East Germany · 6 lenses

Carl Zeiss Jena

Carl Zeiss opened his optics workshop in Jena in 1846, and the company went on to give photography the Tessar in 1902, the Biotar in 1927 and the anti-reflection coating in 1935. After the Second World War it split. Jena ended up in East Germany as VEB Carl Zeiss Jena, the Soviets carried off much of its tooling, and a western Carl Zeiss restarted in Oberkochen. In the West the Jena company lost the right to the Zeiss name and its famous lens names, so lenses sold there are engraved aus Jena or just Jena, sometimes with initials like T for Tessar and S for Sonnar. Its SLR lenses include the Tessar, Biotar, Sonnar, Pancolar and the Flektogon, a retrofocus wide angle first sold in 1950. From 1979 Jena also built Prakticar lenses for Praktica's B bayonet, among them a 50mm f/1.8 based on the Pancolar. After reunification the company became Jenoptik Carl Zeiss Jena in 1990 and was split up in 1991.