E leitz wetzlar milliamperes serial#

Major cornerstones of the company's high price policy are extraordinary quality, product longevity, and system compatibility. Headquartered in Solms, Germany, Leica Camera has three production facilities in Germany and one in Portugal, as well as marketing subsidiaries in the United States, France, and the United Kingdom. Leica products are marketed by over 100 local agents around the world and sold by traditional specialist retailers. The company's largest markets are Germany, with about 34 percent of total sales, and the United States with about 19 percent. Lancet Holding BV, the property of Swiss industrialist Stephan Schmidheiny, holds a 13.6 percent share in the company. The roots of Leica Camera go back to 1849, when 23-year-old Carl Kellner, a talented mechanic, founded his own Optical Institute in the German town of Wetzlar. Kellner invented an optical corrected eyepiece with a new combination of lenses that significantly improved the image quality in field glasses and telescopes. The technology was well received by scientists, and, encouraged by this success, Kellner next focused on building a new kind of microscope based on mathematical principles. Kellner's microscopes, which first left his Wetzlar workshop in 1851, generated images of exceptionally high quality and soon earned a him reputation in the scientific community. In 1855 Carl Kellner died of tuberculosis. His widow married Friedrich Belthle, who secured the existence of the Optical Institute. In 1864 mechanic Ernst Leitz joined the Optical Institute. One year later he became a partner and, after Belthle's death in 1869, the sole proprietor of the company which he renamed E.

E leitz wetzlar milliamperes serial#

Leitz's introduction of the more economical serial manufacturing of microscopes also increased their image quality standards and made them more reliable for scientific research. #E LEITZ WETZLAR GERMANY RANGEFINDER SERIAL# By 1900, the Leitz company had gained a worldwide reputation, employed 400 people and produced about 4,000 microscopes a year. The market for microscopes was growing, and, only a decade later, the Optical Institute produced 9,000 microscopes, the variety of which was also constantly expanding.

When Ernst Leitz died in 1920, his second son, Ernst Leitz II, took over the business. Oskar Barnack Creates the Leica Camera in 1914 Four years later he helped make a new invention commercially successful-the first Leitz Camera, called Leica for short. Up until the first decade of the 20th century photography was more of a hobby than an art form. The plate cameras used by photographers were heavy and needed the support of even bigger and heavier tripods. Several manufacturers were working on a more compact camera using smaller film formats that would allow photographers more mobility and flexibility.įor that reason photography was limited to highly composed images, most often taken in studios. The first 35-mm compact camera was developed and manufactured at the Leitz company.Īmong the models launched were the American models Sept, Sico, Phototank, Tourist Multiple, and Simplex, as well as the French Homeos stereo camera, and the British Centum Film camera, none of which succeeded commercially. Oskar Barnack experimented with his idea for several years before he finally invented the Leica camera.

#E LEITZ WETZLAR GERMANY RANGEFINDER SERIAL#Īpprenticed to a company in Lichterfelde that made astronomical instruments, he became interested in technical instruments, astronomy, and photography.