Pierre Angénieux
Pierre Angénieux (born July 14, 1907 in Saint-Héand near Saint-Étienne ; † June 26, 1998 ) was a French mathematician , engineer and entrepreneur .
He was awarded two Academy Awards for his achievements in the development, research and manufacture of film optics . He is known as the developer of the retro-focus and zoom - objective and its optics are used by prominent directors such as Stanley Kubrick and Peter Jackson used. The first steps of mankind on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission, as well as the first images of the moon by a Ranger probe, were recorded with optics developed and manufactured by him.
Life
education and study
The interest and talent of Pierre Angénieux for mathematical calculations was evident during his successful training at the Notre-Dame de Valbenoîte school in Saint-Etienne. Here he was encouraged to pursue a career as an engineer. After two years of preparation, he was accepted at the École nationale supérieure d'Arts et Métiers in Cluny in 1925 . Here Pierre Angénieux received his first diploma in 1928.
His second diploma followed a year later at the Institut d'optique théorique et appliquée . His training there was mainly carried out by Henri Chrétien - who also went down in the annals of film history thanks to the development of the Cinemascope lenses.
He then began to work - first, from 1930, for the then world market leader for film production: Pathé .
At Pathé he got to know the world of cinema , to which he will remain connected until the end of his life. During his work at Pathé until 1935, cinema technology developed rapidly - sound film was introduced, the first color films were made ... it was a time of new beginnings and new technologies for the still young cinema industry.
Establishment of Angénieux and German occupation
Under this impression, he founded the Angénieux company in 1935 .
The Angénieux company immediately begins manufacturing products for professional cinema production. Pierre Angénieux had managed to build a very good reputation among French directors and cameramen while working for Pathé . He was commissioned by prominent filmmakers of the era, such as Jean Renoir and Abel Gance , to develop specific optical systems, such as lenses for projection onto several screens. His company ateliers in the Rue Murger in Paris became a frequented port of call for professional filmmakers.
Then the path becomes more difficult: The impending attack by the German army forces Pierre Angénieux to shift both his development focus from civil photographic products to military-relevant equipment and his company headquarters - on behalf of the government. The French government is decentralizing the now security-relevant optical operations: OPL to Châteaudun, SOM. BERTHIOT to Dijon , SAGEM to Montluçon , SERPI to Chatellerault, TRT to Brives - and Angénieux is moving back to his birthplace Saint-Héand with his optical works.
During the occupation of France, he found himself with his company in the zone libre , the southern part of France not occupied by Germany. He used the occupation years to make groundbreaking theoretical considerations regarding the design of lenses. This then pays off after the end of the war. In 1946, immediately after the peace, Angénieux moved back to Paris and began to convert the theoretical knowledge into products.
Success through innovation: Angénieux is changing the cinema world
In 1950 Angénieux then introduced the retrofocus - which enabled a major development boost in the optical performance of wide-angle lenses. The retrofocus immediately became a resounding success: numerous camera manufacturers began to equip their cameras with Angénieux optics, including Leitz, Alpa, Leica, and Arri .
In 1953, the next applied products hit the market, including a lens with a 1: 0.95 aperture, which roughly doubles the available light for recording compared to the sharpest competitors. This caused a sensation, also in the USA at the then most successful camera manufacturer Bell and Howell. He decides to equip the BH70 camera with Angénieux optics. The combination of BH70 and Angénieux optics will be the most successful camera of the era with over 30,000 units sold within the next 35 years. Other camera manufacturers such as Kodak , Beaulieu and Contina follow as customers.
After retrofocus , Pierre Angénieux developed his second major innovation in 1956: the zoom lens .
Over the next four years, he perfected this new type of optics, until the technology matured in 1960 with the 10x zoom: all zoom lenses manufactured since then by all manufacturers are based on the concept of the Angénieux 10x zoom.
In 1964, Pierre Angénieux then received the first of his two Oscars - explicitly for his zoom lenses.
Departure into space and calmer areas
In the same year, Angénieux and NASA began a close collaboration that would extend to equipping the space shuttle . Pierre Angénieux supplies the optics for the Ranger , Apollo and Gemini missions as well as for Skylab .
From 1975, at the age of 68, he gradually began to distance himself a little from the management of his company Angénieux and began to write: Le Parc de la Tête d'Or is the title of the novel that he wrote in the last years of his life. Researching and developing, he remains connected to "his" company until his death.
After his death in 1998 his work has endured. Even the most modern computer programs use the trigonometric equations he developed to develop lenses. Its retrofocus made the 35mm cameras the most common type of camera and is still the basis of their optics. The zoom lenses manufactured by all manufacturers since then are based on the Angénieux 10 × zoom concept. His company Angénieux, now part of the Thales Group, continues to manufacture many of the most powerful and expensive zoom lenses for cinema film production , which are still used by star directors like Peter Jackson for their productions.
Angénieux and NASA
Two of the most famous moving images are probably the first approach to the moon and the first steps on the moon.
The first shot, the collapse on the moon, was shot by the Ranger VII spacecraft through an RCA Vidicon camera with an Angénieux f / 0.95 25mm lens. The first recording of the image sequence was around 2500 kilometers from the surface of the moon, the last individual image was less than 500 meters. The image of the moon's surface was resolved by the camera and optics, despite the high speed, at 30 centimeters.
The ranger program, whose nine probes were equipped by Angénieux, served NASA to explore the moon and prepare for a landing of a manned spacecraft on it.
The knowledge gained was used to carry out the Apollo program . With the landing of Apollo 11 in 1969, a person set foot on the moon for the first time, and again NASA opted for Angénieux optics for recording.
In 1973 the less fortunate Skylab was equipped with a Westinghouse Electric and an Angénieux zoom.
Soon afterwards, during the Apollo- Soyuz mission, Angénieux lenses were able to film each other for the first time, as both the Soviet and American spaceships were equipped with the identical Angénieux zooms.
Another lens was then developed for the shuttle. A wide angle lens with an 86 degree viewing angle. Up until 1994 every shuttle will be equipped with several of these lenses.
The cinema, Kubrick and Angénieux
From 1930 to the present day, prominent filmmakers used and continue to use Angénieux optics for many of the most successful films. A list is therefore only intended to provide examples of typical uses in a few films.
In 1971, his cameraman John Alcott used 16 mm Angénieux optics for Stanley Kubrick's Clockwork Orange , although the film was shot on a 35 mm camera. Kubrick wanted 20: 1 zoom optics, so Alcott called his friend Bern Levy, who worked at Angénieux. Angénieux had developed an extender, and it, together with the 16mm Angénieux zoom optics, gave exactly what Kubrick had in mind.
The next collaboration between Kubrick and Alcott at Barry Lyndon won an Oscar for best camera. This time, Ascott was able to work with regular Angénieux lenses, the 25-250 F3.2 35mm zoom lens, which is still widely used in cinema production today. With this zoom, for example, the battle scenes during the day in Barry Lyndon were filmed.
Almost 20 years later, when testing the first portable 4k digital cinema camera , a prototype from RED , Peter Jackson uses a successor to the 25-250 F3.2 35mm zoom lens from Barry Lyndon, the 24-290 F3 35mm Zoom lens.
Awards and achievements
- In 1964, Pierre Angénieux received the Oscar for the first time for the 10 × zoom
- In 1973 France gave him the Grand Prix des Ingénieurs Civils
- In 1990 he was presented with a second Oscar - this time for his life's work
- 1994 Nessim Habif Prize
Important devices
- Angénieux 25-250 Zoom . 1978, very popular zoom optics of the era
- 1.0: 0.95 T optics 1951, first lens of this speed
literature
- Patrice Hervé Pont: Chasseur d'images mars 1999 - Un million et demi d'objectifs made in France .
- R. Andreani: L'Objectif Photographique. Publications Photo Revue 1951.
- B. Vial: Histoire des appareils francais , Maeght Editeur 1991.
- R. Kingslake: A History of the photographic lens , Academic Press Inc. 1989.
- André Masson: Revue de l'association d'anciens élèves de l'Ecole supérieure d'optique . March 1999 (ESO 48)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jean Vuillemin: Arts et Métiers Magazine , September 2001 (French)
- ↑ André Masson: Pierre Angénieux, Créateur du zoom modern ( Memento of the original of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF, French)
- ↑ Jacques Debize - Optical Design and Engineering: 42 years of cine 35 mm zoom leadership at Smithsonian / NASA ADS Physics Abstract Service, bibcode : 2004SPIE.5249..261D
- ↑ Michel Ciment: Kubrick
- ↑ Giancannini Piene: Barry Lyndon ( Memento from February 25, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) (French)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Angénieux, Pierre |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French mathematician, engineer and entrepreneur |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 14, 1907 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Saint-Héand near Saint-Étienne |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 26, 1998 |