Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1996/08/14
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 08:21 AM 6/15/96 +0200, Gerard Captijn wrote: >The basic Hologon design is older than you mentioned. The basic design goes >back to the Topogon from the nineteen-twenties. Zeiss Jena developed the >Topogon originally as a distorsion free super wide-angle for aerial >photography. Graf Zeppelin and his passengers used the lens already! Whoa, brother! First, Graf Zeppelin died in 1917, so HE never saw a Topogon or a Hologon or a production Leica, either, though his General Manager, Dr Hugo Eckner, was an avid user -- and a recipient of a gift Leica from the Leitz family. The Zeppelin company always used Zeiss binoculars and the Graf Zeppelin (LZ-127) did carry an ASPECTUM spotting scope in the control car. And the oldest aerial photograph which has survived was taken by Oskar Barnack in 1914 on Viktoria Luise with one of the UR-Leicas. I doubt if the Topogon and Hologon designs have much in common beyond sharing a symmetrical design. In any event, the Topogon was designed by Dr Richter in 1933 (DP 636167, USP 2031792). Carl Zeiss credits the offshoots of the Topogon as being the Pleon (1941), Planigon (1942?), the B&L Metrogon (1942 - USP 2325275), the Pleogon (1955), and the S-Pleogon (1968). Zeiss has never claimed, to my knowledge, a connexion between the Topogon and the Hologon. I suspect it is safer to regard the Hologon as an independent development in its own right. See, inter multa alia, Joachim Arnz' fine article, "The Topogon Wide-Angle" in the Zeiss Historica Society Journal 12:2. Marc msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!