Any real difference between Rodenstock and Schneider?

[Sevo]

Isco was a part of Schneider prior to Mandermann buying the company. The company was closed, Isco was spun off, and employees were reduced. He then re-opened as a new company with a different name.

It may well be that Schneider represented them in the US, but that is a different matter. As companies they were (at least formally) separate entities from the start until at least the seventies - if Schneider really owned them at the time they went bankrupt, they must have purchased them shortly before.

Isco may have since been re-acquired by the current Schneider but not by Heinrich Mandermann. He died several years ago. His acquistions included B+W, Rollei as well as Schneider.

It may have escaped you, but the Manderman estate, represented by his daughter, still owns Schneider...

[Bob Salomon]

It may well be that Schneider represented them in the US, but that is a different matter. As companies they were (at least formally) separate entities from the start until at least the seventies - if Schneider really owned them at the time they went bankrupt, they must have purchased them shortly before.



It may have escaped you, but the Manderman estate, represented by his daughter, still owns Schneider...

It was part of the factory, as was the USA division of Schneider. There was quite a bit of news about them spinning it off because of the percipitous drop in the use of lenses for super 8 lenses at the time they went under.
And yes, I know that his daughter in Israel is still involved. I believe she still owns a or some hotels there (Red Lion)? When we represented Rollei and B+W for him in the states he had invited us to go there but never had the chance and then we switched from B+W to Heliopan (he was not happy that the Rodenstock lens distributor sold B+W in the States and that the Schneider division in the USA did not) and then he sold Rollei to Samsung and we no longer worked with him but are still friendly with some of the Schneider management in Bad Kreuznach still. We worked with some of them in our Rollei and B+W days.
The least time we sold Rollei though was in 1996, since we started representing Rollei the last time in 1986 when it was part of United Scientific in the UK and stopped after it became part of Samsung we were there for all of Manderman's ownership. We were also involved with Rollei's involvement with Agfa for the development of the automatic school camera/lab that was developed out of the Dresden Practika factory that he was involved in as well as their original attempt at digital imaging with the ScanPacks digital backs for the 6xxx system in the 80's and early to mid 90s..

[Leigh]

This was a question to Lynn Jones not to you.

But this is "my" thread, and it's not about the companies.

Have the common courtesy to start your own if you want to discuss OT company history.

Don't hijack mine.

- Leigh

[John Kasaian]

I think you'l find as many variations between lenses put out by the same company (Schneider, or Rodenstock) as you will among like lenses between the two firms.
Unless your willing to have a dozen or so examples of each manufacture inspected by an independent lab in order to root out a "winner" I wouldn't think that there is much of a point in making a distinction between the two. IMHO, unless you're shooting from a space platform the issue is more of an exercise in frustration than anything practical---and even if you did find a "winner" any of the variables Armin listed would immediately toss it out of the winner's circle.

No sheet of film has ever lost any sleep worrying about who made the lens or camera. My 2-cents anyway.

[Leigh]

I think you'l find as many variations between lenses put out by the same company (Schneider, or Rodenstock) as you will among like lenses between the two firms.
No sheet of film has ever lost any sleep worrying about who made the lens or camera.

Hi John,

I agree. I wanted to investigate the possibility that there were differences I didn't know about.

I've done a fair amount of shooting over the last 50 years, but I don't have the budget to invest in a bushel basket full of lenses, then spend months and $$$ comparing them.

Thanks much.

- Leigh