Pierre Angénieux (French pronunciation:[pjɛʁɑ̃ʒenjø]; 14 July 1907 in Saint-Héand – 26 June 1998) was a French engineer and optician, one of the inventors of the modern zoom lenses, and famous for introducing the Angénieux retrofocus.
After working for Pathé, Angénieux founded a company specialising in cinema equipment in 1935, Les Etablissements Pierre Angénieux. He started using Geometric optics rather than Physical optics in the design of his lenses, as Carl Zeiss and Ernst Abbe did, and developed computing methods decreasing the time needed to design a lens by an order of magnitude.
In 1964, Angénieux received a Scientific or Technical award "for the development of a ten-to-one Zoom Lens for cinematography."[2][3] He was honoured with the Grand Prix des Ingénieurs Civils in France in 1973, and with the 1989 Gordon E. Sawyer Award.[4] His company also produced lenses for the Kodak Retinette and Pony cameras.[5]
In 1993, Angénieux' eponymous company was acquired by Thales Group and renamed Thales Angénieux. The company still specializes in optical, electro-optical and optical-mechanic products.[6]
^Classic camera on AngénieuxArchived 2015-02-12 at the Wayback Machine quote: ...following an agreement between the former company and Kodak, Angenieux became sole supplier for a number of years. Angenieux lenses may thus be found fitted to a range of the more popular middle-price Kodak cameras of that period that included the 620 rollfilm models as well as 35’s such as Retinettes and Pony 35’s.
