Pentacon, an East German camera and lens manufacturer of the Soviet-era, was formed in 1959 through a merger of several East German camera manufacturers. The company initially carried a different name, but in 1968 was renamed to VEB Pentacon after another famed East German optics manufacturer, Meyer-Optik Görlitz, was merged into the company. Meyer was the original developer of a number of very popular at that time lenses, with most lenses carrying design names like Orestogon, Lydith, Oreston, Primotar and Trioplan after the optical designs used in the lenses. All these lenses were renamed to Pentacon and design naming was dropped. So Pentacon 50mm f/1.8 is effectively a Meyer Oreston 50mm f/1.8 and Pentacon 300mm f/4 is actually Meyer Orestegor 300mm f/4 and so on... To make things even more confusing, Carl Zeiss Jena carried a couple of old Meyer designs and exported them to Western countries under 'aus Jena' brand.
