The Zeiss camera - history

The name of Carl Zeiss (1816-1888) is one of the most revered in photography circles. Zeiss and his researchers established in Jena, Germany, were responsible for designing and manufacturing some of the most innovative lens designs and later, cameras. For a long time the company competed with Leica for pole position with its famous 35mm format Contax rangefinder camera first launched in the 1930s. This model was so well thought of around the world that at the end of WWII, the production tools for the camera and its lenses were acquired by the Soviets and transfered to Kiev in the Ukraine where identical copies of the Contax continued to be made for several decades.

Today, Carl Zeiss of Oberkochen continues to produce some of the world's finest photographic objectives; since the 1960s most of the famous moon shots from outer space as well as thousands of images of astronauts at work and the earth's surface have been made with Zeiss lenses mounted on Hasselblad cameras. The company recently returned to camera production with the launch of the Zeiss Ikon 35mm film camera and a range of Leica-M type ZM bayonet mount objectives. At the same time it also began production of a new series of manually focused objectives for the Nikon F mount in partnership with lens maker Cosina of Japan.