Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/01/09

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Nikkor S RF 135/3.5
From: Marc James Small <msmall@roanoke.infi.net>
Date: Sat, 09 Jan 1999 12:10:05 -0500

At 04:25 PM 1999-01-09 +0100, Raimo Korhonen wrote:
>OK, Marc but I have seen a picture of lens calculations by Zeiss (Tessar,
>if I remember correctly) and it was about 3 feet high stack of A4īs. I
>think that after the WW II most of those ended in Russia. So it is not so
>easy to get exact copy by simply taking the thing apart. With due respect! 


Not quite.  What you probably saw was the famous advertisement Zeiss put
out in the 1930's showing the CALCULATIONS leading to the formula for the
2/50 Sonnar.  The actual design is around six or eight lines long -- lens
surface figure, and glass type.  

What the Japanese firms, especially Canon and Nikon, avoided was the work
in producing those three feet of calculations.  It took the brilliant
Ludwig Bertele four years to produce the 2/50 design:  the Japanese simply
short-circuited this by stealing the formula, once they were assured by the
Allied Control Commission that Zeiss would not be permitted to sue them.

The Jena archives, incidentally, are very much still at Jena, not in
Russia.  These archives are terribly disorganized from five decades of
Communist inefficiencies, but, they are there, nonetheless.

Marc

msmall@roanoke.infi.net  FAX:  +540/343-7315
Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!