| French companies () | ||
|---|---|---|
| Alsaphot | Angénieux | Arca Swiss | As de Trèfle | Atoms | Aubertin | Balcar | Bardin | Bauchet | Baudry | Bellieni | Berthiot | Boumsell | Boyer | Bronzavia | Cord | Cornu | Coronet | Darlot | DeMaria-Lapierre | FAP | Fex | Compagnie Française de Photographie | Gallus | Gaumont | Georges Paris | Girard | Gitzo | Goldstein | Héard & Mallinjod | Hermagis | Idam | Itier | Kafta | Kinax | Krauss | Lumière | Mackenstein | Manufrance | Mazo | MFAP | MIOM | Mollier | Mundus | Olbia | Omega | OPL | Pierrat | Précidès | Richard | Roussel | Royer | SEM | Secam | SIAP | Spirotechnique | Tiranty | Vergne | Zion (France) | ||
Angénieux is a French optical company founded in 1936 and installed at Saint-Héand. It has made lenses for still and movie cameras, and for military applications.
In 1950, Angénieux released the first retrofocus lens, a design that allows to fit a wide angle lens on an SLR without interfering with the moving mirror.
In 1958, it launched its first zoom lens for movie cameras. The idea of a zoom lens appeared early, and the first usable models for movie films appeared in the 1930s, but remained highly experimental. Angénieux is one of the first companies to have sold zoom lenses on a large scale, after Zoomar and SOM-Berthiot.
Angénieux built the first zoom lens for a Leica still camera, with the 45-90/2.8 zoom for the Leicaflex.
Angénieux stopped the production of still camera lenses in 1994. It continues to produce lenses for the movie and video industry, as well as other specialised applications.
The old Angénieux 1:0,95/50 mm C-mount movie camera lens has become concurrent to Cosina's new Voigtländer Nokton and Leica's new Noctilux thru the old lense's adaptibility to new digital camera systems Micro Four Thirds and Sony NEX though adaption of C-mount lenses might need expertise and not just the adapter.