Voigtländer, Peter Wilhelm Friedrich von (1812-78), German optical manufacturer. The Voigtländer firm was founded in Austria in 1756 by Johann Christoph Voigtländer (1732-97), originally to make scientific instruments. It was continued by his son Johann Friedrich (1779-1859), who started lens manufacture in 1808, and, in 1837, by his grandson Peter Wilhelm Friedrich. He saw photography as a new market for optics and agreed to produce Josef Petzval's newly computed photographic portrait lens in 1840. The Petzval lens was an immediate success, being up to twenty times as fast as its contemporaries, and by 1850 some 8, 000 had been produced. The f/3.6 Petzval lens with a focal length of 150 mm was fitted by Voigtländer to a metal daguerreotype camera in 1841, of which c.670 were made.
Voigtländer and Petzval quarrelled in 1845 over finance and, partly to avoid litigation, Voigtländer opened a branch optical works in Brunswick in 1849. Some 60, 000 Petzval-type lenses were produced over the next twenty years. The Vienna branch was closed in 1866, and Voigtländer was ennobled by the Austrian emperor. He retired from the business in 1876 and it was carried on by his son, Friedrich Ritter von Voigtländer (1846-1924). The company continued to manufacture photographic optics and cameras and was taken over by Zeiss Ikon in 1965. The rights to the name were subsequently sold to Japan.
— Michael Pritchard
