Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/05/18
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 12:40 AM 5/19/99 +1000, Horst Schmidt wrote: >I believe Voigtlander was the first lens manufacturer who managed to >calculate a lens. I'm not certain quite what is meant by this. Microscope objectives were being calculated at both Leitz and Zeiss in the 1870's, long before Voigtlander began to adopt modern mathematical design techniques at the turn of this century. Certainly, Paul Rudolph's work at Zeiss predates Harting's at Voigtlander by a decade and more. If you are referring to the Petzval lens, that was designed by Petzval and THEN turned over to Voigtlander for production and marketing -- the tale told is that Petzval was given a platoon of Austrian soldiers to do his maths. It was after this that Voigtlander pirated the design and moved, in the middle of the night, no doubt, from Vienna to Braunschweig to escape the process of Austrian law. (So, you see: the Japanese are certainly not the only thieves in the history of camera lenses!) Marc msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!