xayraa33,
Have you got any sources on the assertion that Nikon copied Zeiss patents with the assistance of American occupation authorities? I know there's a single source online written nearly a decade ago by a defense lawyer/camera collector that is more rhetoric than factual, claiming, for example, that the first Nikon is an exact copy of the Contax camera, which it clearly wasn't.
There is, in my research, considerable evidence that Nikon independentlyl developed optical excellence, albeit copying German designs initially.
Here's some of what I've found:
The first World War (1914 to 1918) removed Germany from the world optics market, on which many industrial nations were growing dependent. According to Nikon company history, the Japanese government determined that self-sufficiency in the optical field was essential, and several optical companies were merged into the ancestral company of Nippon Kogaku in 1917. Nikon company history says eight German optical experts were hired in 1922 as technical advisors. The Nikon Manual (George Wright, 1957, Universal Photo Books) says Nippon Kogaku began compounding and melting its own optical glass in 1923.
In December 1945, the U.S. Navy published its first findings of a comprehensive analysis of Japanese martime tehcnolgoy -- [see Navy Captain C.G. Grimes (Ed.), U.S. Naval Technical Mission to Japan - History of Mission, (USN: December, 1945); as referenced by Jeff Alexander in his Ph.D paper 'NIKON AND THE SPONSORSHIP OF JAPAN'S OPTICAL INDUSTRY BY THE IMPERIAL JAPANESE NAVY, 1917-1945 (University of British Columbia, Spring 2003)
http://grad.usask.ca/gateway/archive17.html].
Among the findings of the 1945 U.S. Navy Technical Mission were:
"1. In the past five years Japan has made a phenomenal growth in optical glass manufacture.
"2. Japan has at present, fairly modern and efficient optical factories.
"3. No spectacular optical developments have been made in Japan, but rather adaptations and modifications have been made of the optical systems used in German and U.S. instruments.
"4. Japan has capable scientific personnel who understand modern optical requirements and are cognizant of the shortcomings in the Japanese processes of glass manufacture.
"5. The Japanese exhibited a tendency toward large size (aperture) visual optical instruments, particularly in the field of binocular telescopes (80, 120, 150 mm apertures). This tendency may represent a futile attempt to offset deficiencies in their radar development."
Alexander's paper further states: "...the company's research into photographic lens production was largely an effort to duplicate existing German designs and to become a supplier of lenses to camera manufacturers. With the advent of the London Naval Conference of 1930 and the Naval Supplementary Bill of the same year, however, the navy began to put pressure on Nippon Kogaku to begin designing cameras for reconnaissance aircraft."
The Japanese Navy also put pressure on Nippon Kogaku to develop more transparent glass through the use of improved coatings. "The standard 10-metre periscope produced by the company featured 33 individual optical elements and its complexity resulted in dramatic light losses," Alexander writes. "In the interest of maintaining their strategic advantage, Japanese submarine commanders wished to use their periscopes at dawn and in the low light of early evening, but the initial inferiority of the optics prevented them from doing so without difficulty. These commanders placed great pressure on the navy and on Nippon Kogaku to improve the performance of their periscopes under low light conditions, and the company responded by initiating research into new lens coating techniques aimed at increasing their transparency."
Peter Deckert's history of Canon Rangefinder Cameras (1985; Hove) says, on Page 31, that Nippon Kogaku in September 1937 announced introduction of Nikkor lenses for the Canon Hansa in the speeds of f/4.5, f/2.8; f/2 and f/1.5. The Canon Hansa of 1935 to 1940 came standard with a Nikkor f/3.5 lens (page 34). The Canon S of 1938 to 1945 came standard with a Nikkor f/3.5; f/2.8 or f/2 (page 44). In a discussion of the Canon JS (crica 1941) on page 58, Deckert writes: "At some point during the war a very few Seiki Kogaku Sonnar-derived 5cm F1.5 lenses, normally marked 'R-Serenar'and intended for use with the Seiki X-ray camera, were made as Serenars without the 'R' prefix." On page 72, Deckert says Nippon Kogaku reportedly made approximately 50 5cm f/1.5 lenses in the late 1930s but that no copies have been found. However, he cites two lenses in LTM mount matched to Canon JS copy cameras built for the military during World War II. Deckert says it his "personal conjecture" that the f1.5 Serenars were made by Nippon Kogaku. "The mount construction ... is quite similar to that on the Nikkor F2 lenses used on the Canon S." Both the Serenar and its somewhat more widely available R-Serenar X-ray verion have a maximum aperture of f/11, as did the Nikkor 5cm f/1.5 of 1950. Deckert's book shows a photograph of one of these wartime f/1.5 lenses on page 59, and it bears a family resemblence to the 1950 Nikkor lens.
There are about 800 Nikkor lenses, all built in 1950, that have a maximum aperture f/1.5. These are lenses that are widely cited as being exact copies of the Zeiss Sonnar. One of these 800 lenses was used in LTM mount by David Douglas Duncan to shoot the early months of the Korean War. The 5cm F/1.4 lens was introduced in December 1950.
Here's a quote from the technical data accompanying his 1951 book "This is War!" --
"Every photograph in 'This Is War!' was taken with a Leica, but fitted with Nikkor lenses... made in occupied Japan. Prior to the outbreak of the Korean War, Horace Bristol, former 'Life' and 'Fortune' photographer now living in Tokyo, and I began experimenting with the whole new line of Nikkor lenses, made by the Nippon Optical Company, Tokyo, and discovered, to our utter amazement, that their three standard lenses [50mm, 85mm and 135mm] for 35mm cameras were far superior, in our opinions, to any standard 35mm lenses available on the open market - British,
American or German.
"Except for wide-angle and extreme telephoto lenses - over 135mm - where we thought the German products to be still superior, we sold every other lens in our outfits... and re-equipped with only Nikkor lenses. The Nikkors that we found best were the 50mm, F1.5 (now superseded by a 50mm, F1.4 clickstop lens); the 85mm, F2; the 135mm, F3.5. ...
"All the photographs in [the chapters called] 'The Hill' and 'The City' were taken with the Nikkor 50mm, F1.5 lens. All the photographs in [the chapter called] 'REtreat, HNell!' were taken with the Nikkor 50mm, F1.4 lens ... that is, all but one, and it, the portrait of the Chinese Communist soldier which opens the story, was taken with the Nikkor 135mm, F3.5 lens. Every photograph used in the making of this book was printed by Daniel Becker, of LIFE darkroom staff. The original prints were all enlarged to 14" x 20", for the double-page plates, and 10" x 14" for the verticle full-page plates. From these originals the publishers reduced the photographs to the sizes reproduced in the book. The set of prints by Dan Becker were, in the opinion of Dan Bradley, in charge of production at Harper & Brothers, THE [original emphasis] finest set of matched 35mm enlargements they had ever seen."
Cameras from Germany (1950, Hanns Bierl, Munich) -- From a report on the first FotoKina of 1950 in Koeln (P. 24) -- "True, none of the world-renowned cameras such as Leica, Contax, Rolliflex, Robot, or Retina, to name only a few, showed any revolutionary change upon superficial examination, but what is there to change on such a stable and proven basic design? Closer examination, however, revealed many important improvements and refinements which have since been publicized by American magazines." This book further states that sales to U.S. occupation personnel were extremely important to the German photo industry, as was also the case in Japan: "The photographic industry, through fortuitous circumstances, benefitted from the fact that in this field little dismantling was effected in the Western zones of Gemrany. Furthermore, post exchange services, in particular the American, through priority orders for occupation personnel and assistance in procuring materials, aided substantially in getting dormant factories back into production. Later, as the occupation powers recognized the vital need for assisting Germany's recovery by promoting sales of industrial products abroad, the photo industry spearheaded the ensuing export drive. The results soon proved that despite numerous actual foreign imitations, German quality cameras had fully retained their good name. Even American soldiers who at home were not greatly interested in photography succumbed to the general shutter-clicking around them in the country which once was the heart and soul of the photo industry." ... One can speak of the absolute normalization of the German photo industry only since the summer of 1948 when the currency reform put meaning behind honest effort."
