Potted histories of lens manufacturers, including timelines and serial number guides.
Famously the only good thing to come out of Sparkhill, Birmingham (a long way from Alabama), the Aldis brothers were to set their family name on a handful of British icons. In the grand scheme of things, Aldis can be considered as spawning from Dallmeyer in 1901. The company quickly established itself with a range …
The bent of young Waterworth was perhaps revealed by his acquisition of membership to the Royal Society of Tasmania at the age of 17 – at whose meetings and lectures were discussed such wide-ranging and improving topics as horticulture, practical and adapted science, history, philosophy and psychology. His 1990 obituary cited gardening as his primary private …
Another seminal maker lost to the purview of recent generations, J.H. Dallmeyer was destined for entanglement in the fate of its internecine rival, A. Ross. John Henry Dallmeyer was the son-in-law of Andrew Ross, and was employed initially in the company’s workshop, then as a scientific advisor. Following the death of Andrew Ross in 1858, …
Relegated to an obscurity unilluminated by the usual sources, the French manufacturer F. Faliez was active from approximately 1912 until at least the late 1940s, with factories and offices based in the village of Aufreville-Brasseuil in Mantes, fifty kilometres west of Paris in the Seine-et-Oise district – it’s distinctive ‘Ft PARIS’ branding a somewhat elastic …
Company history Dating Clues: Premises and Branding Advertisements and catalogues show the domed square of the traditional Ross London and Ross Ensign logo giving way to a sleeker bowed cartouche with ‘Ross London’ in a double-decker arrangement during 1956. Restructuring and relocation of the company between 1955-1957 resulted in Ross the public limited company simply …
Founded by its namesake in 1937, the J. Arthur Rank Organisation rapidly grew to dominate the British film and photographic landscape. ‘Rank’ products encompassed projection screens, lenses, cameras, darkroom equipment, technical instruments and a diverse range of accessories previously designed and made by a roster of independent makers. By 1968 Rank had completed a program …
Tomioka has acquired a peculiar mystique among collectors, artificially inflating the value of some otherwise unremarkable lenses. The making of often-spurious connections with Carl Zeiss has at times felt like a conspiracy to overheat the market. The Tomioka brand has become a talisman, indiscriminately conferring desirability on a wide range of optics. However, some of …
NB: This is a draft article with a number of omissions and content to be added. If you have any in-depth information, or original manufacturer manuals, catalogues or period advertisements that might be relevant, please email Mark here. Peer review and contributors welcome, and will be credited. Similarly, if you have any memorable images shot …
A quartet of German powerhouses stands tall among car manufacturers: Audi, BMW, Mercedes and Porsche. Among lens makers, Leica, Rodenstock, Schneider and Zeiss have similar stature – but perhaps Leica above all embodies the purest ideals of Teutonic modernism most diligently executed – and valued accordingly by the market. However, only relatively recently have Leica …
NB: This is a draft article with a number of omissions and content to be added. If you have any in-depth information, or original manufacturer manuals, catalogues or period advertisements that might be relevant, please email Mark here. Peer review and contributors welcome, and will be credited. Similarly, if you have any memorable images shot …