Zeiss

Carl Zeiss AG is the German holding company of the ZEISS Group, which makes optical and optoelectronic products in four segments: semiconductor manufacturing technology, industrial quality and research, medical technology, and consumer markets. Carl Zeiss opened an optics workshop in Jena in 1846. After his death in 1888, his partner Ernst Abbe set up the Carl Zeiss Foundation (Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung) in 1889; the foundation is the sole owner of Carl Zeiss AG and owns the glassmaker Schott AG.

After World War II the company was divided between the original works in Jena, in East Germany, and a new Carl Zeiss in Oberkochen, in West Germany; the two were reunited in the 1990s after German reunification. The group is headquartered in Oberkochen, and Carl Zeiss Meditec AG, its medical technology company, is the only group company traded on the stock market.

Zeiss designed the Planar (1896) and Tessar (1902) photographic lenses and has licensed its name to camera makers including Sony and Hasselblad. Stanley Kubrick used the Planar 50mm f/0.7, one of ten made, to film candlelit interiors for Barry Lyndon (1975). The Master Prime cine lenses, developed jointly with ARRI, earned two Zeiss engineers an Academy Scientific and Engineering Award.