Voigtländer is an optical company founded by Johann Christoph Voigtländer in Vienna in 1756 and thus the oldest name in cameras. It produced the Petzval photographic lens (fastest lens at that time: f/3.7) in 1840, and the world's first all-metal daguerrotype camera (Ganzmetallkamera) in 1841, also bringing out plate cameras shortly afterwards. It set up a branch office in Braunschweig in 1849, moving its headquarters there later. The company iss...
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Voigtländer is an optical company founded by Johann Christoph Voigtländer in Vienna in 1756 and thus the oldest name in cameras. It produced the Petzval photographic lens (fastest lens at that time: f/3.7) in 1840, and the world's first all-metal daguerrotype camera (Ganzmetallkamera) in 1841, also bringing out plate cameras shortly afterwards. It set up a branch office in Braunschweig in 1849, moving its headquarters there later. The company issued stock in 1898, and a majority of the shares were acquired by Schering in 1925.
Over the next three decades, Voigtländer became a technology leader and the first manufacturer to introduce several new products which later became mainstream in the market. These include the first zoom lens (36–82/2.8 Zoomar) in 1960 and the first 35mm compact camera with built-in electronic flash (Vitrona) in 1965.
Schering sold its share of the company to the Carl Zeiss Foundation in 1956, and Zeiss and Voigtländer integrated in 1965. In 1972 Zeiss...
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