Soligor

Soligor GmbH is a German manufacturer of photographic equipment, optics, video surveillance equipment, and personal electronics. Founded in Stuttgart in 1968 as A.I.C. Phototechnik GmbH by Allied Impex Corporation (USA), the company changed its official name in 1993 to match the brand name used on its optical products.

Most commonly encountered products were manufactured in Japan, (to quite a reasonable standard-many by Tokina,) under the Soligor brand, as well as Miranda, (which was acquired by Allied Impex in the 1960's.) The company also seems to have had an association with Vivitar, (the [http://www.vermontel.net/~wsalati/CasualCollector/t4_for_two.htm T4 interchangeable mount] , for instance.)

The company is currently located in Leinfelden-Echterdingen, just outside Stuttgart, in Baden-Württemberg.

The T4 interchangeable mount

Most famously associated with Soligor, designed in the 1960's, (apparently by Tokina,) the T4 mount was intended to compete with Tamron's T-thread, and the later Adapt-A-Matic mounts. The idea behind these mounts was 'one lens, any mount'. A retailer, for instance, only had to keep one lens model and a few, cheap mounts, rather than many lenses in every different lens mount. It allowed automatic aperture, aperture indexing/metering facilities.

Mounts were offered in almost all popular fittings. It was superseded by the incompatible TX system, (though you could use a T4 mount on a TX lens.)

* T4 interchangeable mounts produced for:
**Canon FL (same as FD)
**Minolta SR (Uses MC and MD line of lenses)
**Miranda bayonet (all except Sensorex)
**Miranda Sensorex
**Nikon F - Silver or black
**Pentax/Praktica universal screw (M42)
**Topcon RE,

External links

* [http://www.vermontel.net/~wsalati/CasualCollector/t4_for_two.htm T4 for Two] Informative site about the interchangeable mounts
* [http://www.soligor.com/ Soligor GmbH] official website.

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