Guest-edited by Allain Daigle

Lenses are classified by their focal lengths but they are also strongly defined by their provenance: for filmmakers, there is often a great difference between a nondescript lens without a maker name – and a lens bearing the name of Zeiss. This parcours suggests that these qualitative distinctions between lenses emerged over time, and that their central qualities were significantly shaped by the industrialization of lens production in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In particular, this parcours examines the optical company Zeiss, a key player in the emergence of “modern” optics. With an eye to early cinema’s classic periodization of 1890 to 1915, this parcours will demonstrate how Zeiss industrial optics manufactured not only lenses, but the mass markets and value beliefs around how precision lenses should function.