If you’re like me, the naming practice of the (former) German/East German lens manufacturer Meyer-Optik Görlitz (MOG) has caught your attention. Maybe your reaction has mostly been annoyance, maybe fascination.
Some time ago I started collating what I know about lens names that use real names (by which I mean anything which is not just a string of numbers and letters that defines the key properties of the lens) and was both fascinated and mystified by the naming practices used at MOG, because while MOG was not alone in naming their lenses (in fact, many German lens manufacturers did this) they seem to have a logic of their own.
In the end, this fascination developed into an article that traces the main points of the lineage of MOG’s Interchangeable lenses with a special focus on naming practice.
P.S. In researching this article, I managed to gather a lot more information on lens ‘naming’, which will likely find its way onto JAPB at some stage.
