A rangefinder camera is a camera fitted with a rangefinder, typically a split-image rangefinder: a range-finding focusing mechanism allowing the photographer to measure the subject distance and take photographs that are in sharp focus.
Carl Zeiss AG, branded as ZEISS, is a German manufacturer of optical systems and optoelectronics, founded in Jena, Germany in 1846 by optician Carl Zeiss. Together with Ernst Abbe and Otto Schott he laid the foundation for today's multinational company. The current company emerged from a reunification of Carl Zeiss companies in East and West Germany with a consolidation phase in the 1990s. ZEISS is active in four business segments with approximately equal revenue in almost 50 countries, has 30 production sites and around 25 development sites worldwide.
The Tessar is a photographic lens design conceived by the German physicist Dr. Paul Rudolph in 1902 while he worked at the Zeiss optical company and patented by Zeiss in Germany; the lens type is usually known as the ZeissTessar. Since its introduction, millions of Tessar and Tessar-derived lenses have been manufactured by Zeiss and other manufacturers, and are still produced as excellent intermediate aperture lenses.
Contax began as a German camera model in the Zeiss Ikon line in 1932, and later became a brand name. The early cameras were among the finest in the world, typically featuring high quality Zeiss interchangeable lenses. The final products under the Contax name were a line of 35 mm, medium format, and digital cameras engineered and manufactured by Japanese multinational Kyocera, and featuring modern Zeiss optics. In 2005, Kyocera announced that it would no longer produce Contax cameras. The rights to the brand are currently part of Carl Zeiss AG, but no Contax cameras are currently in production, and the brand is considered dormant.
Large format lenses are photographic optics that provide an image circle large enough to cover the large format film or plates used in large format cameras.
The double Gauss lens is a compound lens used mostly in camera lenses that reduces optical aberrations over a large focal plane.
The Zeiss Sonnar is a photographic lens originally designed by Dr. Ludwig Bertele in 1929 and patented by Zeiss Ikon. It was notable for its relatively light weight, simple design and fast aperture.
The Leica M mount is a camera lens mount introduced in 1954 with the Leica M3, and a range of lenses. It has been used on all the Leica M-series cameras and certain accessories up to the current film Leica M-A and digital Leica M11 cameras.
The Contax G camera line consists of two cameras, the G1 and G2, interchangeable-lens cameras sold by Kyocera under the Contax brand in competition with the Leica M7, Cosina Voigtländer Bessa-R, and Konica Hexar RF. The G1 was introduced in 1994 with the G2 joining it in 1996. In 2005, Kyocera retreated from the camera business and announced it would cease all activity related to the manufacture of Contax cameras at the end of the year, effectively spelling the end of the G system.
Cosina Voigtländer refers to photographic products manufactured by Cosina under the Voigtländer name since 1999. Cosina leases rights to the Voigtländer name from RINGFOTO GmbH & Co. ALFO Marketing KG in Germany. Cosina Voigtländer products have included 35mm film SLR and rangefinder camera bodies, and lenses for the M39 lens mount, M42 lens mount, Leica M mount, and other lens mounts.
The Bessa family of cameras was manufactured in Japan by Cosina as a revival of the Voigtländer brand name between 1999 and 2015.
The Contaflex series is a family of 35mm Single-lens reflex cameras (SLR) equipped with a leaf shutter, produced by Zeiss Ikon in the 1950s and 1960s. The name was first used by Zeiss Ikon in 1935 for a 35mm Twin-lens reflex camera, the Contaflex TLR; for the earlier TLR, the -flex suffix referred to the integral reflex mirror for the viewfinder. The first SLR models, the Contaflex I and II have fixed lenses, while the later models have interchangeable lenses; eventually the Contaflexes became a camera system with a wide variety of accessories.
The Bessamatic and Ultramatic were lines of 35mm SLR cameras made by Voigtländer in the 1960s, featuring a selenium meter. It uses a leaf shutter, similar to competing SLR cameras manufactured by Kodak and Zeiss Ikon in Germany, rather than the focal plane shutter almost universally adopted by Japanese SLRs such as the contemporary Nikon F and Pentax Spotmatic. The Ultramatic was released in 1963, which used the same lens mount and added a shutter-priority autoexposure mode.
The design of photographic lenses for use in still or cine cameras is intended to produce a lens that yields the most acceptable rendition of the subject being photographed within a range of constraints that include cost, weight and materials. For many other optical devices such as telescopes, microscopes and theodolites where the visual image is observed but often not recorded the design can often be significantly simpler than is the case in a camera where every image is captured on film or image sensor and can be subject to detailed scrutiny at a later stage. Photographic lenses also include those used in enlargers and projectors.
The Jupiter series of lenses are Russian camera lenses made by various manufacturers in the former Soviet Union. They were made to fit many camera types of the time, from pre-WWII rangefinders to almost modern SLRs. They are copied from Zeiss pre-WWII designs with incremental improvements, such as coatings, introduced during production. The majority of them are based on Zeiss Sonnar optical scheme, but that's not a rule.
The Nikon S-mount is a type of interchangeable lens mount used by a series of Nikon 35mm rangefinder cameras. The lenses were sold under the name Nikkor.
Contarex is a line of 35mm single lens reflex cameras (SLRs) made by Zeiss Ikon. It was first presented at Photokina in 1958 and initially scheduled for delivery in the spring of 1959, but it was not made generally available in the United States until March 1960. The first model is popularly known as the Contarex I, the Bullseye, or the Cyclops, after the prominent light meter window above the lens, in front of the pentaprism. The camera was aimed at the high-end and professional markets; in 1961, the retail price was $499.
Biogon is the brand name of Carl Zeiss for a series of photographic camera lenses, first introduced in 1934. Biogons are typically wide-angle lenses.
Ludwig Jakob Bertele was a German optics constructor. His developments received universal recognition and serve as a basis for considerable part of the optical designs used today.
Topogon is a wide field, symmetrical photographic lens patented by Robert Richter in 1933 for Carl Zeiss AG. As there are four meniscus elements in four groups, deployed symmetrically around the central aperture, it is considered a double Gauss lens variant.
