Voigtlander

Founded in Vienna by Johann Christoph Voigtlander in 1756, Voigtlander was a pioneer in the manufacture of optical instruments. In 1840, this company made the Petzval photographic lens. The very next year the company introduced the first full-metal daguerreotype camera and started the production of plate cameras. In 1849, the company opened a branch office in Braunschweig, which later became its headquarters.

Voigtlander entered the stock market in 1898, and introduced the travel camera, ’Reise Kamera’ a couple of years later. In 1931, Voigtlander became a leading producer of cameras with their 6x9 format BESSA model. They tasted success with their first 35mm film camera at the end of the 1939. Voigtlander then offered the first-ever interchangeable zoom lens known as the Zoomar twenty years later.

After buying Voigtlander over from Schering, the Carl Zeiss foundation merged the Zeiss and Voigtlander brands together in 1965. There have been many changes associated with this brand since its merger with Zeiss-Ikon in the year 1970. Rollei bought over Voigtlander from Zeiss after Zeiss/Voigtlander stopped manufacturing cameras in the early 1970s. Since then, the Voigtlander brand name has been taken over by many companies like Plusfoto, Cosina, and Ringfoto. Several types of film, SLR and cheaper digital camera are sold by Ringfoto in Europe.

Voigtlander cameras are much sought after in the United Kingdom. The most popular of their 35mm fixed lens models include the Voigtlander Dynamatic and the Voigtlander Vito B.