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Technical data for Carl Zeiss interchangeable lenses
Users of Carl Zeiss lenses take it for granted that Carl Zeiss will ”automatically” provide the users with technical data sheets for each and every Carl Zeiss lens on the market. However, we ask you to remember that lens manufacture at Carl Zeiss is a business-to-business activity. We are an OEM supplier. Carl Zeiss supplies lenses to our partners, the camera manufacturers, offers additional services, like data sheets, only at their explicit request. Hasselblad, for instance, orders this service, as does Kyocera for Carl Zeiss Contax interchangeable lenses for all four systems: 645, N, G, and RTS.
Technical data provided in the Carl Zeiss data sheets are not simply taken from the computer simulations carried out during the lens development process since this does not give a true assessment of the actual lens performance. Actual performance is heavily influenced by the manufacturer´s ability, experience and willingness to manufacture the lenses with the extremely tight tolerances required by top quality optics. Instead of just publishing computer simulated data, Carl Zeiss takes measurements on real lenses actually built and publishes this true performance data. However, Carl Zeiss does not publish technical data for lenses manufactured by third parties under Carl Zeiss license, based on a Carl Zeiss lens design but not carrying the Carl Zeiss name, like some of the lenses made by Rollei.
From the perspective of a camera manufacturer the situation looks like this: With a system camera like a 500 series Hasselblad, the user can choose among many different lenses for his camera. The availability of technical data sheets in such a situation, helps the user to make an informed choice and thus utilize his camera system to the fullest. This, in turn, reflects very positively on the reputation of that system. Here again, Hasselblad is a very good example of a system which earned its excellent reputation due to the practical ability of its users, with the NASA among them, to select the optimum lens for the job at hand and show off with extremely good image results.
On a camera with a built-in lens, like a Contax TVS or a Sony DSC-F 717, however, the user has taken his irrevocable lens choice automatically upon purchasing the camera. Additional information on the lens itself cannot alter this, since the lens cannot be dealt with separately from the camera. Therefore, camera manufacturers usually do not order lens data for built-in lenses, with the 38 mm BiogonŽ lens equipped Hasselblad SWC 905 being an exception.
In short:
Lens data sheets are provided by Carl Zeiss
- upon request of the camera manufacturer
- for lenses that are interchangeable
- and bear the Carl Zeiss name.
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