Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

In the minds of many people, the German camera is the eternal god.

However, the Japanese have taken the initiative since World War II, and before the advent of the digital age, Japanese cameras had established huge advantages in 135 and 120.

So what happened to the German camera? Why did Japan become the kingdom of cameras while German cameras gradually declined? Why are camera brands like Flenda, Exxon, Chase Ecolab and other camera brands declining, while Japanese Nikon, Pentax, Minolta and other brands are on the rise?

Today let's take a brief look at the rise and fall of the German camera industry.

Photography spread all over Europe in the 1850s, when Germany was not yet unified. Photography has been introduced into Prussia, Austria and Germany through various channels. German photography continues to develop, and optical manufacturing has ushered in a new business, that is, photographic equipment.

The early camera had no concept of aperture and looked like a telescope, and the research on optical materials was relatively backward at that time, so before 1870, German optical companies had no essential advantage over Britain and France.

At first, Carl Zeiss founded the factory, and Schott studied optical glass before unification. after reunification, Germany strongly encouraged the development of domestic emerging industries, although it immediately experienced nearly 30 years of European economic downturn after 1870. however, with the development of the scientific and technological revolution, the Germans made a great breakthrough in optical glass, and the emergence of new materials enabled many structures to be realized.

Due to the poor performance of traditional glass, it is impossible to set up too many lenses, and even the double Gaussian structure is difficult to realize optical applications. The emergence of new materials makes the relatively complex optical structure possible, which is the premise of the optical development of civil cameras.

However, at first, the Germans still applied these optical achievements to microscopes, telescopes and other scientific, medical and military optical equipment.

Photography was still in a state of non-standard in the 19th century, and the standards of cameras and photosensitive materials were not unified, not to mention the brand concept of cameras.

After Kodak invented the film of celluloid material in 1889, the development of the whole photosensitive material began to be shaped in form.

At that time, British wooden cameras and American box cameras became popular. Kodak, as the definer of film material, has released a series of film specifications, of which nothing is more far-reaching than the 120th standard released in 1901, and the reason why it is called 120. in fact, it refers to the 20th standard after the 101st standard, there are 118119, and there have been since 120. there are 121122, a more famous thing.

Due to the popularity of this form of film, Kodak itself became the company with the largest camera sales since 1900-1920, when Kodak folding cameras were at their hottest around 1905. This kind of folded skin cavity camera was very popular until the 1950s and was mostly used in 120 cameras. Later, the skin-cavity 120s never died out, including Fuji's launch of the GF670 in the 21st century, which can be regarded as a relic of this camera.

German cameras at this stage, like Britain and France, belong to workshop-style enterprises, which also produce folding cameras. Wooden cameras, and some box cameras.

Because of this small-scale production, the advantages of German large-scale industry and precision processing industry have not been brought into full play.

In the past, I introduced some early German companies, such as Ernemann,Contessa-Nettel,IHAGEE, in the rise and fall of German DSLRs. These enterprises basically produce wooden cameras, folding cameras and box cameras. And these enterprises basically exist as manufacturing units. before the 1920s, although some already had factories, the number of workers was small and the output of products was very small.

In this way, things gradually developed to the 1920s, when German cameras ushered in a turnaround.

The rise of the German camera industry not only has the German industrial base and the German mentality of making machinery, but also has some luck, which has something to do with a very interesting thing: repackaging film film.

In the 1920s, the negatives of photosensitive materials were relatively large, and the short side length was basically above 4cm. The most common film was 120 films, and more standards were larger than 120. In those days, photosensitive materials were expensive, and this form of photography was unfriendly to poor young people who were interested in photography.

So, at first, in Britain and France, some people secretly broke up the film and sold it in home-made cassettes, thus giving birth to a small camera.

There are many kinds of film film. At that time, it was more popular to use side-length 24mm film discs. Because the photosensitive area was reduced a lot, the focal length of the lens at the corresponding angle would also be shortened, so even if there was no need for a skin cavity, it could be solved only by the telescopic lens itself.

In 1902, 23-year-old Oscar Banak came to Jena to join Zeiss, where he studied camera manufacturing and design skills, but because he was weak and often asked for leave, he stayed with Zeiss for 10 years without being a regular employee.

In 1910 he was introduced to Wetzlar in central and western Germany and met the local boss of Leitz. Leitz started making microscopes in 1849, when it intended to enter the camera industry. Leitz was also a small family business in the 1910's, specializing in optical processing and optical equipment manufacturing.

After meeting Ernst Leitz, Oscar Banak left Zeiss, and he was given the task of developing a camera.

In 1913, the year before the war broke out, Banak successfully made his own camera, using 24mm film and setting the frame as 24X36 (at that time, the standard frame for 24mm films was 24X18), which was the UR-LEICA, the original camera.

UR-LEICA is considered to be the beginning of the German manufacture of all-metal cameras and a major event of the era.

According to Leica himself, he built three from 1913 to 1914 and took one of them to his boss to use when he traveled.

After that, he found an optical engineer at Leitz and designed a small lens similar to the Tiansai structure for the small camera to improve the image quality.

The German economy was once in the doldrums after World War I. with the prosperity of Coolidge in the United States, the economy began to recover after 1922. In that era, known as the first era of mass consumption, people had more money and began to spend more on cars, real estate, precision manufactured goods and so on.

Leitz built another 31 prototypes in 1923, and the one with a falling hammer price of more than 100 million yuan last year is said to be one of the 31 Taichung, and was used by Banak himself. This batch of cameras are equipped with brand-new lenses, which are already very much like products.

Leitz is muttering about whether the company is really going to switch to making cameras that don't even have a negative standard. The boss and Barnak had a good personal relationship, and they wanted to break into the mass market and finally made it. In 1924, the Leica camera using 39mm screws was officially launched. Soon after, Leitz released a matching rangefinder.

Leica is not necessarily the earliest 35mm camera in the world, but it is recognized as the first publicly available 35mm camera, and its release and popularity contributed to the development of 35mm film standards. According to the number of shots, there are three standards: 135235 and 435. the standard number of 135s is 24 and the standard number is 36.

The 135standard is very different from the traditional 100series standard, because the 35mm film has a fixed format, so it is difficult to make a fixed format, because the specification of the tooth is specified, while the 100series reel film is not fixed format.

In the same year in 1924, another major event in the German camera world took place. The impact of this incident at that time and in the next 10 years was much greater than the birth of the Leica camera. That is, Zeiss acquired three camera manufacturing companies and founded ZEISS IKON camera.

From this time to the end of World War II, Zeiss became the largest, most productive and most varied civilian camera manufacturing company in the world. And their main products, in addition to the traditional skin cavity folding cameras, are all kinds of metal small cameras.

Zeiss's optical factory is in Jena, while their camera factory is in Dresden.

Dresden is far east in modern Germany, running a few steps to Poland. But in the 17th and 18th century, this place was basically the center of the activity area of the entire Germanic people (including Austria). At the time of German unification, it was in the east-west direction, bordering the core industrial area of northern Austria. This industrial area is the Sudeh region of Czechoslovakia before World War II.

It has been a precision processing area in Germany since the late Middle Ages, and it extends in all directions and has convenient transportation. In the 1920s, Dresden was the most developed city in Germany, not only a camera, but also a concentrated area of precision watches. Now Langer, the most awesome German watch, and the more famous Grasotti all originated here.

The reason why it takes so many words to describe this place is that the German camera industry is thriving and declining here.

Compared with Leitz, Chase Icahn is strong.

In terms of camera design and manufacturing, they incorporated Dr. Nagar, the camera designer who later went to Kodak to make Redina, and the talented designer Ludwig Bertele from Ernemann, which made Zeiss far ahead of Leitz in the lens design of 35mm small cameras.

The GOERZ company absorbed by Zeiss not only has a strong optical research and development capability, but was the largest folding camera factory in Germany before World War I.

Zeiss occupied a dominant position in the field of optics, especially in the field of optical materials at that time, and could easily mobilize many special optical glasses to complete the design of optical equipment. Leitz didn't realize the importance of homemade glass until the late 1950s, when Leica lenses were mostly made of glass.

Contax small side axle and IKONTA folding camera are the main force of ZEISS IKON. Except for IKONTA camera, ZEISS IKON is basically all-metal non-skin cavity camera.

In particular, the contax side axle is designed with internal and external claw bayonets and uses a series of high-performance lenses developed by Zeiss at the time.

In fact, Zeiss also began the development of 135DSLR before the war, that is, the postwar contax S, which is a camera with better performance than Exxon camera, which was stagnated due to the war.

In 1935, Zeiss also developed the 135DRS, contaflex, in the picture above, which can even change the lens. The production of this camera is small, and now it is basically collected as a collection.

ZEISS IKON also developed a market of 120 double reversals, and in 1939 developed a 2.8aperture double inverse.

And at this time of glory, no one can expect the final outcome.

With the rise of small metal cameras and 135 films, German camera manufacturing has ushered in a great development. With the advantages of precision machining and optical materials, British, French cameras and civil optics like Rose, represented by Aizhanneng, began to lag behind.

Some traditional German manufacturers began to change their manufacturing strategies, and a number of new manufacturers emerged at the same time.

IHAGEE, founded by the Dutch, set up a factory in Dresden in 1922 and successfully developed the world's earliest all-metal 135SLR camera and all-metal 120SLR camera in the 1930s, that is, EXAKTA camera, which is called Exantai camera in Chinese translation, because it is translated like this in the time of the Republic of China.

In 1939, the German company KW designed the Praktiflex SLR camera, using 40mm screw port, a company owned by Jews, which was taken over by American businessmen because of Nazi persecution and Jews running away. KW has developed a very important standard for the future, the 42mm screw port SLR.

According to statistics, before World War II, 80% of Germany's camera factories were set up in Dresden. Of course, not all famous companies, such as Flenda, Lulai and Leica, were not in this area.

In 1939, Germany launched an attack on Poland, World War II broke out, and fascist Germany finally perished. However, after defeating the fascist demons, the struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States began.

According to the spirit of the Yalta Conference and the Potsdam Conference, the Soviet Union refused to spit out the half of Poland he occupied, so he asked Poland to ask Germany for territory. The Poles made a lot of money because it gave Poland a long coastline. Later it was called "turn left and walk together."

Then, the Soviet Union, the United States, France and Britain began to occupy the remaining German territory in 1945, while the four countries also occupied the German capital Berlin.

At first, everyone's plan was to build a unified Germany, but with the intensification of the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union, in the face of the increasing pressure of the United States, it is hard to avoid the division of Germany.

Although Germany is not yet divided, Germany's camera industry and civil optics have split first.

Because Dresden was an important economic zone and was geographically controlled by the Soviet Union, the Americans bombed the area before the end of World War II, razing the whole area to the ground.

The factory was flattened, but people were not so easily killed. in order to prevent important talents from falling into the hands of the Soviet Union, the United States began to use rescue, kidnapping and other means to poach scientists and important engineers from the east. On the other hand, the Germans, fearing Soviet retaliation, tended to flee to American-occupied territories, and even Nazi German officers were more likely to surrender to the Americans than to the Soviets.

In 1945, under the operation of the US military, a group of scientists and engineers based in Jena were successfully transferred to Stuttgart. When the Soviets arrived in 1946, they moved all the equipment and equipment from the Jena factory to the Arsenal factory in Ukraine, and moved the optical scientists away.

Why the Americans want to get rid of this group of scientists and engineers, there is no clear explanation, some people think that it has something to do with the United States' desire to study integrated circuits and lithography technology.

Although Zeiss Optics in Jena was systematically removed, the remaining ten camera factories in Dresden resumed production amid uncertainty about the future of Germany, especially the prospect of Germany becoming a unified country.

Before Germany split, Zeiss completed the design of the contax S SLR, the first SLR camera with a five-prism in human history, at which time the Japanese had not even mastered the rebound technology of the reflector.

However, in 1949, the year after the contax S DSLR was designed and officially released, Germany was officially divided. Subsequently, the Zeiss engineer who fled to West Germany formally established the West German Zeiss, and the Zeiss company was officially split.

As the German camera industry is too concentrated in Dresden, the division has dealt a heavy blow to the camera manufacturing industry in West Germany. Camera manufacturing has a whole industry chain, which is seriously lacking in West Germany, and the direct result is the high price of cameras.

We generally think that German manufacturing is expensive, which is right and wrong. Before World War II, German metal small cameras and skin cavity folding cameras have formed an extremely complete product chain, including high-end products for professionals and the rich, as well as a large number of entry-level products. Germany has a brand called Valda, which specializes in the production of entry-level cameras to meet the needs of the public.

After World War II, due to the collapse of the industrial chain, West Germany needs to pay a high price in the process of reconstructing the industrial chain. This makes all German cameras very expensive. Even for manufacturers like Leica, which did not rely much on the system, their postwar L39 cameras were not much cheaper than the M3. At that time, the sky-high price of the antenna machine such as Flenda was so high that most people could not afford it.

Is it possible that the camera industry can't be done well in East Germany?

The Democratic Republic of Germany is one of the six younger brothers in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and it is also the most economically developed among these boys. After the division of Germany in 1949, East Germany embarked on the road of nationalization. in the face of camera manufacturing and other private enterprises, it adopted a policy similar to public-private partnership to nationalize production, but retained famous brands and trademarks, retained the market mechanism, and allowed exports to the West.

IHAGEE, KW, Zeiss Icon, Zeiss Optics, etc., which stayed in East Germany, all kept their brands, but were transformed into state-run color factories.

The reason why the two Zeiss companies have to file a lawsuit over trademarks and naming is also because East German products can be imported into the West, or Zeiss's name.

From 1949 to 1959, many changes took place in East Germany, the most prominent of which was the brain drain and fled to West Germany.

In addition, after the 20th CPC National Congress, the debate about market economy and planned economy intensified in East Germany, and in the end, the planners led by Ubrich gained the upper hand, and Germany began to gradually abolish the public-private partnership system and accelerate nationalization.

In 1958 and 1959, these names as camera brands gradually disappeared. Chase Icahn disappeared from East Germany in 1959, but Chase Jena still exists in East Germany.

In 1959, Chase Icahn, ALTIX,KW, Valda, and Welta,Korelle finally merged into a single company called the state-run Dresden camera Industry complex.

Similarly, Chase Jena, Meyer Optics and IHAGEE Optics were merged into the Dresden Optical Industry complex.

After the great alliance of Dresden cameras, they mainly used the brand Pentacon for internal and external sales, so it changed its name to Pantaikang Group in 1964. After that, Pantaikang Group annexed the relatively independent IHAGEE camera factory in 1970 and basically completed the unification of camera manufacturing in East Germany.

From a technical point of view, at least in the 1950s, East German SLR camera technology was still the world's leader, they not only made the world's earliest five-prism SLR, but also made the first set of systematic DSLRs. P6 is also developed as a modern-operated mechanical camera.

After the great alliance in the 1960s, the brand was gone and the pressure for survival was gone, the East German camera lost its momentum for development, and the whole technology fell into a long period of stagnation, especially in the 135 camera.

In 1985, the Japanese SLR was almost in autofocus, and East Germany was still producing an EXA 1C camera with incomplete shutter gear, the fastest being 175.

The East German camera factory is state-owned and will not close down. It stood still before the 1980s, and although it began to develop program automatic cameras after the 1980s, it appeared to be perfunctory, and even in the 1980s, it focused on the mechanical cameras of the 1950s technology, and even TTL was not popular.

In this way, the all-metal German camera, which had no enemies at all in the 1930s, shone back on the land of East Germany in the 1950s, and the Dresden he developed remained in this state until the 1980s and finally retired from the stage of history.

The stagnation of camera development in East Germany is the result of the planned economic system, although the planned economic system in East Germany is not as serious as that of the Soviet Union, the industrial structure is not so unbalanced, and East Germany does not have to build nuclear submarines or atomic bombs. However, the lack of market incentives, a serious lack of competition, or the lack of a sense of urgency for survival, the camera industry can only become this immortal look in the end.

If the same situation had moved to Japan, it would have gone bankrupt in 1960 and might have risen strongly a long time ago.

Isn't there a Germany here?

The problem is that the foundation of the entire camera industry is in the east, so the West German camera industry itself has no advantage over the newly opened Japanese camera.

From the perspective of SLR technology, West German Zeiss lost the technology of contax S and had to start from scratch, and their R & D capability is not much better than Minolta and Nikon, which is at the helm of the wind.

Although Leica launched the epoch-making M3 side axis, the era of the side axis is coming to an end.

Leica had a hard time in the 1960s and 1980s, and for a while even lost its hometown in Germany and could only be produced in a Canadian factory. We can see the famous photographers put down Leica and pick up the DSLR, and the Leica they put down is now a hot item at auction.

Although Flenda has developed many classic metal cameras, the price is high and the market response is mediocre.

The camera companies in West Germany have experienced a world war, and most of them are so damaged that they have to face a fresh start and a new break.

Soon, West German cameras were attacked by Japanese cameras. Japanese cameras not only had a low price, but also continued to promote technological development and innovation, and soon surpassed West Germany in camera electronic technology.

Another question is, since they all start all over again, why can't German cameras beat Japan? Both countries were blown to pieces during World War II. Don't the Japanese also need to reconstruct the industrial chain? Moreover, the Japanese do not have any foundation, and there was no decent camera industry before the war, so how did the Japanese do it?

It is true that the Japanese also need to restructure the industrial chain, but Japan has some advantages over Germany. The population of Japan is larger than that of West Germany, which reached 83 million in 1950, compared with 63 million in East and West Germany. The geographical area of Japan is also larger than that of Germany after World War II, although many of them are mountains with little bird use, but the island country faces the ocean and has more opportunities in commerce and trade.

At that time, the cost of camera production in Japan, whether it was labor, land or materials, was much cheaper than that in West Germany.

There is another very important factor: the Japanese are very good at imitating!

The Japanese began to dismantle German cameras to imitate before the war, and became even more powerful after the war. Nikon imitated Zeiss, Canon imitated Leica, Pentax and Minolta imitated contax s, skipping the relatively high-cost initial stage of research and development.

Japanese camera manufacturers also like to fiddle with their own electronic components, and their electronic components are cheaper than in Germany.

Japanese cameras are rising strongly because of their strong performance-to-price ratio.

German camera companies have encountered many difficulties, although they still occupy an important position in the market, Leica, Lulai and Zeiss are still loud, and new products have not been broken, but the glory of the camera kingdom at that time is a thing of the past.

The camera itself is not a luxury, but when talking about German cameras, it highlights the brand value, which in itself is a problem. For example, Japanese cameras basically spell performance, without brand value. A few years ago, the Nikon camera department was once reported to be going down, and everyone did not react much. Some people even thought that Nikon did not make micro orders, did not want to make progress, and should fall.

This article is from the official Wechat account: film fan club (ID:jiaojuanmi), author: Shanghai Old dirty Turtle

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