Est. 1756 · Nakano, Japan (manufactured by Cosina) · 7 lenses
Voigtländer's origins trace to 1756 in Vienna, making it the oldest optical company name in continuous existence. Johann Christoph Voigtländer began producing mathematical instruments, and his grandson Peter Wilhelm Friedrich von Voigtländer created the first mathematically computed photographic lens — the Petzval Portrait lens (1840), designed by Joseph Petzval, which was 16 times faster than the Daguerreotype's original optic.
Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, Voigtländer produced landmark designs including the Heliar (1900), a five-element lens noted for its smooth rendering and correction of spherical aberration, and the Color-Skopar and Ultron series. The company relocated from Vienna to Braunschweig, Germany in 1849 and changed hands several times — acquired by Schering AG in the 1920s, sold to the Carl Zeiss Foundation in 1956, merged into Zeiss Ikon in 1965, and eventually passing through Rollei and Plusfoto before the brand was licensed to Cosina.
Since 1999, the Voigtländer brand has been manufactured by Cosina Co. Ltd. of Japan, which produces a line of manual-focus lenses for Leica M, Sony E, Nikon Z, and other mounts. Cosina's Voigtländer lenses are known for pushing aperture boundaries (the Nokton 50mm f/1.0) and for applying modern multi-coating and aspherical technology to refined versions of classic formulas like the Heliar and APO-Lanthar.
Notable designs: Heliar, Nokton, APO-Lanthar, Color-Skopar, Ultron