The Race to the Fastest Projection Lens

Press material of the time depicted the early history of cine projection as the quest for speed: vivid brilliance on screen meant healthy box office – making the business of brute-force light transmission a priority. Bigger audiences meant bigger cinemas, bigger screens, and therefore even greater demand on projection lenses. The race to improve the …

The Rollei Connection

Despite the company’s distinguished reputation as a fabricator, Rollei commonly partnered with, and outsourced to, the best German glassmakers rather than producing their own lenses. For cameras, Rollei has been synonymous with Goerz, Zeiss and Schneider, but within Delta’s purview – projection and enlargement lenses reversed for use as capture optics – the most relevant partnerships …

The Optical Story

An overview of Optical, a small manufacturer of projection lenses from Spain, as well as images taken with some of their lenses, adapted onto digital cameras.

BelOMO / KП Projector Lenses

From the late-1970s and until well into the 1990’s the BelOMO optical works of Belarus (known before 1971 as MMZ) churned out many substantial projector lenses of variable design and quality, now cheaply available on the used market – sometimes referred to as ‘those Russian KP’ lenses. Mindful of Belarus’ technical independence from the former …

The Ross Story

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 …

Leica Projector Lenses

Dust long having settled on the carcass of the industry, it seems in hindsight that Leica treated the production of domestic slide projectors more seriously than the Zeiss / Zett / Voigtlander combine. Leica’s catalogue of projector lenses represents the acme of the craft, matched by none for breadth and few for depth: for image …

The Schneider Story

Jos. Schneider Optische Werke has been a major player in global lens manufacture during our lifetime; it’s therefore strange to think of the company as a relative newcomer: ‘only’ being established in 1913 – almost forty years younger than their rivals Rodenstock. And yet within twelve months, Schneider released the first of many Symmar lenses, …