philip_pj
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: On
|
 p.5 #13 · Brightin Star 35mm 1.7 Apo for Leica M | |
The major Chinese glassworks is well-integrated into the world system, along with giants like Schott and Hoya. Their name is CDGM.
'CDGM manufactures over 240 types of colorless optical glass, specialized lanthanum-based high-refractive-index/low-dispersion glasses, and high/ultra-high transmittance glass grades (e.g., GT and TT series).
CDGM supplies major domestic and international precision optics and photographic lens brands (including companies producing high-end optics like Laowa/Venus Optics, TTArtisan, and global brands like Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Leica).'
'CDGM is the *world’s largest producer of optical glasses* and located in Chengdu, China. Their portfolio of products include high refractive index, low dispersion lanthanum-based materials, environmentally friendly arsenic, lead and cadmium-free varieties, as well as, fluorophosphates glasses for high resolution imaging systems.'
For more than 60 years of R&D and manufacturing of optical materials, CDGM has become a leading company in domestic market. CDGM optical glass production and sales volume come out in front in the global market. CDGM has established long-term business relations with its customers which are playing important roles in their industries.
The optical glass CDGM offers has been *mainly used in cameras*, mobile phones, projectors, cctv, and automotive monitoring system. Our customers include: Leica, Canon, Nikon, Sony, Tamron, Sunny Optical, Epson, Huawei, OPPO, etc.'
Reading the *main products* of the major high end glassworks with a critical eye, we can look at the order as well as the content of the text:
Schott: 'High-performance optical glass, low-dispersion glass'
Hoya: 'Optical glass, low-dispersion glass'
CDGM: 'Customizable *refractive-index optical glass*'
Putting aside that they all manufacture 'optical glass', note the priority in each of them. Now, 'Applications' for each:
Schott: 'Scientific instruments, industrial optics, laser systems'
Hoya: 'Scientific, medical, industrial optics'
CDGM: 'Scientific, industrial, consumer optics'
Only one of this Big Three is listing 'consumer optics'. Like Zeiss, the others are heavily invested in and focused on industrial and high tech applications. CDGM's emphasis includes high end lenses and in particular, high refractive index glass. You struggle to find a Chinese lens maker who does not use this material, often copious amounts of it, in their designs. I only see it listed elsewhere in Leica's high end lenses, especially for their M-mount APOs.
It might be one of the keys to Chinese optics. It's also likely their lens makers source internally rather than from firms in US proxy vassal state Japan, fearing more indirect reprisals from the US admin (secondary sanctions etc.). CDGM sell to anybody though, and are opening an office in the US. The breadth of optical design expertise probably comes from their remarkable industrial based educational institutions.
'Viltrox, Thypoch, and Light Lens Lab do not manufacture their own raw optical glass. Like almost all modern lens makers, they buy raw glass blanks from specialized chemical and glass corporations and then handle the precision cutting, grinding, polishing, coating, and mechanical assembly in-house.'
|
