David Hughes
David Hughes
Hi,
Yes, well, um, all systems have been used at one time of the other and drive us mad at times. Some Acts of Parliament (meaning Laws) use three or more system when British laws include bits of European and International laws. So you get knots, nautical miles, metric and Imperial all jumbled together in some aviation Rules...
In general terms we are going metric and in general we are ignoring it. Like French francs, gold francs, pounds weight and those strange French pounds and that strange French currency the foo(?). What gets me is that they have been trying to standardise things in Europe for hundreds of years. Look at the florin used (once upon a time) in England and the Netherlands.
Regards, David
David Hughes
David Hughes
Back to Zeiss and so on; did I misread it? Didn't they agree that the USSR could have the Zeiss works etc and then the Americans turned up and took much of it? So the USSR got the remains after it had been cherry picked. And wasn't FDR the one who said the USSR could have it?
Who would believe that the three major powers were fighting on the same side?
There's a lot of unanswered questions, aren't there?
Regards, David
Who would believe that the three major powers were fighting on the same side?
There's a lot of unanswered questions, aren't there?
Regards, David
apostasiometritis
Established
My maths tutor at university was adamant that the SI system was well adopted in the UK before WW2.
Apparently the Merlin engine was all drawn up in metric. When the US tried to adopt it for use in the Mustang all things went wrong, especially considering that the US had built an awful lot of airframes that could not accept the engine as it was.
Apologies for the digression.
David Hughes
David Hughes
Wulfthari, thanks for post 78 most interesting.
Regards, David
Regards, David
micromontenegro
Well-known
Tell that to my 1971 Land Rover. Alas, even my 1998 LR still has some Imperial fasteners... although not Withworths anymore, thankfully.
David Hughes
David Hughes
Hi,
Both systems have been in use for years, in general terms we are metric, as I said. I don't think it became official, meaning we had no choice until, well I don't know because the more I thought about it the more examples of both came to mind. For example, I would have said that optics were always done in metric.
My copy of "Physical Data in SI Units" is dated 1973 but my wife says that the catalogues she used for ordering lab. equipment mixed both systems. And my shirts and clothes are Imperial...
And I can remember problems I had buying a metric micrometer in the mid 70's, ditto a Vernier scale rule and that has reminded me that I still have and use an Armstrong Twelfths rule as do a lot of others.
It doesn't have a date I can nail down; sorry about that. I think the answer is that the market probably dictated when things changed.
Regards, David
PS And what about tripod bushes in Imperial Whitworth or what? To me they will always be quarter and three eigths inch threads. But that reminds me of the Leica thread muddle, and so it goes on round and round in circles.
apostasiometritis
Established
Personally, I'm under the impression that hardcore engineering projects were done using SI rather than imperial, this including optics.
That said, I'm aware that a lot of EU countries still use imperial when dealing with plumbing for example.
Oh dear.
To the point, I have owned all jupiters of all kinds over the years and a good copy is a very good lens.
Problem is that most have been badly handled in their lives and even more badly repaired, including here in the UK. A specific early J3 comes in mind which was so badly put back I could not believe the butchery.
In my opinion the "good copy" part is not so much depend on the soviet factory that made the lens but a product of how the lens was used.
sevo
Fokutorendaburando
It is more complex than that. As I said, there was not one Zeiss, but different companies in different locations . The Soviets had to get past Berlin, so their entry into Germany was the hardest and slowest. The US Army got to Thuringia first even though that was intended to be part of the Soviet sector, and did not play fair. Another interesting question is whether public domaining the Zeiss patents was done to contain the damage (without returning the arguably stolen lens works to the Soviets) - it seems to have been unique among the major players in the German optical industry, and must have had some reason.
written on the road
uhoh7
Veteran
+1
very good posts on last page, ty so much.
possibly 3 versions of the jena 1.5? I find that interesting
haha, whoever caught my goof on 1947 nuke raid to chicago--point taken
anyway, albeit boisterous, we have a good thread here, on an old topic
David Hughes
David Hughes
Hi,
Leica was also affected. Reid's copy was legit according to an article I read about their problems before announcing it. The article was in a late 40's or early 50's copy of MCW. Some UK Govt. Dept. was responsible for allowing them to copy it and their problems were with "red tape" (that's a weird expression the German expression involves a horse, which is stranger still... ).
Regards, David
DominikDUK
Well-known
Pretty much all significant German and Austrian patents were voided as war "reparation" not only those of Zeiss and Leica.
Wulfthari
Well-known
No no never said that!+1
very good posts on last page, ty so much.
possibly 3 versions of the jena 1.5? I find that interesting
I noticed this morning that the original Sonnar has been changed, current production Sonnar has a convex element after the iris, but then I noticed on wikipedia that there's a formula that looks like the recalculated jupiter3 with the same element that used to flat in the "classic" Sonnar design and is convex in the new sonnar was concave..so I wondered if the Soviets had recalculated anything at all or the pre and postwar csj were modified.
Wulfthari
Well-known
Yes that was the real pound of meat the victors wanted, not much the money, and that's the reason why everybody could build a Leica type camera after the war (Japanese first). The Contax being a much more complicated machine could be just made by Kiev, the west German Zeiss Ikon not having the drawings and the tooling had to design a new camera from scratch , the Contax IIa.
KnipsOmat
Established
No, they were not. After Second World War, German patents were neither voided nor put in the public domain. This is a misconception (admittedly a quite common misconception, however).
Already at an early stage during WWII, German patents in other countries were considered to be foreign assets and as such they were confiscated by some of the allies. Just like money in banks, factories of German companies or other German assets abroad. (Nazi Germany did successively more or less the same thing with allied patents in Germany).
This was not a reparation. It was a means of financial warfare. To weaken the enemy's and to strengthen your own economy. At the time the UK made the laws for confiscating German patents, WWII was only 3 weeks old. No need for reparation - yet.
The UK was the first country to do so with "Patents, Designs, Copyright and Trade Marks (Emergency) Act" from 21st September 1939, later the same year Canada and Australia followed. South Africa and India did the same in 1940, the U.S. did not start with this before March, 1942 (the U.S. only entered the war with Germany in December, 1941).
By the way, the U.S. not only confiscated German and Japanese patents, but also U.S. patents from some countries that were occupied by Germany (i.e. some Dutch, Norwegian and French patents).
Confiscating the patents was much worse than just declaring them to be void. If a patent is void, anybody can use the technology and sell respective goods in the respective country.
But confiscating means the patent is still valid and in place, only now it is the property of the confiscating state. They can allow anybody they want to use the technology, but they can also stop anybody else to use the technology for stuff to be sold to their country.
Which meant in fact that Zeiss or Leitz using a Zeiss or Leica patented technology would infringe the - still valid - patent when selling stuff to the UK or U.S..
This way, they could have been stopped selling their stuff in the UK or U.S.. They would not be allowed to use their own inventions for anything to be sold to these countries.
Cheers,
Andreas
pete hogan
Well-known
Thanks for an interesting discussion of the postwar period and influences and events in camera optics. I'm usually suspicious of Internet history recounting, but this one has been useful and rather balanced. Fits well with my LTM Jupiter-8 and -11 good performances, not surprising either. Zorki 1 and Industar-22's also good. A sort of co-existence.
summaron
Established
This is a bit off topic but there are some interesting discussions regarding non-Zeiss sonnar designs at the Nikon website under the title Thousand and One Nights. It looks as though some sort of sonnar design for the 50mm f/2 was used by the Japanese lensmakers even before the Zeiss patents were released - as early as 1935.
There is also an interesting discussion of the rear stopper plane which helps give the 1.4/1.5 sonnar its characteristic "look." Tale 19 -
Other sonnar tales - #36 (85mm f2), #33 (the compact 35mm 2.8, which eliminated the cemented front triplet for air spacing - like the current Sonnar-C?), and #45 (105mm f2.5).
And there is some discussion on glass types and substitutions due to post war material shortages in Japan in Tale 34 on the 50mm f2.
http://www.nikkor.com/story/
James
There is also an interesting discussion of the rear stopper plane which helps give the 1.4/1.5 sonnar its characteristic "look." Tale 19 -
Other sonnar tales - #36 (85mm f2), #33 (the compact 35mm 2.8, which eliminated the cemented front triplet for air spacing - like the current Sonnar-C?), and #45 (105mm f2.5).
And there is some discussion on glass types and substitutions due to post war material shortages in Japan in Tale 34 on the 50mm f2.
http://www.nikkor.com/story/
James
02Pilot
Malcontent
That Nikon site has some really fascinating information about optical design, Sonnar-related and otherwise - thanks for posting it.
David Hughes
David Hughes
I'll second that although a quick glance or two or three and I realise it's going to cost me time (looking) and money (buying). I'll say no more but pass on the warning...
Regards, David
Regards, David
Dante_Stella
Rex canum cattorumque
The Nikon site is a great use of all of your spare time. Great material in there. Of all the 50/1.5-ish Sonnars/continuances/copies/clones/what have you, this is my thumbnail sketch (since I've used all of them). Hopefully this will help you cut down on any blind alleys.
- Prewar Zeiss (Contax mount only): ahead of its time in contrast (certainly ahead of Gauss-type lenses) but still a bit dreamy by today's standards. Arguably the time that Sonnars ruled the (light) waves. It's only really available for Contax mount, but with an (expensive) adapter you can slap it onto an LTM or M body.
- Opton: still a bit sharper and contrastier in its sharp places than early Leica high-speed 50s. For many uses (particularly outdoors), you won't see a tremendous difference from modern 50s (it's not quite up to modern performance standards, but for a pre-1970 lens, it's great). Same note on availability only Contax mount.
- Jupiter-3 LTM: I've owned many of these over the last 12 years, and it's a lens I both love and hate. If the collimation is good (as Brian Sweeney would attest, it was not originally set up for Leica back-focus - and the error is apparent closer than 2m), it can be a great vintage-style lens. Don't expect pixel-level sharpness from a lens whose test certificates show 1/3 to 1/4 of a modern Gauss-style 50. But do expect pleasant pictures, especially of people. When shopping for these, you will always find some degree of coating marks. But the real issues are corrosion of the barrels, people hacking together lenses from multiple examples, and generally having the hell beaten out of them. These sold from Ukraine for $50 in the early 2000s and were good; recent offers from Ukraine seem to be the dregs sold for the maximum amount of money (the asking prices seem out of sight for something that has a 1/3 chance of being a dog). From an optical performance standpoint, the later black ones didn't seem as good (and this seems for some reason to be the case with the Jupiter-8s as well). And on an aesthetic point, the 1950s coatings are gorgeous.
[On all of the above, consider the availability of 40.5mm contrast filters - good ones are at best special-order items now]
- Nikkor 50/1.4 LTM: probably the best made (the brass mounts are heavy and nicely finished) and highest-performing variant. Very sharp (especially wide open and close-up), very contrasty (at least from f/2 down). Some veiling flare at f/1.4 (not unusual on this type of lens). The 50/2 (based on the 50/2 Sonnar) performs similarly and seemed to me sharper. Both these lenses have chronic oil-on-the-blades issues, and my repair person told me that the best you can do is lube the helicoid with a modern grease and keep it out of the heat (oil on the blades is not the issue; it's fractions of the grease evaporating onto the glass). Bokeh on the 1.4 can be wiry; it's more moderate on the 2.
- Canon 50/1.5 LTM: also nicely made like the Nikkor. Its correction makes it very sharp but degrades bokeh. The chrome on these seems to be peeling off in a lot of examples. Maybe metal finishing was poor in postwar Japan. This has the worst situation with filters, since Canon's 40.0mm thread never set the world on fire, and as I recall, the front element bows very close to the filter ring.
- Zeiss ZM 50/1.5: if you have the cash, this is probably the best performer out of all of them; you get modern optics, modern multicoating, and an intentional respect for bokeh that does not come at the expense of resolution (well, not that much degradation of resolution). With these, the focus can be set to 1.4 or 2.8; my copy seems to center at about f/2. This is really a specialist lens that if you were into 50mm lenses, probably should not be your only 50mm.
The only thing I would caution is that just as Sonnars have certain central characteristics, so do the lenses. Having seen the various implementations, my take is that the key thing at wide apertures is a sharp central section, some focus shift with aperture changes, and varying degrees of veiling flare. But the rest of the characteristics can be surprisingly lens-specific.
Dante
outfitter
Well-known
Was not aware the J-8 (as opposed to the ZK) ever had an infinity lock- a focusing arm but not an infinity lock.