Zeiss (company)
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.
Carl Zeiss AG is the holding company for all subsidiaries within the Zeiss Group, of which Carl Zeiss Meditec AG is the only one that is traded on the stock market. Carl Zeiss AG is owned by the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung foundation. The Zeiss Group has its headquarters in southern Germany, in the small town of Oberkochen, with its second largest, and founding site, being Jena in eastern Germany. Also controlled by the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung is the glass manufacturer Schott AG, located in Mainz and Jena. Carl Zeiss is one of the oldest existing optics manufacturers in the world.
Corporate history
opened an optics workshop in Jena in 1846. By 1847, he was making microscopes full-time. In 1861, the rapidly growing company had a staff of about 20 and won a gold medal at the Thuringian Industrial Exposition.By 1866 Zeiss sold their 1,000th microscope. In 1872 physicist Ernst Abbe joined Zeiss, and along with Otto Schott designed greatly improved lenses for the optical instruments they were producing. After Carl Zeiss's death in 1888, the business was incorporated as the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung in 1889.
By World War I, Zeiss was the world's largest camera-production company. Zeiss Ikon represented a significant part of the production, along with dozens of other brands and factories, including a major works at Dresden.
In 1928 the Zeiss company acquired Hensoldt AG, which has produced Zeiss binoculars and rifle-scopes since 1964 - this has occasionally resulted in twin products being offered under both the "Hensoldt" and "Zeiss" brand-names. The Hensoldt System Technology division was continued by Zeiss under the "Hensoldt" name until 2006.
As part of Nazi Germany's Zwangsarbeiter program, Zeiss used forced labour, including Jews and other minorities during World War II. The destruction of the war caused many companies to divide into smaller subcompanies and others to merge. There was great respect for the engineering innovation that came out of Dresden—before the war the world's first 35 mm single-lens reflex camera, the Kine Exakta, and the first miniature camera with good picture-quality were developed there.
At the end of the war, Jena was initially occupied by the United States Army. When Jena and Dresden were incorporated into the Soviet occupation zone, later East Germany, the US Army relocated some parts of Zeiss Jena to the Contessa manufacturing facility in Stuttgart, West Germany, while the remainder of Zeiss Jena was reestablished by the German Democratic Republic as Kombinat Volkseigener Betrieb. The Soviet Army relocated most of the existing Zeiss factories and tooling to the Soviet Union, establishing the Kiev camera-works.
In the West, business activity restarted in Oberkochen in present-day Baden-Württemberg as Opton Optische Werke Oberkochen GmbH in 1946, which became Zeiss-Opton Optische Werke Oberkochen GmbH in 1947, but was soon renamed to "Carl Zeiss". West-German Zeiss products were labelled "Opton" for sale in the Eastern bloc, while East German Zeiss products were labelled "Zeiss Jena" or simply "Jena" for sale in Western countries.
In 1973, the Western Carl Zeiss AG entered into a licensing agreement with the Japanese camera-company Yashica to produce a series of high-quality 35 mm film-cameras and lenses bearing the Contax and Zeiss brand names. This collaboration continued under Yashica's successor, Kyocera, until the latter ceased all camera production in 2005. Zeiss later produced lenses for the space industry and, more recently, has again produced high-quality 35 mm camera-lenses. The eastern Zeiss Jena was also well known for producing high-quality products.
Following the German reunification of 1989–1991, VEB Zeiss Jena — reckoned as one of the few East-German firms that was even potentially able to compete on a global basis — became Zeiss Jena GmbH, which became Jenoptik Carl Zeiss Jena GmbH in 1990. In 1991, Jenoptik Carl Zeiss Jena was split in two, with Carl Zeiss AG taking over the company's divisions for microscopy and other precision optics and moving its microscopy and planetarium divisions back to Jena. Jenoptik GmbH was split off as a specialty company in the areas of photonics, optoelectronics, and mechatronics.
The Hensoldt AG was renamed "Carl Zeiss Sports Optics GmbH" on 1 October 2006.
The companies of the Zeiss Gruppe in and around Dresden have branched into new technologies: screens and products for the automotive industry, for example.
there are arguably three companies with primarily "Zeiss Ikon" heritage: Zeiss Germany, the Finnish/Swedish Ikon, and the independent eastern Zeiss Ikon.
A division called "Carl Zeiss Vision" produces lenses for eyeglasses. In 2005, the eyeglass division merged with U.S. company SOLA, which included the former American Optical Company.
On 28 June 2013, Carl Zeiss officially announced its plan to rename the brand from "Carl Zeiss" to simply "Zeiss". All the products will be standardized under the "Zeiss" brand.
In April 2019, Zeiss announced the acquisition of Brunswick-based GOM.
Innovations
The Zeiss company was responsible for many innovations in optical design and engineering in each of their major fields of business. Today this becomes exemplarily visible in the latest EUV lithography systems, the equipment needed to produce the latest generations of semiconductor components. It also includes early high-performance optical microscopes up to today's electron and ion microscopes, which reach a sub-nanometers resolution. It includes technology leadership in the first surgical microscopes and ophthalmic devices. It also includes high-performance contact metrology systems. For many years Zeiss showed innovations in fields as astronomical telescopes, photographic and cinematic lenses.Early on, Carl Zeiss realised that he needed a competent scientist so as to take the firm beyond just being another optical workshop. In 1866, the service of Dr. Ernst Abbe was enlisted. From then on novel products appeared in rapid succession which brought the Zeiss company to the forefront of optical technology.
Abbe was instrumental in the development of the famous Jena optical glass. When he was trying to eliminate stigmatism from microscopes, he realized that the range of optical glasses available was insufficient. After some calculations, he realised that performance of optical instruments would dramatically improve if optical glasses of appropriate properties were available. His challenge to glass manufacturers was finally answered by Dr. Otto Schott, who established the famous glassworks at Jena from which new types of optical glass began to appear from 1888 to be employed by Zeiss and other makers.
The new Jena optical glass also opened up the possibility of increased performance of photographic lenses. The first use of Jena glass in a photographic lens was by Voigtländer, but as the lens was an old design its performance was not greatly improved. Subsequently, the new glasses would demonstrate their value in correcting astigmatism, and in the production of apochromatic lenses. Abbe started the design of a photographic lens of symmetrical design with five elements, but went no further.
Zeiss' domination of photographic lens innovation was due to Dr Paul Rudolph. In 1890, Rudolph designed an asymmetrical lens with a cemented group at each side of the diaphragm, appropriately named "Anastigmat". This lens was made in three series: Series III, IV and V, with maximum apertures of f/7.2, f/12.5, and f/18 respectively. In 1891, Series I, II and IIIa appeared with respective maximum apertures of f/4.5, f/6.3, and f/9 and in 1893 came Series IIa of f/8 maximum aperture. These lenses are now better known by the trademark "Protar", which was first used in 1900.
At the time, single combination lenses, which occupy one side of the diaphragm only, were still popular. Rudolph designed one with three cemented elements in 1893, with the option of fitting two of them together in a lens barrel as a compound lens, but it was found to be the same as the Dagor by C.P. Goerz, designed by Emil von Hoegh. Rudolph then came up with a single combination with four cemented elements, which can be considered as having all the elements of the Protar stuck together in one piece. Marketed in 1894, it was called the Protarlinse Series VII, the most highly corrected single combination lens with maximum apertures between f/11 and f/12.5, depending on its focal length.
But the important thing about this Protarlinse is that two of these lens units can be mounted in the same lens barrel to form a compound lens of even greater performance and a larger aperture, between f/6.3 and f/7.7. In this configuration, it was called the Double Protar Series VIIa. An immense range of focal lengths can thus be obtained by the various combination of Protarlinse units.
Rudolph also investigated the Double-Gauss concept of a symmetrical design with thin positive menisci enclosing negative elements. The result was the Planar Series Ia of 1896, with maximum apertures up to f/3.5, one of the fastest lenses of its time. Whilst it was very sharp, it suffered from coma which limited its popularity. However, further developments of this configuration made it the design of choice for high-speed lenses of standard coverage.
Probably inspired by the Stigmatic lenses designed by Hugh Aldis for Dallmeyer of London, Rudolph designed a new asymmetrical lens with four thin elements, the Unar Series Ib, with apertures up to f/4.5. Due to its high speed, it was used extensively on hand cameras.
The most important Zeiss lens by Rudolph was the Tessar, first sold in 1902 in its Series IIb f/6.3 form. It can be said as a combination of the front half of the Unar with the rear half of the Protar. This proved to be the most valuable and flexible design, with tremendous development potential. Its maximum aperture was increased to f/4.7 in 1917 and reached f/2.7 in 1930. It is probable that every lens manufacturer has produced lenses of the Tessar configurations.
Rudolph left Zeiss after World War I, but many other competent designers such as Merté, Wandersleb, etc. kept the firm at the leading edge of photographic lens innovations. One of the most significant designers was the ex-Ernemann man Dr Ludwig Bertele, famed for his Ernostar high-speed lens.
With the advent of the Contax by Zeiss-Ikon, the first professional 35mm system camera became available. At this stage the Leica was no more than a convenient and portable snapshot camera. However Leitz could see the potential offered by the Contax and rapidly developed a coupled rangefinder and started to introduce additional lenses. As a system camera there was a need for a range of lenses for the Contax. Bertele's Sonnar series of lenses designed for the Contax was the match in every respect for the Leica for at least two decades. Other lenses for the Contax included the Biotar, Biogon, Orthometar, and various Tessars and Triotars.
The last important Zeiss innovation before World War II was the technique of applying an anti-reflective coating to lens surfaces invented by Olexander Smakula in 1935. A lens so treated was marked with a red "T", short for "Transparent". The technique of applying multiple layers of coatings was developed from this basis after the war, and known as "T✻".
After the partitioning of Germany, a new Carl Zeiss optical company was established in Oberkochen, while the original Zeiss firm in Jena continued to operate. At first, both firms produced very similar lines of products, and extensively cooperated in product-sharing, but they drifted apart as time progressed. Jena's new direction was to concentrate on developing lenses for 35 mm single-lens reflex cameras, and many achievements were made, especially in ultra-wide angle designs. In addition to that, Oberkochen also worked on designing lenses for the 35 mm single-lens reflex camera Contarex, for the medium format camera Hasselblad, for large format cameras like the Linhof Technika, interchangeable front element lenses such as for the 35 mm single-lens reflex Contaflex and other types of cameras.
Since the beginning of Zeiss as a photographic lens manufacturer, it has had a licensing programme, allowing other manufacturers to produce its lenses. Over the years its licensees included Voigtländer, Bausch & Lomb, Ross, Koristka, Krauss, Kodak. etc. In the 1970s, the western operation of Zeiss-Ikon collaborated with Yashica to produce the new Contax cameras, and many of the Zeiss lenses for this camera, among others, were produced by Yashica's optical arm, Tomioka. As Yashica's owner Kyocera ended camera production in 2006, and Yashica lenses were then made by Cosina, who also manufactured most of the new Zeiss designs for the new Zeiss Ikon coupled rangefinder camera. Another licensee active today is Sony who uses the Zeiss name on lenses on its video and digital still cameras.