The C. Friedrich Story - article on lesser known lens manufacturer from Munich, Germany

Hi everyone. It's been a while. Hope you're doing well!

I've been very busy writing about (my beloved, but often very niche) manufacturers and their lenses. I'm not sure there's much interest for that stuff around here, but if someone wants to take a look, there certainly are lots of words to be found there and many images made with lenses never intended for taking pictures.

C. Friedrich was a small and almost unknown company located in Munich, Germany, which even most photographers likely have never even heard about.

Besides some historical information and lens specifications, I've also tried to create a significant amount of sample shots in order to show why I'm particularly interested in the small company's output.

I've mainly focused my attention on the industrial lenses the manufacturer made and some of those are indeed quite unique and interesting as taking lenses today, if you're interested in older lenses.

You can find the article here:

deltalenses.com/the-c-friedrich-story/

If you have any additional information, corrections or questions, please don't hesitate to reach out - I'm always interested to hear your perspective on the matter.

Here are a couple of sample shots:

And a couple of (cross view) stereo images:

A most comprehensive article!

the third example is not showing on my system (19:50 UTC June 12).

dprevived.com/a/Mh7rM2elsZgCYWxrE9NcffjTkadSEx3XDaUc9C3M8eFr0e2pvUiteEA1Tg4JgZyY/34298/?shva=1

Thank you very much! You're right... I exceeded the limit of images per post. I've tried to remove it now, though. There are of course lots more sample shots in the article anyway.

Yes, it's gone now.

My greetings simplejoy, it's a nice surprise to see you posting here.
I really enjoyed seeing your beautiful macrophotographs.

I looked at the link, your article seems very interesting, but particularly imposing.
I'll have to set aside a few hours to read it in its entirety ;)

I particularly like your intro photograph (the Friedrich lenses) 👍🏼

Hi Simplejoy
Great to see you posting here again. As you said it has been a while ;-)
I've missed your special adapted lenses and the incredible artistic macro shots you've taken with such bokeh monsters.
Interesting story!
I've selected my favorites here.

Thank you very much! I'm glad you find it interesting. I know it's a very niche topic, so I guess it's somewhat boring to most people. But I find it worthwhile to try and archive some of that stuff, because these lenses are somewhat unique and interesting.

The Intro photograph was taken with a Schneider Kreuznach Xenon 75 mm f/2 lens, which is going to be part of an upcoming article in the near future and among my favorite lenses. It's very similar to the S-Coronar 75 mm f/1.9 which can be seen in the image.

Hi Alan,

I'm happy that you're interested as well. Finding out stuff about a manufacturer like C. Friedrich can be quite challenging. John Jovic (who created the fantastic "Big list of enlarger lenses" ) included some of these lenses into his list and shared some relevant information about the sources with me. With the help of Dan Fromm, an extremely knowledgeable photographer from the US, I managed to find a copy of an old Rolyn Optics catalog, which helped a lot in terms of classifying and dating these lenses and finding out more about possible connections.

A lot of additional information came from old forums like the mflenses one or a german equivalent. I also reached out to a local photography expert in Munich (whom I mention in the article) and got some highly interesting information from the books of Hartmut Thiele, who has published lists of serial numbers as well as very well sourced information in regards to lenses, manufacturers and historical details from the german optical industry in the past.

Many questions are still open but I decided to share what I was able to find out so far, so perhaps people who know more about this or that can reach out and help me share more accurate information.

Hi and thanks a lot!

In regards to bokeh monsters: Because some of the C. Friedrich lenses were (perhaps wrongfully) included in a list of enlarging lenses by the famous expert on the matter Ctein, they seem very unique with their speed. There are barely any enlarging lenses with a speed of f/2 or faster and so I've been curious to know why a small manufacturer from Munich would attempt to try and make those. Turns out they were originally made for different purposes (projection) but because they do have a variable aperture (which is incredibly rare among projection lenses), they are still very unusual.

The company seems to have created lenses of good quality overall and I felt like it was worth to give C. Friedrich a shoutout.

Hello to you too, so glad to see you back here! I've missed your imaginative photos. These are lovely, in your own classic style. The article was interesting; even though I don't do anything remotely similar to what you are doing, your work fascinates me. Please keep dropping by to share!

I'm really happy you find it interesting. I've written a number of articles (some more comprehensive than anything I've ever done) and pretty much all of it is new/unique information, which has never been shared or assembled anywhere beforet. It's all very niche stuff though, so I doubt more than a handful of people are reading that with interest. But even now a couple of people have reached out to provide some more details or even information about additional lenses, as well as sample shots. Some of my other articles feature a lot more contributions from other experimental photographers as well and it's very inspiring to see how others are using these unusual lenses.

Someone suggested it might be great to put all of that information and images into a book but I guess that would be a giant waste of time and money without a sizeable audience.

It's been a lot of work but equally fun so far, that's for sure!

I don't know... I guess there's still an enormous amount of work (layout/proofreading etc.) involved beforehand. I'm not sure how well print on demand works for books with lots of images in them? Do you think the quality is acceptable? If so, it certainly would be an interesting possibility.

Indeed... that's my experience as well. I've helped getting a couple of books ready for printing and the amount of work is gigantic. And those were mostly text-based. Books with lots of images between the text are significantly more work. At the moment I doubt there would be enough interest, but who knows what the future brings...

At the least, perhaps a webpage with links and a brief summary to each of the articles?

The content is fascinating even if I am unlikely to go down the adapted path - I do enjoy science and photography is slowly opening my knowledge of optics / optical engineering.

Thank you - I'm glad you find it interesting. The deltalenses site (it's not mine, btw. its initiator is Mark Welsh) already is like a big hub - with a gigantic lens database, tutorials, overviews and in-depth articles about the history of manufacturers as well as certain lens families.

With the amount of information there it certainly could use an overhaul in terms of structure as well, but the main thing missing is still contributors... if a couple of people would be motivated to help out, I'm sure it could grow into the definitive base for adapted lens enthusiasts. But most people would rather do their own blog and call it a day... It really is a pity, given how small the circle of notable creators is and how big the potential.

I've mostly been focused on some more niche subjects so far, but there are a couple of topics which could be interesting to more people and encompass more lenses which are readily available. It just takes some time to finish those things.

Thanks a lot for the offer!

Thanks for the information. I would be able to create a (hopefully decent looking) PDF, but I don't see the benefit compared to a website, where interactive elements can be implemented.