Pierre Angénieux

Pierre Angénieux (Saint-Héand, 14 July 1907 — 26 June 1998) was a French engineer and optician, one of the inventors of the modern zoom lenses, and famous for introducing the Angénieux retrofocus.

Biography

Angénieux graduated from the École nationale supérieure d'arts et métiers in 1928, and from the École supérieure d'optique the next year. He was a student of Henri Chrétien.

After working for Pathé, Angénieux founded a company specialising in cinema equipment in 1935, "les établissements Pierre Angénieux". He started using Geometric optics rather than Physical optics in the design of his lenses, as Carl Zeiss and Ernst Abbe did, and developed computing methods decreasing the time needed to design a lens by an order of magnitude.

In 1950, Angénieux introduced the Angénieux retrofocus, which allowed mounting wide-angle lenses on Single-lens reflex cameras. (Retrofocus lenses had previously been developed for the film industry in 1931 by H. W. Lee of Taylor, Taylor and Hobson: British patent no. 355,452.)

In 1953, Angénieux designed the fastest lens of the time, reaching f/0.95. The design was used in the Bell & Howell 70 series cameras for 35 years.

In 1956, Angénieux designed a constant aperture 17-68mm zoom lens, and a 10-120mm in 1958 [ [http://www.bolexcollector.com/lenses/60angenieux.html bolexcollector.com] ] .

Angénieux' company provided NASA with photographic equipment used in the Ranger program, Project Gemini, Apollo program, Apollo-Soyuz Test Project and Space Shuttle. Notably, the first high-resolution photographs of the Moon, by Ranger 7, were made with a 25 mm f/0.95 lens.

In 1964, Angénieux received an Scientific or Technical award "for the development of a ten-to-one Zoom Lens for cinematography." [ [http://www.oscars.org/aboutacademyawards/awards/62_angenieux.html Pierre Angenieux | Gordon E. Sawyer Award | AMPAS ] ] He was honoured with the "Grand Prix des Ingénieurs Civils" in France in 1973, and with the 1989 Gordon E. Sawyer Award. His company also produced lenses for the Kodak Retinette and Pony cameras. [ [http://www.mwclassic.com/articles/agenieux/ageniuex.htm Classic camera on Angénieux] quote: "...following an agreement between the former company and Kodak, Angenieux became sole supplier for a number of years. Angenieux lenses may thus be found fitted to a range of the more popular middle-price Kodak cameras of that period that included the 620 rollfilm models as well as 35’s such as Retinettes and Pony 35’s." ]

Reference and notes

External links

* [http://www.angenieux.com/pages/106.php?URL_Page=/pages/003.php Pierre Angénieux]
*fr [http://patrimoine.gadz.org/gadz/angenieux.htm Pierre Angénieux] on Gadzarts.
* [http://www.mwclassic.com/articles/agenieux/ageniuex.htm An introduction to Angénieux lenses]

Persondata
NAME = Angénieux, Pierre
ALTERNATIVE NAMES =
SHORT DESCRIPTION = French engineer and optician
DATE OF BIRTH = 14 July 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH = Saint-Héand, France
DATE OF DEATH = 26 June 1998
PLACE OF DEATH =