It's the best £70 I've ever spent on a binocular. I bought my pair off a fellow amateur astronomer, Noel Dunmow for £70 I think. In 1950 B&L published this very useful booklet: The most famous Marine model binocular is the Bausch & Lomb 7 x 50. One of the best-known developments in this period was the world-famous Ray-Ban brand sunglasses, developed for pilots in 1926. During this period, military products represented 70 % of total production. Because of the World Wars and the consequent need for optical instruments such as field glasses, target finders, camera lenses, binocular telescopes, searchlight mirrors, torpedo tube sights and periscopes, the product range could be considerably broadened. The further development of the firm was affected by political events. In this manner, at the end of the 19th century, the product range included eyeglasses, microscopes and binoculars, as well as projectors, camera lenses and camera diaphragms. From 1892 in cooperation with Zeiss in Germany, the company produced optical lenses. The company also produced photographic lenses (1883), spectacle lenses (1889), binoculars and telescopes (1893). Later that year, the Bausch & Lomb Optical Company won a distinction at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. In 1876, the company began manufacturing microscopes.
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During the American civil war they produced spectacles made from vulcanite rubber. The Mark 28 is a modification of this binocular with improved waterproofing, different style prism plates, and different style eyepiece and objective assemblies although a lot of other parts are interchangeable with the Mk.1.īausch & Lomb was founded in 1853 by two German immigrants, John Jacob Bausch and Henry C. Many were made, all initially without coated lenses, and it was the first in a long line of 7X50's used by the US Navy during WWII.
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This is the Bausch & Lomb Mk.1 7X50 which is very similar to their civilian model 7X50 introduced in 1934. I suspect this binocular was refurbished at some stage. They are unusual in having bloomed lenses, something B&L did not do until 1944. My Bausch & Lomb Mk.28 Mod.0 7x50's were made in 1941 for the U.S. The optics in this pair are not coated, and need cleaning but I have yet to dismantle them. Nedinsko was a German front company set up in the Netherlands in 1921 in order to sidestep the Treaty of Versailles and enable Carl Zeiss Jena to produce military optical equipment. Starting with the oldest, a pair of Carl Zeiss Jena, Nedinsco Venlo, 8x30's made for the Swiss Army in 1934. In my little collection I have some real gems, luminaries of the binocular firmament. They do however give spectacular views of the Milky Way.įor clarity of image though you need a good pair of prismatics. For instance I have a pair of 3.5x50's with a 8°.5 field of view (fov) the snag is the exit pupil (virtual) is 14mm, so the OG's are effectively stopped down at least 50% (7mm eye pupil), with a consequent 75% light loss. (For a typical example of what can happen when buying a vintage binocular on eBay, see end of article).įield glasses are less of a problem in this respect because even if the barrels are not exactly aligned parallel to one another, you can still fuse the images, and field glasses are so low power, astigmatism is not an issue.įield glasses can be acquired that have negative achromatic eyepieces, and they offer a wide real field, even if the apparent field is narrow. You also have to make sure they're collimated, and since most sellers do not understand what collimated means, you have to explain to them what to look for in a decollimated pair.
CARL ZEISS JENA BINOCULARS 7X50 FREE
It is easy to buy very high quality vintage binoculars on eBayUK, but you have to make sure the optics are clean, free of dust, dirt, insects, and fungus. But I like good clean optics, and many modern binoculars are woefully deficient in optical quality, unless you shell out a grand or more for a top notch pair. I prefer a binocular you can carry with you to a star party, for casual star gazing. You really need a parallelogram mount for binoculars that size and larger. They were too heavy to hold for more than a couple of minutes, and on a photographic tripod, too awkward to point near the zenith. I used to own a pair of 11x80's bought off Leo Henzl Jnr in 1979, but I sold them 10 years later. These field glasses and binoculars are all hand holdable, and suitable for astronomy.
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I prefer solidly made binoculars, and have amassed a modest little collection of prized specimens, mostly acquired off eBayUK, but also charity shops and car boot fairs. However it wasn't too long before they got knocked out of collimation, and at £12 you may as well buy another, or use it as a monocular! I'm not a fan of modern binoculars, although I have to confess to owning a small roof prism bino, 8x21, for hiking. "Field Glasses & prismatic binoculars suitable for astronomy"