Who actually made lenses for the Japan based camera brands?

kl122002 · May 6, 2024

I just found an old catalogue from Minolta, its about the lens fir SRT series. What triggers me with this question is :

Minolta is one of the two camera companies in Japan and one of the very few in the world that manufactures its own optical glass and lenses for its cameras

Is that just for commercial promotion, or it is actually implying something happend during the 1960-70s of Japanese camera industry ?
How about the others? Like, Olympus, Konica, Canon these big brands? I know Asahi Pentax was a optical manufacturer as well but making lens initially and re-branded, until later they started with Asahiflex. Nikon also is a pro-brand with no doubt at that time .

MattKing · May 6, 2024

Thread title tweaked slightly for clarity.
Note that part of what that Minolta material mentions is that Minolta actually manufactured the optical glass itself. Some brands sourced glass from third parties and then used it to manufacture lenses.

Les Sarile · May 6, 2024

From the Minolta brochure . . .

Minolta brochure 1 by Les DMess, on Flickr

kl122002 · May 6, 2024

MattKing said:
Thread title tweaked slightly for clarity.
Note that part of what that Minolta material mentions is that Minolta actually manufactured the optical glass itself. Some brands sourced glass from third parties and then used it to manufacture lenses.

Thanks .

That's exactly what I wish to know. I know some smaller brands, like Petri could have third parties makers , but as it mentioned, "only two" camera companies were making their own lenses at that time??

Huub · May 6, 2024

kl122002 said:
Thanks .

That's exactly what I wish to know. I know some smaller brands, like Petri could have third parties makers , but as it mentioned, "only two" camera companies were making their own lenses at that time??

Note the difference between making your own optical glass and making your own lenses. There might have been only two companies making their own glass, many others sourced their glass from a third party and made their own lenses.

neilt3 · May 6, 2024

kl122002 said:
Thanks .

That's exactly what I wish to know. I know some smaller brands, like Petri could have third parties makers , but as it mentioned, "only two" camera companies were making their own lenses at that time??

You have to understand the difference between making your own glass and grinding glass blanks into lens elements , then assembling the lens elements into a cameras lens .

Minolta mixed all the raw ingredients together and melted them down into molten glass to make their own blanks for grinding into lens elements .
Other firms just bought the glass blanks in to grind down , made to their own specifications.

Even today , there isn't that many manufacturers of glass .
There are lots of firms that make things out of glass though .
It's possible that other camera/lens manufacturers bought the glass blanks off Minolta to make theirs in the same way that Nikon and so bought digital sensors off Sony to make their digital cameras .

No doubt Minolta didn't own an iron foundry to grind down lumps of iron ore to make the metal to make it's lens bodies or parts , they bought the metal in like everyone else before forming it or turning it down on a lathe or however it was done in mass production back then.
Same goes for the other metals and plastics.

Dustin McAmera · May 6, 2024

I found this. Hikari glass was started in the 1970s, it says here, but has only been wholly owned by Nikon since 2004.

Crystal clear: Inside Nikon's Hikari Glass factory

Nikon is one of the few remaining companies that makes most of its optical glass in-house, through the wholly owned subsidiary Hikari Glass. We were invited to Japan last month to see the entire process from start to finish.

www.dpreview.com

..and another report of perhaps the same tour:

Glass for geeks: An in-depth tour of Nikon’s Hikari Glass factory

I've been on a lot of factory tours with various camera and lens manufacturers before, but had never had a chance to see how the optical glass was made that goes into the lenses we use every day. So I was really happy to receive…

www.imaging-resource.com

Elsewhere I found a reference to Japan buying large amounts of glass from Schott in the 30s.

Mark J · May 6, 2024

That would make sense, but from late 1935, the Ohara glass company was founded in Japan, and they are probably still the biggest and best-known company in the far east.
If you analyse patents, you'll find that Olympus and Canon ( for sure ) used Ohara almost exclusively.
There is a trend for in-house glass melting by photo companies dying out, though. I think the processes lend themselves to economies of scale, so it is tough to support a small glass melting operation just for your company.

kl122002 · May 6, 2024

That's exactly where I wish to know. Since this two process are separated , who provided the optical glass for them ? Nikon, Minolta, or other third parties , like Scott that mentioned? And then, is there any detailed info like how much they ordered?

That would be much interesting if it has turned out any well-known camera maker was using their competitor's glasses.

Mark J · May 6, 2024

I can't offer much more knowledge about the Japanese business, without being an insider in the companies it's hard to know exactly what they used. Hoya was and is another big supplier, and their materials are seen alongside Ohara in some of the Canon patents, so they probably supplied to a few of the manufacturers.
The European companies have also been wide-ranging in what they used. I know for sure that some of the Contax range ( eg. the 21/2.8 ) used glass from Schott, Ohara and Hoya.
Leica made their own glass until the early 90's but their in-house selection was limited, they had a few speciality types, like very high index lanthanum crowns & flints, plus some anomalous dispersion phosphate crowns and borate flints. However there must have been many normal types from Schott and Ohara used alongside these.
( ps. Corning France bought the rites to the Leica glasses and continued making them until about 2000, before giving up) .

ic-racer · May 6, 2024

Some interesting relevant history here:

For example :

"In 1938, Fuji began melting and production of optical glass and lenses. During World War II, Fuji made lenses and aerial cameras."
"In 1942, Minolta was commissioned by the Japanese Navy to manufacture optical glass at a plant near Kobe."

A Brief History of Japanese Binocular Production

An outline of Japanese binocular production In 1873, Matsugoro Asakura traveled to Austria for Japanese government sponsored study of optical manufacturing; returning in 1875 to build a lens making factory, also with government assistance. Matsugoro died before finishing the factory, which was...

www.luxxoptica.com

Dustin McAmera · May 6, 2024

Nikon again, in the 1920s:

History | Corporate Information | Nikon About Us

Unravel more than 100 years of Nikon’s history and explore future possibilities by visiting serial contents in collaboration with WIRED, “Frontiers of Vision” that review a number of era-defining products, and our “Corporate History” that relates the company’s history in chronological order.

www.nikon.com

(scroll down to 1917 etc.)

It says 'in 1922, when self-sufficiency of optical glass to supply domestic production of optical instruments became a necessity, research was resumed in earnest'
I suppose that's because Germany, having lost the First Word War and being in a state of revolution, wasn't reliable as a supplier for a while?

xkaes · May 6, 2024

Japanese lens manufacturing is a plate of spaghetti. Minolta got the lens for its first camera from Germany. Then it bought lenses from Asahi, before it started making it own. Many of its final manual-focusing lenses were made by Cosina and Tokina. Yashica got all of its lenses from Tomioka -- before it merged with Tomioka. Mamiya got much of its glass from Setagaya (Sekor) before merging. I could go on all day.

Mark J · May 6, 2024

Yes !
Isn't it true that many of the lens elements for even major brands are made in one or two big centralised companies, nowadays ? Would that be one or two of those on the left of the diagram ?
Plus in recent years there must be some manufacture in China and India ?

xkaes · May 6, 2024

Add in Indonesia, Taiwan, South Korea.......

Nitroplait · May 6, 2024

I don't think any company designing lenses, throughout history, would have been successful if only using their own glass.
Glass types seems to have been cherry picked to suit specific lens designs.
Optical heroes like Leitz, Zeiss, Pentax, Nikon etc. certainly picked from available shelves on the glass market to create the lenses that made their reputation.
Amazing rare glass producers like Schott are instrumental, but by themselves irrelevant if it wasn't for the lens designing companies that used their glass.

Paul Howell · May 6, 2024

Swiss Alpa and Miranda did not make their own lenes. Alpa picked the best lens from many manufactures for various focal lengths and contracted to have lens made in the Alpa mount, then Alpa tested and corrected to make sure the lens was at its best. In the 50mm range they used Kern Swiss, Schinder, and Pentax. Miranda used in house designers but had the lens made by 3rd parties. What is somewhat odd is that AIC the American Company that owned Miranda also owned Solagar, who until the CD lens just bought rebranded 3rd party lens. I had read one source who stated that near the end of Miranda run they did start to manufacture lenses as well as camera bodies, no idea if this is true or not.

wiltw · May 6, 2024

kl122002 said:
Thanks .

That's exactly what I wish to know. I know some smaller brands, like Petri could have third parties makers , but as it mentioned, "only two" camera companies were making their own lenses at that time??

The wording of the Minolta claim makes it possible that they were stating there were (at the time) only two companies that

made optical glass, AND
made lenses from their optical glass,

...and it was implied also that they were sold on the retail market under their own brand name

The chart in post 13 makes it apparent that Tokina, Kiron, and Tamron make lenses. I happen to know that Hoya was started by two brothers as a manufacturer of optical glass in the city of Hoya; and they do make 'lenses' for vision purposes but I do know know of Hoya brand photographic lenses, yet they are a recognized name in photographic filters.
In comparison, Kino is the company who make photographic lenses sold under the Kiron brand name, and they also sourced some lenses to Vivitar, but they do not make optical glass.
And Tokina make photographic lenses sold under the Tokina name, but the do not make optical glass.

Paul Howell · May 6, 2024

In the modern world, Tamron makes lens for Pentax, Konica Minolta did not sell its lens plant, only the camera plant and patents to Sony and still makes lens for Sony as well as industrial lens. I think all of Nikon's lens are still made in Japan.

Dustin McAmera · May 6, 2024

Nitroplait said:
Amazing rare glass producers like Schott are instrumental, but by themselves irrelevant if it wasn't for the lens designing companies that used their glass.

Schott are hardly irrelevant to the lens-makers; Wikipedia says
'In 1884, Otto Schott, Ernst Abbe, Carl Zeiss and his son Roderich Zeiss founded the Glastechnische Laboratorium Schott & Genossen (Glass Technical Laboratory Schott & Associates) in Jena, Thuringia, Germany[2][3] which initially produced optical glasses for microscopes and telescopes.'

..and Zeiss Foundation still owns Schott. That is, the lens-makers called the glass-maker into being. Of course, since then, Schott have found other markets for glass. In a previous life I have bounced quite a few of their bottles off the lab floor..

Mark J · May 6, 2024

Nitroplait said:
Amazing rare glass producers like Schott are instrumental,

This is not a very accurate description of Schott. They were the main supplier of glass in the early 20th-century and have always made a full range of glass types.

One glass producer that is often forgotten is Kodak. They were in fact leading the research in the 1930's. Marco Cavina has an excellent article about this on his blog from a few years ago.

In Japan, the glass makers I can currently think of are Ohara, Hoya, Sumita and Hikari.
Sumita have got a big slice of the market on glass types suitable for precision-molding.

xkaes · May 6, 2024

Paul Howell said:
What is somewhat odd is that AIC the American Company that owned Miranda also owned Solagar, who until the CD lens just bought rebranded 3rd party lens. I had read one source who stated that near the end of Miranda run they did start to manufacture lenses as well as camera bodies, no idea if this is true or not.

There are lots of cameras with the Soligor label -- made by actual camera manufacturers, including Seagull (http://www.subclub.org/minchin/soligor.htm). And the C/D lenses were made by several lens manufacturers -- Tokina & Kino, among others. The great Soligor C/D 650mm f8.5 CAT was also sold under the Osama and Bell & Howell labels, and made by Tokina -- but never sold under the Tokina label.

Paul Howell · May 6, 2024

Miranda did market a Senormate in 42mm with stopped down metering sold under both Miranda and Soilgar brands. In terms of lens, the early model Mirandas came with a Soligor 50mm lens, after AIC bought Miranda and Soligor they kept the brands separate. Some claim that CD stood for computer designed, other compact design. I have a Soligor CD 35 to 70 3.5 in Konica mount, a heavy lens and not all that compact, I tend to favor computer design to compete with Vivitar S1.

Nitroplait · May 6, 2024

Dustin McAmera said:
Schott are hardly irrelevant to the lens-makers; Wikipedia says
'In 1884, Otto Schott, Ernst Abbe, Carl Zeiss and his son Roderich Zeiss founded the Glastechnische Laboratorium Schott & Genossen (Glass Technical Laboratory Schott & Associates) in Jena, Thuringia, Germany[2][3] which initially produced optical glasses for microscopes and telescopes.'

..and Zeiss Foundation still owns Schott. That is, the lens-makers called the glass-maker into being. Of course, since then, Schott have found other markets for glass. In a previous life I have bounced quite a few of their bottles off the lab floor..

If you rewind and re-read my post you’ll probably realize that we don’t disagree as much as you think.

xkaes · May 6, 2024

Paul Howell said:
Some claim that CD stood for computer designed, other compact design.

I think this Soligor ad makes it obvious. None of my C/D lenses are compact, cheap or chintzy -- or any other word that I can think of that starts with a "C". Not even classy or classic.

Who actually made lenses for the Japan based camera brands?

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