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Relationship between Schneider, ISCO, and Roeschlein?
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 25, 2023 1:50 am    Post subject: Relationship between Schneider, ISCO, and Roeschlein? Reply with quote
Wondering if someone can enlighten me on how the three names tie together? Was Isco a spinoff? Many schneider lenses appear to have near identical Roeschlein equivalents.


PostPosted: Sat Nov 25, 2023 3:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Optische Anstalt Jos. Scheider & Co was founded in 1913 by Josef Schneider. It was / is situated in Kreuznach. Early lens designs were by Josef Schneider himself, and Ernst Arbeit (who had designed e. g. the Meyer Euryplan and the Leitz Micro-Summar).

In 1924 Albrecht Wilhelm Tronnier became head of optical design at Schneider Kreuznach, and he re-organized the lineup, introducing famous lenses such as the Xenar 1:4.5, the Angulon wide angle 1:6.8, the Kine-Xenon 1:1.5, the Xenon 1:2 and the Leica-Xenon 1:1.5.

ISCO (Josef Schneider Co) was a second production line, set up 1936 by Albrecht Tronnier in his hometown Göttingen. It seems that ISCO was related to upramping the military production since Tronnier did compute quite a few fast and superfast lenses for aerial photography (e. g. a Xenon 2/12.5 cm which was built in >50'000 pieces at ISCO, and different Nacht-Xenons such as 1.5/300mm, 1.7/300mm and 2.3/400mm). Sure enough, the Schneider website claims that they were producing mainly "for the cinema industry" durig the 1940s ... well, well ... (https://schneiderkreuznach.com/de/unternehmen/ueber-uns/historie).

Stephan Roeschlein was born in 1888 near Munich in Southern Germany. He spent some time in Rochester, developing lenses. Before WW I he returned to Germany (first Rathenow, then Meyer Görlitz). In 1936 he started working at Schneider Kreuznach where he became the successor of Albrecht Tronnier as the head of optical design of Schneider Kreuznach. 1948 Roeschlein and his son founded Roeschlein Kreuznach and started developing lenses such as the Telenar and the Luxon. Roeschlein Kreuznach was sold to Sill Optics in 1964 and is now part of that company (https://www.silloptics.de/unternehmen/chronik/).

S


PostPosted: Sat Nov 25, 2023 4:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Ah Thanks. I knew that ISCO was closely related but was unfamiliar wit Roeschlein's relationship.


PostPosted: Sat Nov 25, 2023 11:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Thanks... Kinda surprised that ROESCHLEIN glass is held in such high regard at least by price in the market.


PostPosted: Sat Nov 25, 2023 9:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Gatorengineer64 wrote:
Thanks... Kinda surprised that ROESCHLEIN glass is held in such high regard at least by price in the market.


Is it?? Probably rarity, not performance?? Or does someone have first hand experience here?

S


PostPosted: Sat Nov 25, 2023 10:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
stevemark wrote:


Is it?? Probably rarity, not performance?? Or does someone have first hand experience here?

S


Yes, I think you're probably right! I have a Roeschlein Supronar 75 mm f/3.5 enlarging lens (I think it's a Tessar). It's in a pretty bad state so I can't say how it performed originally, but I'd say it probably was a decent lens once, but doesn't seem to be anything special, both in terms of image as well as build quality:

X marks the spot by simple.joy, on Flickr

Family matters by simple.joy, on Flickr

Time for a hop dog! by simple.joy, on Flickr

From the images I've seen the Roeschlein Kreuznach Luxon 50 mm f/2 seems quite nice in terms of rendering, but I doubt it's anything special apart from that.


PostPosted: Sat Nov 25, 2023 11:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
My experience with Roeschlein is quality barrrel, orkmanship and design but "meh" glass.


PostPosted: Sun Nov 26, 2023 1:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
jamaeolus wrote:
... but "meh" glass.


Roeschlein never had an exceptional reputation as lens designer ... unlike Rudolph, Bertele, Merté, Tronnier, Berek, Mandler Koelsch and others ...

S


PostPosted: Sun Nov 26, 2023 8:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Others= Glatzel


p.


PostPosted: Sun Nov 26, 2023 10:37 pm    Post subject: Re: Relarionship between Schneider, ISCO, and Roeschlein? Reply with quote
Gatorengineer64 wrote:
Wondering if someone can enlighten me on how the three names tie together? Was Isco a spinoff? Many schneider lenses appear to have near identical Roeschlein equivalents.


There's a draft article about Isco here: https://deltalenses.com/the-isco-story-2/

If you skip the work-in-progress introduction, the final (and most complete) section details the on/off relationship of Isco and Schneider from inception to absorption, with particular reference to their sometimes-competing cine lenses (Cinelux, UltraStar, etc).


PostPosted: Mon Nov 27, 2023 12:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
The 50mm F2 Luxon lens appears to be a 5/4 design not unlike the 58mm Primoplan by Meyer Optik. The lens is discussed and disassembled here:

https://pakira3.sakura.ne.jp/wp/?p=103784

Some blog posts online mention Stephan Roeschlein as a designer of the Primoplan lens, however the modern Meyer Optik company quotes the name Paul Schäfter as the original designer. In any case prewar patents were rendered (more or less) invalid in the aftermath of the second world war, so the company were able to use the scheme for their own lens.


PostPosted: Mon Nov 27, 2023 7:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
After reading the excellent exposition of Joeeph Schneider v/s ISCO referenced above, one may wonder why the J in Joseph became I in ISCO. Earlier ortography used I for J.

p.


PostPosted: Mon Nov 27, 2023 10:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
paulhofseth wrote:
After reading the excellent exposition of Joseph Schneider v/s ISCO referenced above, one may wonder why the J in Joseph became I in ISCO.

p.


Not uncommon hundred years ago. J and I seem to some extent interchangeable in German texts from around 1900.

There's a similar issue with the "long s" (ſ) ve "normal s" (s). The long s (ſ) these days isn't used any more, apart from its combination with the normal s (ſs), nowadays written as ß.

And yeah, in Switzerland the rules are different of course - we have no ß, but we always write ss. The latter (ss) has some ominous connotations not seen with ß, but now we are really OT ...

S


PostPosted: Mon Nov 27, 2023 11:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
paulhofseth wrote:
After reading the excellent exposition of Joeeph Schneider v/s ISCO referenced above, one may wonder why the J in Joseph became I in ISCO. Earlier ortography used I for J.

p.


I've read that J was used instead of I in German whenever a vowel followed... So Josef instead of Iosef (which is a correct spelling of that name in some other languages, I seem to recall). So when you say JSCO as single letters (J-S-C-O) this version would be correct, while if it is treated as a new word ISCO, the J would be wrong. Perhaps they decided to change it, when it became clear that no one would ever say the first version... but who knows.

Then again, there's also this gem of a lens name by Schneider Kreuznach: "Jsogon" (http://forum.mflenses.com/schneider-jsogon-isogon-f4-5-40mm-t61830.html), so it seems they were pretty random with that stuff or probably changing things on the fly if some trademark dispute was looming. I always think of Agfa/Staeble with a lens called Magnogon while Rodenstock had a Magnagon.


PostPosted: Tue Nov 28, 2023 2:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
simple.joy wrote:

I've read that J was used instead of I in German whenever a vowel followed... So Josef instead of Iosef (which is a correct spelling of that name in some other languages, I seem to recall). So when you say JSCO as single letters (J-S-C-O) this version would be correct, while if it is treated as a new word ISCO, the J would be wrong.

Correct.

simple.joy wrote:
Then again, there's also this gem of a lens name by Schneider Kreuznach: "Jsogon", so it seems they were pretty random with that stuff or probably changing things on the fly ...

Probably correct as well. Remember - some lenses are marked with "JSCO", others with "ISCO". Just google it ...

S


PostPosted: Wed Nov 29, 2023 5:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Quote:

it seems they were pretty random with that stuff or probably changing things on the fly

Maybe they had more important issues to deal with in the 1930s/40s... like designing more cinema lenses...

...Which in itself might not have been that incorrect, given that all war propaganda at the time happened through weekly cinema screenings of "news" items


PostPosted: Wed Nov 29, 2023 6:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
simple.joy wrote:

I've read that J was used instead of I in German whenever a vowel followed...


Exakta cameras were labelled Jhagee all the way up to the VXIIA facelift model, then the label was changed to Ihagee.
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