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Formerly | Optikotechna |
---|---|
Industry | Optical, opto-mechanical and opto-electronic systems |
Founded | 1933 |
Founder | Alois Beneš Alois Mazurek |
Headquarters | Přerov, Czech Republic Hauppauge, New York |
Area served | Worldwide |
Products | Consumer, Industrial & Military applications |
Revenue | 2,519,362,000 Czech koruna (2017) |
99,134,000 Czech koruna (2017) | |
178,696,000 Czech koruna (2017) | |
Total assets | 3,017,122,000 Czech koruna (2017) |
Number of employees | 2,364 (2017) |
Website | www |
Meopta - optika, s.r.o. is a Czechia-based company that manufactures various products mainly in the field of optics. The company was once well-known for its still and movie cameras, although it no longer manufactures such products.
The Optikotechna company was founded in 1933 in Přerov, Czechoslovakia. Originally established with the intention of producing a limited range of lenses and condensers, the company rapidly expanded the range of products to include enlargers, composite lenses, binoculars, riflescopes, cameras and slide projectors.
After 1935, Meopta optika became a subsidiary of Zbrojovka Brno and a major supplier of military optics for the Czechoslovak Army. The company retained its focus on military production when it was seized by the Germans during the occupation of Czechoslovakia as well as after WWII, when it was nationalized and renamed to Meopta – an acronym for MEchanická OPTická výrobA ("mechanical optical manufacturing"). In 1945 the company merged with the Bratislava subsidiary of C. P. Goerz. Apart from military deliveries, the company became one of the world's major manufacturers of cinema projectors between 1947 and 1970. The abrupt halt of military demand after the dissolution of the Warsaw pact forced the company to refocus mainly on civilian applications.
The company was privatized in 1992. Members of the Rausnitz family, who emigrated from Czechoslovakia to the United States in 1946, became the majority owners. During WWII the Rausnitz brothers had been active soldiers of the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps and were decorated for their service.
Meopta U.S.A., Inc. was founded by the same Czech-American family in New York in 1960 under the name Tyrolit Company, Inc. At that time, its main business was selling grinding wheels in the US and Canada. Tyrolit gradually changed its focus to manufacturing various optical products and in 2005 was renamed to Meopta U.S.A., Inc. [1] [2] [3]
In December 2009, the Ministry of Industry and Trade issued a decision to provide a subsidy from the OPEI for the Modernization of Meopta Research and Development project, so that the following year the development building could be reconstructed and research and development capacities were significantly expanded. [4]
In 2013, the company had 2,200 employees in Přerov and 150 in the USA.
Meopta owner Paul Rausnitz received the Medal of Merit for the State in the field of business from the hands of the President of the Republic Miloš Zeman on October 28. [5]
TLR 6x6
[6] Folding 6x6
| Interchangeable lens (viewfinder/rangefinder) 35mm
Fixed lens 35mm
Stereo 35mm
16mm Subminiature
Stereo 16mm
Large format 13x18
|
8 mm Cameras
9.5 mm Cameras
16 mm Cameras
8 mm and 9.5 mm Projectors [7]
| 16 mm Projectors [8]
35 mm Projectors [9]
|
Meopta is producing Binoculars, Telescopic sights, Red dot sights and Monoculars on the field of sport optics and caters hunters, birdwatchers and sport shooters. [10] In 2019 the production includes the following series of products:
Binoculars:
Rifle Scopes [12]
Reflex sights
Bausch & Lomb is an American-Canadian eye health products company based in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada. It is one of the world's largest suppliers of contact lenses, lens care products, pharmaceuticals, intraocular lenses, and other eye surgery products. The company was founded in Rochester, New York, in 1853 by optician John Bausch and cabinet maker turned financial backer Henry Lomb. Until its sale in 2013, Bausch + Lomb was one of the oldest continually operating companies in the United States.
A monocular is a compact refracting telescope used to magnify images of distant objects, typically using an optical prism to ensure an erect image, instead of using relay lenses like most telescopic sights. The volume and weight of a monocular are typically less than half of a pair of binoculars with similar optical properties, making it more portable and also less expensive. This is because binoculars are essentially a pair of monoculars packed together — one for each eye. As a result, monoculars only produce two-dimensional images, while binoculars can use two parallaxed images to produce binocular vision, which allows stereopsis and depth perception.
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Subminiature photography is photographic technologies and techniques working with film material smaller in size than 35mm film, such as 16mm, 9.5mm, 17mm, or 17.5mm films. It is distinct from photomicrography, photographing microscopic subjects with a camera which is not particularly small.
Pentax Corporation was a Japanese camera and optical equipment manufacturer. Currently, it exists as the Pentax Life Care Business Division of Hoya's medical endoscope business, as well as the digital camera brand of Ricoh Imaging, a subsidiary of Ricoh.
Nikon Corporation is a Japanese optics and photographic equipment manufacturer. Nikon's products include cameras, camera lenses, binoculars, microscopes, ophthalmic lenses, measurement instruments, rifle scopes, spotting scopes, and equipment related to semiconductor fabrication, such as steppers used in the photolithography steps of such manufacturing. Nikon is the world's second largest manufacturer of such equipment.
Rollei was a German manufacturer of optical instruments founded in 1920 by Paul Franke and Reinhold Heidecke in Braunschweig, Lower Saxony, and maker of the Rolleiflex and Rolleicord series of cameras. Later products included specialty and nostalgic type films for the photo hobbyist market.
Bell and Howell is a United States brand of cameras, lenses, and motion picture machinery. It was originally founded as a company in 1907, and headquartered in Wheeling, Illinois. The company was acquired by Böwe Systec in 2003. Since 2010, the brand name has been licensed for a variety of consumer electronics products.
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Panavision Inc. is an American motion picture equipment company founded in 1954 specializing in cameras and lenses, based in Woodland Hills, California. Formed by Robert Gottschalk as a small partnership to create anamorphic projection lenses during the widescreen boom in the 1950s, Panavision expanded its product lines to meet the demands of modern filmmakers. The company introduced its first products in 1954. Originally a provider of CinemaScope accessories, the company's line of anamorphic widescreen lenses soon became the industry leader. In 1972, Panavision helped revolutionize filmmaking with the lightweight Panaflex 35 mm movie camera. The company has introduced other cameras such as the Millennium XL (1999) and the digital video Genesis (2004).
Cooke Optics Ltd. is a camera lens manufacturing company based in Leicester.
Norita was a Japanese optical manufacturer. Founded in 1951 by Toshio Norita, it originally made lenses for binoculars but moved on to prisms and thence pentaprisms for SLR cameras.
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Anamorphic format is the cinematography technique of shooting a widescreen picture on standard 35 mm film or other visual recording media with a non-widescreen native aspect ratio. It also refers to the projection format in which a distorted image is "stretched" by an anamorphic projection lens to recreate the original aspect ratio on the viewing screen.
Întreprinderea Optică Română, often abbreviated by the acronym IOR, is a major optics company established in 1936 in Bucharest. IOR produces military and civilian-grade optics and associated equipment for export and domestic production. The company is known in North America particularly for its riflescopes, binoculars and other sporting optics, which often accompany Romanian military equipment sold on the North American market, such as the PSL rifle.
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