You are very welcome Joachim. This is a huge article and you need some hours to read it and then the same number of hours in a dark room to recover :-O
Lee
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Where is it made? (1 Viewer)
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You are very welcome Joachim. This is a huge article and you need some hours to read it and then the same number of hours in a dark room to recover :-O
Lee
Gijs van Ginkel
Well-known member
Since this is a topic on "Who made it" I think it is time to honor Dr. Walter Besenmatter (1938-2010), top-class optics designer. He was born in Austria, worked for many years at Eumig in Vienna, where he was in charge of the development of objective lenses for Movie camera's and projectors. After that he worked for Schneider-Kreuznach and then went to Zeiss Oberkochen and Hensoldt-Wetzlar later Carl Zeiss Wetzlar. In that last period of his life he was responsible for the optical design of the Victory FL binocular line, still cherished by many. He published quite a few papers on that matter and a number of his designs were patented. For his optical calculations and designs he used a stand-alone computer, since he did not want the interference of hackers or other unwanted persons to walk away with his work.
Dr. Besenmatter was a very friendly and very nice man and he is missed by his colleagues and his family, but many of us still enjoy the fruits of his work with the excellent Victory FL binoculars/telescopes.
The picture I show here I made during a visit of the Zeiss company in Wetzlar some years ago.
Gijs van Ginkel
Dr. Besenmatter was a very friendly and very nice man and he is missed by his colleagues and his family, but many of us still enjoy the fruits of his work with the excellent Victory FL binoculars/telescopes.
The picture I show here I made during a visit of the Zeiss company in Wetzlar some years ago.
Gijs van Ginkel
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Gijs van Ginkel
Well-known member
Lee, post 45,
I still must have a picture of Konrad Seil, made when I had lunch with him and Franz Erler at Swarovski in Absam, I will search for it.
Gijs van Ginkel
I still must have a picture of Konrad Seil, made when I had lunch with him and Franz Erler at Swarovski in Absam, I will search for it.
Gijs van Ginkel
ljclark
Active member
I didn't see this mentioned, but in the still camera world, when Zeiss got back into the independent still camera lens market, all but two of the lenses introduced for Leica M-Mount were manufactured by Cosina (who had started up their Voigtländer branded rangefinder cameras and who had long been a supplier or manufacturer for other camera companies). I still have a few of those lenses...The Zeiss Biogon T* 25mm f/2.8 ZM is a lovely lens and was my favorite when I was shooting Voigtländer and Leica film RFs -- and with M8 and M9 digital cameras.
Related; I remember reading an article 40 or so years ago that explained the multiple vertical and horizontal (and maybe diagonal) supply and manufacturing relationships among the Japanese camera/optical companies.
Konrad Seil
Inspired by Gijs van Ginkel’s tribute to Dr Besenmatter who designed the optical train for Zeiss’s FL binoculars, I would like to present a similar tribute to another optics designer who deserves to be more widely appreciated.
Konrad Seil, known to his friends as Konnie, was a talented optical engineer who, while having no special affinity with binoculars as such, was nevertheless so fascinated by optical challenges that he wrote his own software to calculate optical trains to help him satisfy the most difficult requirements.
He had an uncanny ability to interpret the demands of product development managers and develop optical solutions for them and he did this for many projects including the original Swarovski EL and the more recent Zeiss SF. He also worked for a time at Leica and designed the optics for the Magus products.
The SF project was especially demanding as the development manager, Dr Gerold Dobler, wanted to remove weight from the objectives to re-balance the entire binocular. The solution was a super-thin achromatic doublet objective weighing much less than the triplet in the FL and HT, and also the EL SV, in combination with a focusing lens that was designed not only as a focuser but also as a critical part of the objective system. The doublet is made from Schott glass containing calcium fluorite, different from FL and HT, and very expensive. It is a challenge to work with as it can break more easily during manufacturing. These lenses are even thinner than those in FL and HT and brought a very significant weight reduction which compensated for the extra weight in the eyepiece. The outline of this system gradually emerged from a working weekend with Dobler and Seil working and sleeping in the Zeiss offices in Wetzlar until they found a solution.
Konnie died in 2013 is much missed by former colleagues across Europe.
My thanks to Gijs van Ginkel for kindly supplying the photo reproduced below.
Lee
Inspired by Gijs van Ginkel’s tribute to Dr Besenmatter who designed the optical train for Zeiss’s FL binoculars, I would like to present a similar tribute to another optics designer who deserves to be more widely appreciated.
Konrad Seil, known to his friends as Konnie, was a talented optical engineer who, while having no special affinity with binoculars as such, was nevertheless so fascinated by optical challenges that he wrote his own software to calculate optical trains to help him satisfy the most difficult requirements.
He had an uncanny ability to interpret the demands of product development managers and develop optical solutions for them and he did this for many projects including the original Swarovski EL and the more recent Zeiss SF. He also worked for a time at Leica and designed the optics for the Magus products.
The SF project was especially demanding as the development manager, Dr Gerold Dobler, wanted to remove weight from the objectives to re-balance the entire binocular. The solution was a super-thin achromatic doublet objective weighing much less than the triplet in the FL and HT, and also the EL SV, in combination with a focusing lens that was designed not only as a focuser but also as a critical part of the objective system. The doublet is made from Schott glass containing calcium fluorite, different from FL and HT, and very expensive. It is a challenge to work with as it can break more easily during manufacturing. These lenses are even thinner than those in FL and HT and brought a very significant weight reduction which compensated for the extra weight in the eyepiece. The outline of this system gradually emerged from a working weekend with Dobler and Seil working and sleeping in the Zeiss offices in Wetzlar until they found a solution.
Konnie died in 2013 is much missed by former colleagues across Europe.
My thanks to Gijs van Ginkel for kindly supplying the photo reproduced below.
Lee
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Gijs van Ginkel
Well-known member
In addition to Lee's post 49: I made the photograpgh of Dr. Conrad Seil shown in post 49 during my visit to Swarovski in Absam in september 2002, not so long after the introduction of the EL binoculars.
The invitation for this visit was on the basis of our first series of transmission measurements of the EL's in comparison with other binoculars. The spectrograph we used was built a short time before 2002 by one of our PhD students and he was eager to show its merits also for measring absorption and transmission spectra of binoculars, while it was specially made to obtain spectral information in the microsecond range of moving molecules in biological samples, so a nice coincidence.
Gijs van Ginkel
The invitation for this visit was on the basis of our first series of transmission measurements of the EL's in comparison with other binoculars. The spectrograph we used was built a short time before 2002 by one of our PhD students and he was eager to show its merits also for measring absorption and transmission spectra of binoculars, while it was specially made to obtain spectral information in the microsecond range of moving molecules in biological samples, so a nice coincidence.
Gijs van Ginkel
Gijs van Ginkel
Well-known member
Lee, post 51,
It was my pleasure.
Gijs
It was my pleasure.
Gijs
Yes... and I can imagine "made in Germany" will be prominently noted where Zeiss binoculars are offered on the second hand market in the future, but, equally ... isn't this what "ever closer union" is all about - spreading investment, technology, knowhow and of course economic prosperity across the EU? I would imagine there might be some who would be willing to pay 3,000 euros for a made in Germany successor to the SF or HT, but with top alpha prices as they currently are, but how many more would be quite happy to buy a product that is still made in the EU, and have 500+ euros more in their pocket? Focusing on top-end work such as making camera lenses, and maybe making the glass for binocular lenses, in Germany, and doing the metalwork and assembly in Hungary makes perfect business sense. Zeiss certainly wouldn't be the only alpha manufacturer producing binoculars outside the country where the company was founded: Leica must have had their operation in Portugal for what... over 40 years now?
Leica is open about it. So not much of a problem to me. And they are still Leicas. Plus global supply chains are a reality for a long time. I can live with that.
Maybe it would be more interesting to find out, what exactly the brand finally selling a bino as "their's" did exactly contribute that is different from other brands? Technically sometimes binos look like just mass production with different logos glued on afterwards. Terras look just like plastic to me. Leica and Zeiss spectives are said to in fact come from some (high quality) czech company. So why not be open about it?
I'd prefer characteristic technical solutions for every brand, some engineering "handwriting", like AK-prisms or specific eyepieces and such, over just the next cheapo mass product. Unfortunately the watch industry has gone this way for years. Same industrial watch calibers just packed and branded differently. I hope binos keep some individual flavour and Zeiss would have the heritage to build on.
I would certainly love some legacy landmark binos re-edited with contemporary upgrades like latest glass and coatings. Not the next fashion trend bino priced like it had been built in Germany but made in elsewhere. And then the next. Bring back long time value and service life (like with 30 years guarantee) , build on your brands rich history please. And bring back truly functional designs please not fancy fashion errors that age after only one season. We have seen this at Zeiss for some time now. It think it was just sad to see the last Dialyt go, the BGAT-Porro and now the HT.
Technically and by price the fully Japan made Conquest HD would be the one I think are the best offer these days.
Maybe it would be more interesting to find out, what exactly the brand finally selling a bino as "their's" did exactly contribute that is different from other brands? Technically sometimes binos look like just mass production with different logos glued on afterwards. Terras look just like plastic to me. Leica and Zeiss spectives are said to in fact come from some (high quality) czech company. So why not be open about it?
I'd prefer characteristic technical solutions for every brand, some engineering "handwriting", like AK-prisms or specific eyepieces and such, over just the next cheapo mass product. Unfortunately the watch industry has gone this way for years. Same industrial watch calibers just packed and branded differently. I hope binos keep some individual flavour and Zeiss would have the heritage to build on.
I would certainly love some legacy landmark binos re-edited with contemporary upgrades like latest glass and coatings. Not the next fashion trend bino priced like it had been built in Germany but made in elsewhere. And then the next. Bring back long time value and service life (like with 30 years guarantee) , build on your brands rich history please. And bring back truly functional designs please not fancy fashion errors that age after only one season. We have seen this at Zeiss for some time now. It think it was just sad to see the last Dialyt go, the BGAT-Porro and now the HT.
Technically and by price the fully Japan made Conquest HD would be the one I think are the best offer these days.
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The current trends in watches suggest the opposite.
The marketing is entirely focused on the image, nothing about sources or specifications. Presumably the dazzled customer is content if it just runs, accuracy optional.
Some contemporary watchmakers even claim their industrial movements suddenly have become "manufacture calibers" because of tiniest modifications.
Let's hope the optics industry doesn't move in this direction. Becoming more standardized and more expensive at the same time.
Let's hope the optics industry doesn't move in this direction. Becoming more standardized and more expensive at the same time.
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