Professional Digital Cameras and Jenoptik
A long Tradition
JENOPTIK Laser, Optik, Systeme GmbH was founded 1995 and is a fully-owned subsidiary of the JENOPTIK AG technology group of Jena, Germany. In the field of laser technology, optics and sensor systems, the company develops, produces and distributes laser beam sources, optical components, modules and system solutions as well as the technologies used in the precise measurement, imaging, structuring and analysis of a variety of materials. The company’s success is anchored in its use of the latest technology and its custom-designed applications.
Professional digital cameras have a long and successful tradition at JENOPTIK. This is not easily to be seen since a lot of products made by JENOPTIK appear as OEM components in other products – in other words you can think of something like “JENOPTIK inside”.
During the last decades the former VEB Kombinat Carl ZEISS Jena, after the German reunification JENOPTIK, has manufactured various imaging systems for space missions and industrial applications. Especially the space applications put highest demands on the technological conditions of facilities. Clean room conditions, precision tools and highly skilled employees provided the prerequisite for manufacturing highly reliable cameras equipped with state-of-the-art electronics and control software for usage in space. Among them are multi-spectral cameras used in Sojus, Salut and MIR missions or the ASTRO project, an opto-electronical star sensor for orientation of space stations in interplanetary space. For industrial applications, aerial photography and military purposes different camera systems have been manufactured ranging from large-field scanners and cameras for metrology to spectral imaging devices.
The facilities at JENOPTIK provided best prerequisite for giving birth to the first ProgRes® microscope cameras in 1990 – introduced by Kontron Elektronik in Eching, near Munich.
ProgRes® and Microscanning
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The models of the successful ProgRes™ 3000 series were the first cameras in market using the „Microscanning“ principle, also referred to as „Pixel Shifting“. The image sensor of such a camera can be moved in sub-micron displacements by means of piezoelectric actuators. Using this technique the image plane of e.g. the microscope is „scanned“ by the array CCD sensor similar to a line scanner. The successively captured single images are then recombined to an image with greatly increased spatial and color resolution.
The Microscanning principle uses piezoelectric actuators and an array CCD for scanning an object, increasing resolution and avoiding color moiré.
ProgRes® stands for Programmable Resolution: The Microscanning principle also provides digital image resolutions that are more than suitable for professional print outputs – while using a CCD sensor that is small compared to nowadays standards.
The ProgRes™ 3012 for example captured image sizes up to 4608x3480 pixels in true non-interpolated RGB - an incredible large image size for a commercially affordable digital camera at the beginning of the age of digital photography. This is one of the reasons why the ProgRes™ 3012 has been popular not only for microscopy usage but also for image archiving and documentation in museums and other institutions as well as for commercial applications such as professional studio photography or pre-press.
The Birth of Eyelike™
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ProgRes™ 3012‘s popularity among photographers in the 1990s and the beginning of the age of digital photography set the cornerstone for a new series of digital cameras by JENOPTIK: the Eyelike™ digital camera system was born. This camera series tailored for commercial photography applied the Microscanning principle to a large full-frame CCD sensor.
The Eyelike™ DCS, introduced to the market in 1996, included a 4 Megapixel CCD and a mechanical shutter wheel and was designed as a digital film replacement for view cameras. This unique camera has become one of the most productive workhorses in many commercial photographic studio environments. The unique video preview allowed the photographer to control all camera settings in a live preview.
Bigger, better, faster - smaller: in a consequential step the successful Eyelike™ technology has been integrated into a small „digital back“ that replaces the film magazine of medium format SLR cameras. With the Eyelike™ MF, launched in1998, the shutter of the hosting camera is used as mechanical shutter for the big 6 megapixel full frame CCD. The Eyelike™ precision series launched in 2002 not only replaced the fiber-optic interface by IEEE1394a Firewire but introduced also sensor sizes up to 22 Megapixel, providing up to 352 Megapixel image sizes in Microscanning mode.
In 1997 the imaging group of Kontron Elektronik was split up. The camera development part was acquired by JENOPTIK, adding development, sales and marketing resources specialised in digital imaging products to its own competencies. The new digital camera division based in Eching now marketed the cameras as part of the business division Sensor Systems of JENOPTIK Laser, Optik, Systeme GmbH.
ProgRes® C-Series of Cameras
In 2001 JENOPTIK launched the ProgRes™ C14 digital microscope camera as a successor of the ProgRes 3000 series. The ProgRes™ C14 started with new Microscanning, peltier cooling and an IEEE1394a FireWire interface.
Soon the camera became popular for various applications in scientific microscopy, reputed for color reproduction and superior image quality up to 12 Megapixels. The shape of the housing, a reminiscence to a historical upright microscope, becomes a characteristic feature of this series. Also LEICA Microsystems is marketing this camera successfully under the label DC500. In the next years the ProgRes™ C series has been expanded by the C12 and C10 models, using high resolution CCD sensors, now covering a broad range of applications in scientific or industrial microscopy and macro photography. In 2004 the ProgRes™ C10 has been updated to the ProgRes® C10plus. Since 2007 this camera is available under the name of ProgRes® C3. In the same year JENOPTIK introduced the CMOS-based ProgRes® CT3 to the market.
Relocation from Eching to Jena
The Digital Imaging Competence Center
Beginning in April 2003 the JENOPTIK subsidiary, JENOPTIK Laser, Optik, Systeme GmbH, started to combine its Digital Imaging division’s activities at the Jena site, thus tying that important business area more closely together with Jena-based development and distribution resources.
Since then a unified „Digital Imaging Competence Center“ has been completed in the immediate vicinity of JENOPTIK’s Jena headquarters, featuring research and development, marketing, distribution, customer service and the production of high-resolution camera systems ProgRes® for scientific imaging and Eyelike™ for professional photography. This also includes all stages from in-house electronic development and opto-mechanical construction, software programming to flexible production of high-precision components. For example, some sections of precision manufacturing are now domiciled in new class 1000 clean rooms.
The technological know-how in laser technology, optics, precision engineering and the experience in the industrial application of sophisticated technologies of translating processes on the production floor make the production of complex prototypes, small series or volumes of up to 100,000 products a year possible. Thus, JENOPTIK Laser, Optik, Systeme GmbH is prepared very efficiently for the most different requirements of its sales and OEM partners.
In addition to the further expansion of the company’s range of high-resolution cameras for scientific and commercial photography of the ProgRes® and Eyelike™ series, the development and manufacture of customised camera modules for OEM applications will be expanded. In future, also custom-made high-resolution camera modules will be developed and manufactured in Jena for partners in automation, biotechnology, medicine, and other branches.
ProgRes® Development Overview
| 1970s |
Development of today’s JENOPTIK multi-spectral cameras used in space missions. Development of various special cameras. |
| 1980s |
Kontron Elektronik introduces the ProgRes™ 3000 series with Microscanning manufactured by JENOPTIK (1989). |
| 1990s |
Stereo camera for the Russian Mars mission in 1994. Various Digital Cameras for industrial applications (thermography, metrology). JENOPTIK acquires Digital Imaging group from Kontron Elektronik. |
| 2000 |
Introduction of ProgRes™ C14. |
| 2002 |
Launch of ProgRes™ C12 and ProgRes™ C10. |
| 2004 |
ProgRes® C10plus and ProgRes™ STAR are introduced. Launch of stand-alone capture software ProgRes® CaptureBasic. |
| 2005 |
Launch of ProgRes® C14plus for high performance applications with true-color reproduction. Extension of ProgRes® range by sensitive monochrome cameras (ProgRes® MF series) and color research cameras (ProgRes® CF – series). |
| 2006 |
Introduction of stand-alone capture software ProgRes® CapturePro for WIN and MAC OS with several capture features and measurement tools. |
| 2007 |
New market appearance of ProgRes® range with renamed cameras ProgRes® C3 and ProgRes® C5. The new, CMOS-based, ProgRes® CT3 is being launched.
New products will follow… |