A twin-lens reflex camera (TLR) is a type of camera with two objective lenses of the same focal length. One of the lenses is the photographic objective or "taking lens", while the other is used for the viewfinder system, which is usually viewed from above at waist level.
Leica Camera AG is a German company that manufactures cameras, optical lenses, photographic lenses, binoculars, and rifle scopes. The company was founded by Ernst Leitz in 1869, in Wetzlar, Germany. The name Leica is derived from the first three letters of the founder's surname (Leitz) and the first two of the word camera: lei-ca.
Minox is a manufacturer of cameras, known especially for its subminiature camera.
The Cooke triplet is a photographic lens designed and patented in 1893 by Dennis Taylor who was employed as chief engineer by T. Cooke & Sons of York. It was the first lens system that allowed elimination of most of the optical distortion or aberration at the outer edge of the image.
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.
Voigtländer was a significant long-established company within the optics and photographic industry, headquartered in Braunschweig, Germany, and today continues as a trademark for a range of photographic products.
Rollei was a German manufacturer of optical instruments founded in 1920 by Paul Franke and Reinhold Heidecke in Braunschweig, Lower Saxony, and maker of the Rolleiflex and Rolleicord series of cameras. Later products included specialty and nostalgic type films for the photo hobbyist market.
Rolleiflex is the name of a long-running and diverse line of high-end cameras originally made by the German company Franke & Heidecke, and later Rollei-Werke.
Jos. Schneider Optische Werke GmbH is a manufacturer of industrial and photographic optics. The company was founded on 18 January 1913 by Joseph Schneider as Optische Anstalt Jos. Schneider & Co. at Bad Kreuznach in Germany. The company changed its name to Jos. Schneider & Co., Optische Werke, Kreuznach in 1922, and to the current Jos. Schneider Optische Werke GmbH in 1998.
Micro Precision Products Ltd (MPP) was a British optical company that between 1941 and 1982 produced cameras and related equipment.
The Rolleiflex SL35 is a range of SLR cameras manufactured and sold by the German camera maker Rollei from 1970 to 1982. This range of cameras uses 35mm film. The camera bodies were initially made in Germany. After Zeiss Ikon discontinued camera production, Rollei acquired the Voigtländer brand and camera designs in 1972, and began producing a second generation of SLR cameras in Singapore starting from 1976. Some of those second-generation cameras were rebranded and marketed as Voigtländer VSL.
The double Gauss lens is a compound lens used mostly in camera lenses that reduces optical aberrations over a large focal plane.
The Rollei 35 is a 35mm miniature viewfinder camera built by Rollei. The original Rollei 35, when introduced at photokina in 1966, was the smallest existing 135 film camera. The Rollei 35 series remains one of the smallest 35 mm cameras after the Minox 35 and Minolta TC-1. In 30 years, about 2 million Rollei 35 series cameras were manufactured. The Rollei 35 was manufactured by DHW Fototechnik up to 2015, the successor of Franke & Heidecke as small-batch production. The last version is the Rollei 35 Classic, an updated Rollei 35 SE.
The Rolleiflex SL66 is a medium format single lens reflex camera made by Rollei, in regular production from 1966–82. Although Rollei never officially discontinued the Rollei SL66, it was removed from their promotional support and dealer catalogs in the UK from 1976 and for all intents and purposes was replaced by the Rolleiflex SLX. The UK importer was Rollei themselves. The Rolleiflex SL66 did not feature in Rollei's worldwide product catalog in 1980, and the US importer's July 1979 dealer price list has no SL66 cameras nor 40mm, 250mm, or 500mm lenses. This strongly suggests that the camera was effectively discontinued from 1976 until the launch of the SL66E in October 1982 after the restart of camera production following the first bankruptcy.
Heinz Waaske was a German camera designer, notably father of the Rollei 35.
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.
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.
Friedrich Deckel GmbH, also known as F.Deckel, was a German company founded by Friedrich Deckel and Christian Bruns in Munich as Bruns & Deckel in 1903. Its most famous product is the Compur line of leaf shutters used on many photographic lenses starting from 1911. Bruns and Deckel previously had worked together at C. A. Steinheil & Söhne; Bruns was an inventor responsible for developing leaf shutters while Deckel was a laboratory mechanic.
The Quick Bayonet Mount (QBM) is the bayonet mount system for the range of interchangeable lenses fitted to 135 film cameras built by Rollei in Germany and Singapore from 1970 through 1990, including the Rolleiflex SL35, Rolleiflex SL2000F, and Voigtländer VSL series. Lens brands sold with QBM included Carl Zeiss, Rolleinar, Schneider, and Voigtländer. QBM has a flange focal distance of 44.5 mm.
The Vito and Vitomatic, Vitoret, and Vito Automatic were several related lines of 35 mm compact viewfinder and rangefinder cameras made by Voigtländer from the 1940s through the early 1970s, equipped with leaf shutters, similar in concept to and marketed against the competing Kodak Retina cameras manufactured by Kodak. All of these cameras were fixed-lens models; the models in the Vito line identified with Roman numerals were equipped with folding mechanisms and collapsible lenses for portability, while the others were rigid, non-folding cameras.
