, which was aggravated after the merger of Fu Lunda and continued until the day when the company closed down. Many models of cameras coexist at the same time, and many have no obvious differences in performance. Due to various reasons, they can't make decisive choices and complement each other, but they cause internal friction. The huge product catalogue leads to the scattered sales direction and focus. At the same time, several major camera brands in Japan, such as Canon, Nikon, Minolta, Pantex, Olympus, etc. On the one hand, each has its own emphasis and strengthens its own technological advantages, on the other hand, it cooperates with each other, and under the coordinated control of Japanese non-governmental organizations, it makes use of its cost advantage to increase publicity and vigorously explore overseas markets with clear and firm short-term goals. Japanese companies attacked German companies one after another, and soon dominated the international camera market, and German cameras had no chance to make a comeback.

With the maturity of digital technology, my film cameras with ZEISSIKONVOIGTLANDER nameplates are useless and can only be placed as decorations. I occasionally take them out to play, try the accuracy of macular focusing, listen to the crisp and pleasant shutter sound, and look at these fine products that many people have painstakingly created. What comes to my mind is the tragic scene when the German camera manufacturing ship sank.

Title:

Figure 1 trademark with the words Chase Confrenda.

Fig. 2 Fu Lunda Vitomatic IIIc camera.

Fig.3 Fu Lunda Baise multicolor camera.

Fig.4 The prototype of Fu Lunda Bessaflex camera was terminated before it was put into production.

Figure 5 Icarex 35 S model of Datong conference.

Fig. 6 Icarex 35S TM lens interface is Luo kou.

Fig. 7 Icarex 35S BM lens interface is a bayonet.

Fig. 8 Icarex 35 SE interchangeable viewfinder with lens 135/4.

Fig. 9 Icarex 35 SE is equipped with Tiansai 2.8/50 standard lens, a close-up viewfinder developed for this camera, and the German slogan on the top box: Part of the Golden Plan. Chase Ikong's slogan in1960s.

Figure 10 A brochure with Zeiss Confreunda logo after unification.

Photo11vitessa 500/1000 series cameras.

Photo 12 beautiful wood grain version of Vitessa 500 AE camera.

Figure 13 Vitessa 1000 The fastest speed of the vehicle reaches11000 seconds.

Figure 14 Contarex SE camera, this series pushes the complicated mechanical structure of German cameras to the extreme.

Figure 15 Contarex bull's-eye camera with high-precision parts above 1 100.