Carl Zeiss AG

Carl Zeiss opened an optics workshop in Jena in 1846. By 1847, he was making microscopes full-time. In 1861, the rapidly growing company had a staff of about 20 and won a gold medal at the Thuringian Industrial Exposition. By 1866 Zeiss sold their 1,000th microscope. In 1872 physicist Ernst Abbe joined Zeiss, and along with Otto Schott designed greatly improved lenses for the optical instruments they were producing. After Carl Zeiss's death in 1888, the business was incorporated as the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung in 1889.

By World War I, Zeiss was the world's largest producer of cameras. Zeiss Ikon represented a significant part of the production, along with dozens of other brands and factories, including a major works at Dresden.

In 1928 the Zeiss company acquired Hensoldt AG, which has produced Zeiss binoculars and rifle-scopes since 1964 this has occasionally resulted in twin products being offered under both the "Hensoldt" and "Zeiss" brand-names. The Hensoldt System Technology division (resulting from a merger of the military-optics operations of Leica and Hensoldt) was continued by Zeiss under the "Hensoldt" name until 2006.

As part of Nazi Germany's Zwangsarbeiter program, Zeiss used forced labour, including Jews and other minorities during World War II. The destruction of the war caused many companies to divide into smaller subcompanies and others to merge. There was great respect for the engineering innovation that came out of Dresden—before the war the world's first 35 mm single-lens reflex camera, the Kine Exakta, and the first miniature camera with good picture-quality were developed there.

At the end of the war, Jena was initially occupied by the United States Army. When Jena and Dresden were incorporated into the Soviet occupation zone, later East Germany, the US Army relocated some parts of Zeiss Jena to the Contessa manufacturing facility in Stuttgart, West Germany, while the remainder of Zeiss Jena was reestablished by the (eastern) German Democratic Republic as Kombinat VEB Zeiss Jena. The Soviet Army relocated most of the existing Zeiss factories and tooling to the Soviet Union, establishing the Kiev camera-works.

In the West, business activity restarted in Oberkochen in present-day Baden-Württemberg (southwestern Germany) as Opton Optische Werke Oberkochen GmbH in 1946, which became Zeiss-Opton Optische Werke Oberkochen GmbH in 1947, but was soon renamed to "Carl Zeiss". West-German Zeiss products were labelled "Opton" for sale in the Eastern bloc, while East German Zeiss products were labelled "Zeiss Jena" or simply "Jena" for sale in Western countries.

In 1973, the Western Carl Zeiss AG entered into a licensing agreement with the Japanese camera-company Yashica to produce a series of high-quality 35 mm film-cameras and lenses bearing the Contax and Zeiss brand names. This collaboration continued under Yashica's successor, Kyocera, until the latter ceased all camera production in 2005. Zeiss later produced lenses for the space industry and, more recently, has again produced high-quality 35 mm camera-lenses. The eastern Zeiss Jena was also well known for producing high-quality products.

Following the German reunification of 1989–1991, VEB Zeiss Jena — reckoned as one of the few East-German firms that was even potentially able to compete on a global basis — became Zeiss Jena GmbH, which became Jenoptik Carl Zeiss Jena GmbH in 1990. In 1991, Jenoptik Carl Zeiss Jena was split in two, with Carl Zeiss AG (Oberkochen) taking over the company's divisions for microscopy and other precision optics (effectively reuniting the pre-war Carl Zeiss enterprise) and moving its microscopy and planetarium divisions back to Jena. Jenoptik GmbH was split off as a specialty company in the areas of photonics, optoelectronics, and mechatronics.

Business relationships

Zeiss has licensed its name or technology to various other companies including Hasselblad, Rollei, Yashica, Sony, Logitech and Alpa. The nature of the collaboration varies, from co-branding optics designed by another firm (e.g., Sony) to complete optical design and manufacturing (e.g., Hasselblad).

On 27 April 2005, the company announced a collaboration with Nokia in the camera phone market, with Zeiss providing camera optics. The first smartphone to be co-engineered with Zeiss optics was the Nokia N90, Zeiss will again provide optics for Nokia products through a collaboration with HMD Global announced on 6 July 2017.

On 17 December 2020, Vivo and Zeiss announced a long-term strategic partnership to jointly promote and develop breakthrough innovations in mobile imaging technology. The first “Vivo Zeiss co-engineered imaging system” will be featured in the Vivo X60 series, followed by Vivo X-Fold 3 Pro, and lowered to their V-series. As part of the collaboration agreement, Vivo and Zeiss will establish the Vivo Zeiss Imaging Lab, a joint R&D program to innovate mobile imaging technology for Vivo's flagship smartphones.

Other products

Zeiss offers a wide range of products related to optics and vision. These include camera and cine lenses, microscopes and microscopy software, binoculars and spotting scopes, eyeglasses and lenses, planetariums and dome video-systems, optical sensors, industrial metrology systems and ophthalmology products. Even video glasses belong to the product range. In the summer of 2012, the new video glasses Cinemizer OLED were to come on the market. In addition to the viewing of 2D and 3D movies, it will be possible to play computer games when fitted with the equipment.