Carl Zeiss no more: classic nomenclature gets short

This week the team at ZEISS have announced that they’ll no longer be branding their lens family with the name of their founder. Though we’re not sure how Carl will look upon this decision himself, we’ll light a flash bulb in this two-word brand’s memory for sure. Carl Zeiss AG and ZEISS will move forward with the one dominant word from here on in – and a history of the brand has been recounted by the company as well, splits and reformation and all.

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What we’ve got here are a couple of images of some lovely ZEISS lenses that are becoming ZEISS-ised in name. You’ll find the technology behind these amalgamations of plastic, metal, and glass to be the same – it’s just the power of the name that’s being updated. And it’s certainly not the first time this sort of thing has happened with the company.

As spoken of by ZEISS this week in a bit of a celebratory gesture for the update, the brand as well as the logo has made some major change-ups over the years.

The big news here is that the lenses made by the company – microsopes, eyeglass lenses, measuring machines, binoculars, and of course camera lenses – will all be working with ZEISS where they’d otherwise be including the name Carl.

“Throughout the company, the label ZEISS can be found on products in most markets and product areas. The lenses have for the most part been the exception here for historical reasons. The decision to also label all lenses “ZEISS” with immediate effect provides an opportunity to retell the history of the brand name.”

You’ll know the name Carl Zeiss if you’re a smartphone fan from such recent gems as the Nokia PureView brand lineup and the Nokia 808 PureView, the first and most stand-out entry from the pack. You’ll also see the Carl Zeiss two-name brand on the Nokia Lumia 720, the larger (yet smaller) Nokia Lumia 925, and essentially every Lumia in-between.

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Masses of Sony cameras work with the Carl Zeiss brand – and have been making a transition for some time, as well. The camera you’re seeing here is the Sony CyberShot RX100 II, working with both the Carl Zeiss name on its lens and the blue/white ZEISS banner logo below.

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You’ll find oddities in the history of this brand as well – the Carl Zeiss Cinemizer Plus video headset works with the Carl Zeiss brand on its lens (and a “Works with iPhone” logo on its box).

The grid of logos you’re seeing here comes from ZEISS in order – the original trademark of the company now known as ZEISS being the Carl Zeiss Jena label. This is what ZEISS calls its first “lens-shaped label” as well, this circular shape appearing throughout the brand’s history.

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After a variety of separations including those in the Carl Zeiss Oberkochen and VEB Carl Zeiss Jens split saw such oddities as the OPTON “West Germany” differentiator. Carl Zeiss East and West were reunited in 1991 and in and around 1993-1994 the logo you’ll see today – blue with white lettering and a lens curve at the bottomn – were made real.

The first set of lenses that’ll be released with the ZEISS name are the ZEISS Touit lenses. According to ZEISS, some of these lenses were made with the old logo, the rest with the new.

“For production-technical reasons, some Touit lenses were produced and placed on the market with the label “Carl Zeiss.” Perhaps these will one day become coveted collector items. Both versions are original lenses and do not differ from each other in any other respect.” – ZEISS

Time to pick a few up? Certainly a situation in which odd bits and pieces collectors will want to jump on the ebay wagon – or head to their local lens shop. Hop to it!

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Carl Zeiss no more: classic nomenclature gets short is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

25 Sizzling Photos Of Summer

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A Simple Adapter Turns Your Binoculars Into a Smartphone Zoom Lens

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Bullet Time goes home-made with a ceiling fan and a rocket

The term “bullet time” has been loosely applied to camera-based projects that take on what’s been made most famous back in the original Matrix movie and spread wide with film, television, and even advertisement spots before and since. What we’re seeing this week as a Hack-a-day project that takes the concept and makes it a do-it-yourself project. All you need to DIY is a fan, a dimmer switch, a GoPro camera, and some fireworks!

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Of course the fireworks are optional, but what better way to demonstrate an oddity like this than with a controlled bit of demolition? The first video you’re seeing here shows how the fan and the GoPro camera were made friendly with a control switch. The dimmer here allows the fan to move at a speed that can keep the camera in business with its ability to capture video at high speed.

While this certainly isn’t the first time we’ve encountered this camera taking on an extreme mission, it’s certainly one of the strangest places we’ve seen it mounted. GoPro is a brand that prides itself on being able to roll through extreme conditions and capture video from the oddest of angles – but we’d bet its intended use-case list never included a ceiling fan.

Next you’ll see the camera on the fan with the dimmer capturing a lovely 4th of July preparation in firework form. Have a peek and see what you make of it.

And remember – as it is with all DIY projects, especially when they have “hack” in the title, use caution if you decide to make it a reality for yourself. This isn’t the work of amateurs, no matter how rudimentary it looks. You don’t want a GoPro flying at your head at break-neck speed, no matter how awesome the resulting video would be!


Bullet Time goes home-made with a ceiling fan and a rocket is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

What Happens When You Take Hundreds of Pictures at the Same Spot

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Photographer Pelle Cass had a genius idea for his series Selected People: what if he took hundreds of pictures from the same location and then picked out people and animals from each of those pictures and combined them into a single image. It shows the random life of a single setting in one image.

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As sacred a hashtag as #tbt is on Instagram, the hashstag #nofilter is right there with it. If the selfie’s purpose is to crown your own face with likes, not using a filter on a picture and then bragging about it through a hashtag is to megaphone your arrival as an artist. Like saying you could totally be a photographer if you weren’t stuck in a cubicle all day. Like telling the whole world to look at you and then not look at you but really, look at you. Digital flexing. #nofilter

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With the Eye-Fi Mobi, the company has become wise to the power of the instant web connection. Where before this specific solution, a step or two between the initial photograph and the point at which you can share it with the web were required – and a desktop computer worked best – here the user

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iblazr LED Flash for Mobile Devices Plugs into 3.5mm Port: from Audio to Video

Most modern smartphones have a built-in LED camera flash. But if you think that your phone’s flash isn’t bright enough to properly document your party nights, dramatic Instagram pics or Bigfoot sightings, keep an eye out for the iblazr. It’s an external flash for mobile devices that plugs in via the 3.5mm headphone jack.

iblazr led flash

The folks behind the iblazr claim that its four LEDs provide four times more brightness than the iPhone 5′s built-in flash when taking pictures, and up to eight times brighter when shooting videos. The image below supposedly shows the difference between the iPhone 5′s flash (on the left) and the iblazr (on the right).

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The iblazr will also have its own power supply so you won’t worry about it draining your mobile device’s already limited battery life. It will also come with a free camera app that will let users toggle the iblazr’s brightness and other options.

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But of course the iblazr’s best feature is the fact that it plugs in via the 3.5mm headphone jack. This makes it compatible with virtually all mobile devices. Apparently you can also control multiple iblazr units at once using a headphone splitter, as shown in one of the images in the gallery. Their website is hinting at a fundraising campaign soon; keep an eye on it or on their Facebook page if you want to. I hope it comes with sensor that will prevent it from flashing when it senses that the user is shooting a video vertically.

[via DamnGeeky]