Schneider Kreuznach

Jos. Schneider Optische Werke, GmbH

Type	GmbH (limited liability company)
Industry	Digital imaging
Founded	Bad Kreuznach, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany (1913)
Headquarters	Ringstraße 132, 55543 Bad Kreuznach, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany
Products	Photographic lenses Cinema projection lenses Industrial optics Precision mechanics
Number of employees	660 (group total)
Subsidiaries	Pentacon (Dresden) ISK Optics (Göttingen) Schneider-Optics (New York, Los Angeles) Schneider Asia Pacific (Hong Kong) Schneider Optical Technologies (Shenzhen)
Website	Official website

Schneider Kreuznach (German pronun­cia­tion: [ˌʃnaɪdɐ ˈkʁɔʏtsnax]) is the abbreviated name of the company Jos. Schneider Optische Werke GmbH, which is sometimes also simply referred to as Schneider. They are a manufacturer of industrial and photographic optics. The company was founded on 18 January 1913 by Joseph Schneider as Optische Anstalt Jos. Schneider & Co. at Bad Kreuznach in Germany. The company changed its name to Jos. Schneider & Co., Optische Werke, Kreuznach in 1922, and to the current Jos. Schneider Optische Werke GmbH in 1998.

The company is known partly for its many innovative lens designs over the course of its existence. In 2001, Schneider received an Oscar for Technical Achievement for their Super-Cinelux motion picture lenses. They are best known as manufacturers of high-quality large format lenses for view cameras, enlarger lenses, and high quality photographic loupes. They also make a limited amount of small- and medium-format lenses, and have, at various times, manufactured eyeglasses and camera rangefinders, as well as being an OEM lens maker for Kodak and Samsung digital cameras. They currently supply the lenses for the LG Dare, LG Viewty KU990, LG Renoir KC910, LG Viewty Smart GC900, LG enV Touch and the BlackBerry Priv. They also supplied the lenses for the Kodak Regent camera in the 1930s and other classic cameras such as certain models of the Rolleiflex starting in the 1940s, the Kodak Retina and Kodak Retinette camera series in the 1950s and 1960s, and certain specialty lenses for Hasselblad. In 1961, they created Feinwerktechnik GmbH, a manufacturer of electrical-hydraulic servo valves. In recent years, they have acquired several other companies: