ZEISS

ZEISS is the German optics group founded in Jena in 1846 by Carl Zeiss. Its lens designs, the Planar of 1896, the Tessar of 1902, the Sonnar of 1929, shaped photographic optics, and its Zeiss Ikon subsidiary built the Contax rangefinders that dueled Leica through the 1930s. Today the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung-owned group spans semiconductor optics, medical technology, and consumer markets, and remains the reference name in camera and cinema lenses.

Product families

• Batis and Loxia (mirrorless lenses)
• Otus and Milvus (SLR lenses)
• Supreme Prime and CP.3 (cinema lenses)
• ZX1 (fixed-lens compact camera)

Milestones

• 1846Optician Carl Zeiss founds the company in Jena, Germany
• 1896Paul Rudolph designs the Planar, the double-Gauss lens that underpins a century of fast lenses
• 1902The Tessar, the classic four-element lens, is introduced
• 1926Zeiss orchestrates the merger of four camera makers into Zeiss Ikon
• 1932The Contax I challenges Leica with a metal vertical shutter and long-base rangefinder
• 1936The Contax II introduces the combined rangefinder-viewfinder window