German 90s and 135s from the 1950s

Why were the German 35mm rangefinder camera manufacturers so wedded to the 90mm focal length? Was it because Leitz led the way with its 90mm f4 Elmar? Was it an easy focal length to fit on a mount with a behind-the-lens leaf shutter? Perhaps part of the understanding as to why the German 35mm camera industry largely failed in the late 1950s can be seen in this picture of a range of various 90mm lenses and a equivalent 85mm f2 Nikkor-P from the same period. The five lenses here are arranged by size. The smallest is a 90mm f4 Color-Telinear with a close focusing distance of 1.8 meters (6 feet). Distance is marked in both feet and meters, the body is mostly aluminum with chromed brass at the wear points. It is a nicely-made lens but a close focus of only six feet a loser and the maximum aperture hardly inspiring. Next is a 90mm f3.5 Tele-Xenar made by Schneider for the Akarette/Akarelle. Beautiful construction in heavy chrome-over Brass. Focuses down to one meter (39 inches). Again, nice lens but tiny controls are hard to read even in good light and small maximum aperture makes available light photography challenging. To the right of the black-finished Nikkor is a 90mm f4 Schacht-Travenar for the Leidolf Lordomat. Relatively light weight with a largely aluminum barrel and focuses down to one meter. Again, a nicely-finished lens but the small maximum aperture limits dim-light shooting. Finally we have a Leitz 90mm f2.8 Elmarit from the 1960s. A long-focus design instead of a a telephoto, it is notcably longer and larger. A flexible design but being Leitz, expensive. Now compare these optics with the 85mm f2 Nikkor-P in mount for the Nikon rangefinder cameras. It focuses down to 3.5 feet (sligtly over a meter), but with a maximum aperture of f2, it puts all the other lenses to shame by at least one full f-stop. Only the Zeiss 85mm Sonnar matched that. So what was happening? Japanese companies like Nippon Kogaku (Nikon) and Canon were selling lenses that were lighter, faster and generally closer focusing than the German equivalents. Customers were looking for those features and finding it in Japanese products at competitive prices. Part of the problem was that, except for the Leitz lens, all these optics were made to fit in front of a behind-the-length shutter which allowed only small rear optics in order to clear the shutter opening without vignetting. As long as the German companies were limited in what shutters they could use due to patent restrictions and Zeiss Ikon's promotion of Compur and Prontor shutters, customers could only buy slow speed optics.

The same holds true for the 135mm lenses these same companies sold. Here are three 135mm and one 130 lens from late 1950s and mid-1960s. The Schacht-Travenar and the Tele-Elmar, both f4 lenses, are similar in size to the 135mm Nikkor-Q f3.5 lens. All have similar close-focusing capabilities. But look at the Agfa 130mm f4 Color-Telinear with its huge 62mm filter front. Again, a need to compensate for a small exit pupil led to a big front and a no-where-near close focus of three meters!