Paul Ewins
1-Oct-2009, 23:36
I'm trying to write a few small articles for the magazine of my local camera collectors club. One of the topics is the Schneider Symmar lens and I'm hoping that somebody may be able to help fill in some gaps for me. The biggest of these is trying to work out when the various series were introduced. The timeline I have at the moment goes like this:
1914 - Symmar name trademarked
1919/1920 - f6.8 Symmar lenses on sale
1934/39 - range from 60mm to 360mm on sale.
1940+ - f6.8 lenses now sold in "triple convertible" form
1952 - f5.6 double convertibles introduced in 135, 150, 180 & 210 focal lengths.
1954 - f6.8 lenses discontinued, presumably the f5.6 versions of the 240, 300 & 360 are now available
1962 - 100mm Symmar available (may have occured earlier)
1966 - 80mm Symmar available (may have occured earlier)
1967/71? - 355/620 f6.8 in Copal 3 sold alongside 360/620 f5.6 in Compound IV
1972 - Symmar-S on sale (introduced b/w 66 and 72??) available as 100, 135, 150, 180, 210, 240, 300 & 360 (f6.8)
1982 - 120 & 480 have been added since 1978
1991/2001 - APO Symmar rage introduced
2002 - APO Symmar L range introduced
So you can see that I don't have a firm date for the introduction of the Symmar S or the APO-Symmar. I have almost no information on the triple convertible version and would like to at least have a list of focal lengths to compare to the pre-war lenses. 1934 is the earliest brochure I have seen, so anything prior to that would also be helpful.
Most of this information has been gleaned from the brochures on the Schneider site and Seth Broder's Camera Eccentric site with a bit of extra background from the Vade Mecum. Unfortunately the brochures only provide a snaphsot as it were, and I don't know what was happening in the years between the brochures.
1914 - Symmar name trademarked
1919/1920 - f6.8 Symmar lenses on sale
1934/39 - range from 60mm to 360mm on sale.
1940+ - f6.8 lenses now sold in "triple convertible" form
1952 - f5.6 double convertibles introduced in 135, 150, 180 & 210 focal lengths.
1954 - f6.8 lenses discontinued, presumably the f5.6 versions of the 240, 300 & 360 are now available
1962 - 100mm Symmar available (may have occured earlier)
1966 - 80mm Symmar available (may have occured earlier)
1967/71? - 355/620 f6.8 in Copal 3 sold alongside 360/620 f5.6 in Compound IV
1972 - Symmar-S on sale (introduced b/w 66 and 72??) available as 100, 135, 150, 180, 210, 240, 300 & 360 (f6.8)
1982 - 120 & 480 have been added since 1978
1991/2001 - APO Symmar rage introduced
2002 - APO Symmar L range introduced
So you can see that I don't have a firm date for the introduction of the Symmar S or the APO-Symmar. I have almost no information on the triple convertible version and would like to at least have a list of focal lengths to compare to the pre-war lenses. 1934 is the earliest brochure I have seen, so anything prior to that would also be helpful.
Most of this information has been gleaned from the brochures on the Schneider site and Seth Broder's Camera Eccentric site with a bit of extra background from the Vade Mecum. Unfortunately the brochures only provide a snaphsot as it were, and I don't know what was happening in the years between the brochures.