Schneider Kreuznach

Jos. Schneider Optische Werke GmbH

Formerly	Optische Anstalt Jos. Schneider & Co. (1913–1922) Jos. Schneider & Co., Optische Werke, Kreuznach (1922–1998)
Company type	Private
Industry	Digital imaging
Founded	1913; 111 years ago (1913), in Bad Kreuznach, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany
Headquarters	Ringstraße 132, 55543 Bad Kreuznach, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany
Products	Photographic lenses Cinema projection lenses Industrial optics Precision mechanics
Number of employees	660 (group total)[1]
Subsidiaries	Pentacon (Dresden) ISK Optics (Göttingen) Schneider-Optics (New York, Los Angeles) Schneider Asia Pacific (Hong Kong) Schneider Optical Technologies (Shenzhen)[1]
Website	schneiderkreuznach.com/en/

Jos. Schneider Optische Werke GmbH (commonly referred to as Schneider) is a manufacturer of industrial and photographic optics. The company was established on 18 January 1913 by Joseph Schneider as Optische Anstalt Jos. Schneider & Co. at Bad Kreuznach in Germany. The company rebranded to Jos. Schneider & Co., Optische Werke, Kreuznach in 1922, and the current Jos. Schneider Optische Werke GmbH in 1998.

In 2001, Schneider received an Oscar for Technical Achievement for their Super-Cinelux motion picture lenses. It is best known as manufacturers of large format lenses for view cameras, enlarger lenses, and photographic loupes. It also makes a limited amount of small- and medium-format lenses, and has at various times manufactured eyeglasses and camera rangefinders, as well as being an OEM lens maker for Kodak and Samsung digital cameras. It has supplied the lenses for various LG devices and the BlackBerry Priv. It also supplied the lenses for the Kodak Regent camera in the 1930s and other classic cameras such as certain models of the Rolleiflex starting in the 1940s, the Kodak Retina and Kodak Retinette camera series in the 1950s and 1960s, and certain specialty lenses for Hasselblad. In 1961, it created Feinwerktechnik GmbH, a manufacturer of electrical-hydraulic servo valves.

In recent years, it has acquired several other companies:

• In 1985, it acquired the B+W Filter Manufacturing Company (founded in 1947 by partners Biermann and Weber), maker of the line of B+W filters.^[2]

  

• In July 1987, it purchased Rollei Fototechnic GmbH.
• In 1989, it purchased Käsemann/Oberaudorf, a manufacturer of glass and plastic polarizing materials.
• After 1991 it acquired the former East-German (GDR) camera and lens manufacturer Pentacon/Practica (Dresden)
• In 2000, it acquired Century Optics, an American lensmaking firm.

From the start of its production in 1914, Schneider had produced their 500,000th lens by June 1932, its millionth by November 1936, and its 10 millionth lens by January 1967. As of April 2000, it had produced over 14,730,000 lenses. The list below converts any cm designations on earlier lenses to mm (so a 16.5 cm lens is shown as a 165 mm lens).