Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/07/31
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 12:04 AM 7/31/1999 -0700, Ken lisaka wrote: >It was not until 1970 or so when Voigtlander, then owned by Zeiss, >introduced the infamous Hologon, the simplest superwide in existence, with >merely three elements in -, +, - configuration, inheriting the same power >configuration as Aviogon and orthometar. > Ken I'm not certain of a Voigtlander connexion with the Hologon and, in any event, have never heard of this before. Voigtlander no longer existed in 1970: it had been utterly, totally, and completely merged into Zeiss Ikon to form ZIV by this time, and the Voigtlander lens people had all been moved to Oberkochen. Per Kingslake, the Hologon dates to 1966 (Ger Pat 1,241,637). Wright and Wilkinson, in their superb A LENS COLLECTOR'S VADE MECUM, trace the design to Richter's Pleogon, a Postwar development of the Pleon aerial-reconnaissance lens (for the production of which the US moved the Zeiss leadership to the American Zone in 1945), and Richter DID work at Voigtlander from 1914 until 1923, whence he moved to Goerz and, when Goerz became a founding member of Zeiss Ikon, to the Zeiss works at Jena. So, yes, there might be a Voigtlander connexion with the Hologon, but a damned tenuous one, it would seem. If you have other information, I'd be most interested to find it out! Marc msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!