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Bausch & Lomb is a manufacturer of contact lenses and eyecare products. It began in 1853 as a little optical shop in Rochester, New York, founded by the German immigrants John Jacob Bausch (from Württemberg) and Henry Lomb (from Hesse). First they produced pince-nez. When Bausch's son Edward finished his engineering studies in 1875 he convinced the father to start making microscopes. In 1883 the company started making camera lenses, mainly lens types of Carl Zeiss. In 1888 Bausch & Lomb produced the lenses for the legendary roll film camera Kodak No. 1 of George Eastman and Frank A. Brownell. Bausch & Lomb was also a well respected manufacturer of leaf shutters. Bausch & Lomb's "Unicum" shutter was one of the best shutters of its time. Initially the company co-operated extensivey with German optics and glass makers, but from 1913 onwards the company started making its own optical glass. A lot of optical instruments and other optical goods were already in the company's portfolio. Still camera lenses were made until the 1930s, especially for Kodak. Later photo-optical products were no longer the company's focus, except movie projector lenses and movie camera lenses. For example, the special lenses for the broad format "Cinemascope" film were made by B&L. A late highlight of the company's still camera optics were the lenses for the cameras of the "Surveyor" lunar probes in 1965.

Shutters[]

photography related industry in Rochester (New York)
American Camera | Bausch & Lomb | Blair | Century | Crown Optical Co. | Elgeet | Folmer & Schwing | Gassner and Marx | Graflex | Gundlach | Ilex | JML | Kodak | Milburn | Monroe | PMC | Ray | Reichenbach, Morey and Will | Rochester Camera and Supply Co. | Rochester Optical Co. | Seneca | Sunart | Walker | Wollensak
and in Rochester (Minnesota)
Conley
external links
graflex.org - Rudolf Kingslake's
"Optical industry in Rochester (N.Y.)"

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