Biogon is the brand name of Carl Zeiss for a series of

photographic Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed ...

camera lens A camera lens (also known as photographic lens or photographic objective) is an optical lens or assembly of lenses used in conjunction with a camera body and mechanism to make images of objects either on photographic film or on other media cap ...

es, first introduced in 1934. Biogons are typically

wide-angle lens In photography and cinematography, a wide-angle lens refers to a lens whose focal length is substantially smaller than the focal length of a normal lens for a given film plane. This type of lens allows more of the scene to be included in the ...

es.

History

The first lens branded Biogon (2.8 / 3.5 cm, unbalanced) was designed in 1934 by Ludwig Bertele, then assigned to Zeiss Ikon

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...

, the

Contax Contax (stylised as CONTAX in the Kyocera era) began as a German camera model in the Zeiss Ikon line in 1932, and later became a brand name. The early cameras were among the finest in the world, typically featuring high quality Zeiss interchan ...

created as a modification of the then

Sonnar The Zeiss Sonnar is a photographic lens originally designed by Dr. Ludwig Bertele in 1929 and patented by Zeiss Ikon.Deutsche Patent 530843, 1929-08-14 It was notable for its relatively light weight, simple design and fast aperture. The name ...

. It was developed by Carl Zeiss in approximately 1937 and manufactured in

Jena Jena () is a German city and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 inhabitants, while the city itself has a po ...

, then a redesign in Oberkochen. In 1951, a new Biogon with a 90°

angle of view The angle of view is the decisive variable for the visual perception of the size or projection of the size of an object. Angle of view and perception of size The perceived size of an object depends on the size of the image projected onto the ...

(Super Wide Angle) was designed, also by Ludwig Bertele. The advent of the Biogon opened the way to extreme wide-angle lenses. The first examples were produced from 1954 as the 4.5 / 21 mm for Contax, in 1954, 4.5 / 38 mm for Hasselblad Super Wide, and from 1955 to 1956 as the 4.5 / 53 mm and 4.5 / 75 mm for the Linhof. The original patent spanned three different variants, each with a different maximum aperture: 6.3, 4.5, and 3.4 lenses.

Examples

Since their introduction, lenses branded Biogon are usually approximately symmetrical ("semi-symmetrical") wide-angle design with a usable angle of view of 90° or more. At 90° the

focal length The focal length of an optical system is a measure of how strongly the system converges or diverges light; it is the inverse of the system's optical power. A positive focal length indicates that a system converges light, while a negative foc ...

is approximately half as long as the format's diagonal. Well known

camera A camera is an optical instrument that can capture an image. Most cameras can capture 2D images, with some more advanced models being able to capture 3D images. At a basic level, most cameras consist of sealed boxes (the camera body), with ...

manufacturers like Hasselblad have or had Biogon derived lenses to offer. The lenses branded Super-Angulon (sold by Schneider Kreuznach and

Leica Camera Leica Camera AG () is a German company that manufactures cameras, optical lenses, photographic lenses, binoculars, rifle scopes and microscopes. The company was founded by Ernst Leitz in 1869 (Ernst Leitz Wetzlar), in Wetzlar, Germany. ...

) are based on the construction of the Biogon.
Biogon 1:2,8 ''f'' = 21 mm
90° angle (PDF-File; 65 kB)
Biogon 1:4,5 ''f'' = 21 mm, T* Classic
90° angle (PDF-File; 282 kB)
Biogon 1:2,8 ''f'' = 25 mm
82° angle (PDF-File; 292 kB)
Biogon 1:2,8 ''f'' = 28 mm
75° angle (PDF-File; 182 kB)
Biogon 1:2,0 ''f'' = 35 mm
63° angle (PDF-File; 266 kB)
Biogon 1:4,5 ''f'' = 38 mm CFi
for Hasselblad (

Medium Format Medium format has traditionally referred to a film format in photography and the related cameras and equipment that use film. Nowadays, the term applies to film and digital cameras that record images on media larger than the used in 35&n ...

; PDF-File; 166 kB) * Biogon 1:4,5 ''f'' = 53 mm, image diameter of 115 mm, for professional cameras up to the 6 × 9 cm
Biogon 1:5,6 ''f'' = 60 mm
for Hasselblad (

, including the Apollo moon mission, PDF file, 857 kB); PDF-File; 857 kB) * Biogon 1:4,5 ''f'' = 75 mm, image diameter of 153 mm, 92° angle, for large-format professional cameras up to 4 × 5 inches Other Zeiss lenses include the Triotar, Biotar, Biometar, Tessar, Planar,

, , , Hologon, Topogon, Kipronar, Prokinar.

References

Bibliography

External links

Detailed article about the history of super wide-angle lenses, starting with Hypergon (Italian)

Biogon wide-angle lens article on olypedia.de (German)

Historical Data sheets of Zeiss lenses (German)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Biogon Photographic lens designs Zeiss lenses

History

Examples

See also

References

Bibliography

External links