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Ernst Leitz GmbH was a German corporation based in Wetzlar, a German centre for optics as well as an important location for the precision engineering industry.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(April 2022) |
Ernst Leitz GmbH was a German corporation based in Wetzlar, a German centre for optics as well as an important location for the precision engineering industry.
Carl Kellner, mechanic and self-taught mathematician, published his treatise Das orthoskopische Ocular, eine neu erfundene achromatische Linsencombination (The orthoscopic ocular, a newly invented achromatic lens combination) in 1849, describing a new optical formula he had developed. The ocular was capable of rendering an image with the correct perspective, free of the distortions typical of other microscopes at that time. Following his early death on 13 May 1855, his widow continued the business he had left behind, the "Optisches Institut" (optical institute).
The fine mechanic Ernst Leitz I (1843–1920) from Baden arrived at Wetzlar in 1864 and entered service at the Optisches Institut. He was trained as an instrument maker for physical and chemical apparatus and had several years' experience making watches in Switzerland. Initially, Leitz was a part shareholder of the business (in 1865), but took over as sole owner in 1869, and continued it under his own name. Leitz introduced serial production, raising sales volume rapidly after 1871. Consulting with his clients, he continued to refine the microscopes to their needs.
The microscopes were produced for biomedical as well as industrial purposes, including mineralogy. Leitz microscopes improved on other models of their day in several ways, including lighting and optics, particularly with orthoscopic eyepieces. By 1880, the company had reached an annual production numbering 500. In 1887, the 10,000th microscope was shipped, four years later the 20,000th, and in 1899, the 50,000th was completed. Bacteriologist Robert Koch was given the company's 100,000th microscope in 1907. [2] Paul Ehrlich, inventor of chemotherapy, received the 150,000th one, and Nobel laureate Gerhard Domagk, discoverer of sulfonamides, the 400,000th Leica instrument.
By the end of the 19th century, the company had a worldwide reputation. Its product range by this point included several optical instruments besides microscopes. At the beginning of the new century, Leitz introduced eight-hour days and founded a health insurance society for employees. In 1913, it introduced a first fully functional binocular microscope. After the First World War, the economic situation of Leitz was dire. Ernst Leitz died in July 1920, and the leadership of the company passed to his son, Ernst Leitz II.
Around 1920, Leitz employed around 1400 people, and by 1956, 6000. In 1924 Ernst Leitz II decided that in spite of the weak economy, the apparatus designed by his employee Oskar Barnack should enter serial production.
As part of working on cinematic gear, Barnack had customized 35mm film for use in photographic cameras. Since he felt a ratio of 2:3 to be aesthetic, the resulting format was 24mm in height and 36mm wide. Around this, he constructed a camera designed for casual snapshots. This design formed the basis of the original Leica camera, as presented at the spring fair 1925 in Leipzig. The success of that camera was enormous and well beyond expectations.
In 1925, the first polarising microscope was made, and in 1931 the first comparative macroscope for criminological applications. In 1932, Leitz pioneered a fluorescent microscope, and three years later a photometer developed by Max Berek.
In the late 1930s, Ernst Leitz II assisted a number of Jewish employees in fleeing Germany. In 1942, Ernst Leitz GmbH employed a total of 195 foreign citizens. By January 1945, there were 989 forced laborers, 643 of them "Ostarbeiter", predominantly from Ukraine, and 316 "Westarbeiter" from France and the Benelux. [3]
Besides cameras and microscopes, Leitz developed further optical products that would define the mid-20th century, such as slide projectors of the "Prado" series, Leitz episcopes that were frequently used in schools and the Trinovid binoculars series.
One by one, the three sons (Ludwig, Ernst and Günther) of Ernst Leitz II began work at the company. Having remained intact through World War II, the production facilities could be restarted immediately after the war ended. In 1948, a separate development lab for optical glass was added, and from 1953, the design of microscope optics was computer-assisted. Upon the death of their father in 1956, the three sons jointly assumed leadership of the company.
In the late 20th century the company was divided into four independent companies:
Leica Camera AG is a German company that manufactures cameras, optical lenses, photographic lenses, binoculars, and rifle scopes. The company was founded by Ernst Leitz in 1869, in Wetzlar, Germany. The name Leica is derived from the first three letters of the founder's surname (Leitz) and the first two of the word camera: lei-ca.
Carl Zeiss AG, branded as ZEISS, is a German manufacturer of optical systems and optoelectronics, founded in Jena, Germany in 1846 by optician Carl Zeiss. Together with Ernst Abbe and Otto Schott he laid the foundation for today's multinational company. The current company emerged from a reunification of Carl Zeiss companies in East and West Germany with a consolidation phase in the 1990s. ZEISS is active in four business segments with approximately equal revenue in almost 50 countries, has 30 production sites and around 25 development sites worldwide.
Leica Geosystems based in eastern Switzerland produces products and systems for surveying and geographical measurement (geomatics). Its products employ a variety of technologies including GPS satellite navigation and laser rangefinders to enable users to model existing structures, terrains in computer based systems to high accuracies, often under 1 cm.
The Deutsches Optisches Museum Jena is a science and technology museum displaying optical instruments from eight centuries. It gives a technical and cultural-historical survey of the development of optical instruments. The development of the city Jena to the centre of the optical industries since the mid-19th-century is integrated in the exhibition, connected with the lifeworks of Ernst Abbe, Carl Zeiss and Otto Schott. In cooperation with the art club Jena non-optical themes are offered in special exhibitions. Before the opening of the Zeiss Museum of Optics in Oberkochen in 2014, the Deutsches Optisches Museum Jena was the only museum of its kind in Germany.
Carl Kellner was a German mechanic and self-educated mathematician who founded in 1849 an "Optical Institute" that later became the Leitz company, makers of the Leica cameras.
Oskar Barnack was a German inventor and photographer who built, in 1913, what would later become the first commercially successful 35mm still-camera, subsequently called Ur-Leica at Ernst Leitz Optische Werke in Wetzlar.
The M39 lens mount is a screw thread mounting system for attaching lenses to 35 mm cameras, primarily rangefinder (RF) Leicas. It is also the most common mount for Photographic enlarger lenses.
The Wild (Heerbrugg) company (pronounced "vilt") was founded in 1921 in Switzerland. The company manufactured optical instruments, such as surveying instruments, microscopes and instruments for photogrammetry among others. The company changed its name several times, first being known as "Heinrich Wild, Werkstätte für Feinmechanik und Optik", then "Verkaufs-Aktiengesellschaft Heinrich Wild's Geodätische Instrumente", later "Wild Heerbrugg AG", later "Wild-Leitz". The company was linked with Leica in 1989, then it became part of Leica Holding B.V. Its subsidiary Leica Geosystems AG became part of the Swedish Hexagon AB Group of companies in 2005.
The Leica Freedom Train was a rescue effort in which hundreds of Jews were smuggled out of Nazi Germany before the Holocaust by Ernst Leitz II of the Leica Camera company, and his daughter Elsie Kuehn-Leitz.
Heinrich Wild was a Swiss businessman, industrial designer, and inventor who was the founder of Wild Heerbrugg, a Swiss optical instruments manufacturing company.
Walter Mandler was a lens designer of Ernst Leitz Canada in Midland, Ontario. Mandler is credited with the design of more than 45 Leica lenses for the Leica rangefinder cameras and Leica SLR cameras.
Leica may refer to:
Leitz may refer to several German companies:
Leica Microsystems GmbH is a German microscope manufacturing company. It is a manufacturer of optical microscopes, equipment for the preparation of microscopic specimens and related products. There are ten plants in eight countries with distribution partners in over 100 countries. Leica Microsystems emerged in 1997 out of a 1990 merger between Wild-Leitz, headquartered in Heerbrugg Switzerland, and Cambridge Instruments of Cambridge England. The merger of those two umbrella companies created an alliance of the following 8 individual manufacturers of scientific instruments. American Optical Scientific Products, Carl Reichert Optische Werke AG, R.Jung, Bausch and Lomb Optical Scientific Products Division, Cambridge Instruments, E.Leitz Wetzlar, Kern & Co., and Wild Heerbrugg AG, bringing much-needed modernization and a broader degree of expertise to the newly created entity called Leica Holding B.V. group. In 1997 the name was changed to Leica Microsystems and is a wholly-owned entity of Danaher Corporation since July 2005. Danaher is a US venture capital company.
The Leica Standard, Model E was the fourth version of the original 35 mm Leica camera to be launched from Ernst Leitz in Wetzlar, Germany. The concept was conceived by their employee Oskar Barnack in 1913. Production of the camera began in 1925 but it was not until the end of the decade that it was perfected and full-scale production was established.
The Leica copies originate from the Leica camera that was launched by Ernst Leitz, Wetzlar in 1925, using the Leica 39mm screw mount of 26 threads per inch, and the standard 35mm film. The design was carried out by Oskar Barnack, beginning in 1913 by building a camera for 24×36 mm negatives that by now is called the Ur-Leica, or Barnack Leica; but Ernst Leitz did not decide to manufacture it until 1924. Once started, the Leica production volume doubled each year; in 1929, some 16.000 cameras were produced. In 1930, an improved model with interchangeable lens was introduced, followed a year later by the fully developed Leica II with standardized film to lens flange distance, and in 1932 the basic Leica Standard; the Leica concept was established. This camera's features are the basis for defining a Leica copy.
A macroscope or photomacroscope in its camera-equipped version is a type of optical microscope developed and named by Swiss microscope manufacturers Wild Heerbrugg and later, after that company's merger with Leica in 1987, by Leica Microsystems of Germany, optimised for high quality macro photography and/or viewing using a single objective lens and light path, rather than stereoscopic viewing of specimens, at magnifications up to around x40. The Wild, subsequently Leica "macroscope" line was in production from approximately 1976–2003; it was succeeded by the Leica Z6 and Z16 offerings, which continued an equivalent functionality, but without the "macroscope" designation. The macroscope remains a useful, if somewhat specialised, instrument for examination of relevant specimens in various laboratories today.
Ernst Leitz II was a German business person and humanitarian. He was the second head of the optics company now known as Leica Camera and organized the Leica Freedom Train to allow people, most of whom were Jewish, to escape from Germany during Nazi times.
Trinovid is the protected model designation of a roof prism binoculars series from the company Leitz (optics) based in Wetzlar, a German centre for optics as well as an important location for the precision engineering industry.
