Everyone knows the Zeiss lens that shot the dark side of the Moon, that candlelight scene in \u201cBarry Lyndon,\u201d and a hole through a couple people\u2019s wallets every time one sells at the auction in Vienna.<\/p>\n
Likely fewer people know it was certainly neither the first nor the only 50mm f\/0.7 lens \u2014 and that there are even faster ones out there.<\/p>\n
While the Zeiss Planar 50mm f\/0.7 has its roots in a public health campaign \u2014 seeking to more effectively detect tuberculosis using x-ray with the R-Biotar \u2014 and a subsequent design approach by Maximilian Herzberger (40mm f\/0.8 of 1937) for Kodak, the first of its oriental equivalents was a spawn of less peaceful activity.<\/p>\n
In the late 1930s, the Imperial Japanese Air Force experimented with nighttime aerial reconnaissance using extremely bright magnesium flares and equally bright lenses. For this purpose, the Yokosuka Naval Air Technical Arsenal, led by Tomita Ry\u014dji, developed a 6.5\u00d79cm plate camera which would be manufactured by Konica. The lens it used was a 130mm f\/1, made by T\u014dky\u014d K\u014dgaku \u2014 later known as Topcon.<\/p>\n
This design proved somewhat troublesome, and Maruyama Sh\u016bji of Topcon was ordered to develop a successor. Maruyama came up with a calculation radically different from other f\/0.7-ish lenses, which either used speedboosters (sorry, Zeiss) or dubious Petzval and Ernostar derivatives. His highly asymmetrical designs featured eight elements in four groups, weighed in at 1kg, and covered 24\u00d724mm at a mind-bending f\/0.7.<\/p>\n
The implications are significant: military necessity, not cinematic ambition, drove the first generation of ultra-fast optics. The Zeiss gets the glory because Kubrick made it famous. But the engineering genealogy runs through wartime Japan, and that story deserves to be told.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Everyone knows the Zeiss lens that shot the dark side of the Moon, that candlelight scene in \u201cBarry Lyndon,\u201d and a hole through a couple people\u2019s wallets every time one sells at the auction in Vienna. Likely fewer people know it was certainly neither the first nor the only 50mm f\/0.7 lens \u2014 and that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[21,19,23,18,22,20,17],"class_list":["post-15","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lens-history","tag-barry-lyndon","tag-f-0-7","tag-japanese-military-optics","tag-planar","tag-topcon","tag-vintage-lenses","tag-zeiss"],"yoast_head":"\n