In 1982 it was reported that Nikon was
planning to assemble cameras in the US.
Not only their less expensive, amateur equipment, but also their top of
the line, professional cameras. This was
considered a very bold step. Even though
nothing came of it, it did prove the farsightedness of E. Leitz Wetzlar, to
establish a North American branch in 1952.
Immediately after the war it became
apparent that it would take the German industry several years to be able to
produce enough goods to start exporting again.
On the other hand, the majority of the German population was hardly in a
position to buy Leica cameras. The Leitz
family had to look for a solution. It
appeared to have come when Mr. Walter Kluck joined the Ernst Leitz Co.
Walter Kluck
Before Walter Kluck started to work for
Leitz, he had considered opening a manufacturing plant in France, together with
a friend. When presenting this idea to
the Leitz family, it was generally agreed upon that manufacturing Leicas in
France would open the export market a lot sooner. The decision was made to start the operation
in the Saar territory which was under French occupation at that time. A lot of regulations had to be overcome,
however, and in order to speed things up, some of the machinery necessary was
taken out of Wetzlar by night and transported to the new location. So it was by some dubious means that this new
venture got its start.
Initially Leitz coated only lenses of
prewar production and later even manufactured complete lenses and mechanical
parts for the Bolex motion picture cameras.
Finally even cameras were made.
They had the famous “Monte en Saare” engravings, cameras with a
considerable collector's value today.
Things in Europe didn't look too good,
however. The cold war began to heighten
and the Leitz family began making plans to avoid losing the entire operation
once again to war. The solution seemed
to be an entirely different region.
Suggestions like North Africa, South America, Spain and Ireland came up,
but eventually someone mentioned North America, particularly Canada. After a lot of considerations, Canada was
finally chosen as the most logical place.
After all, North America was the largest export market. Another reason for going to Canada instead of
the US at the time was that the name Leitz was still under alien property
control in the US and Leitz would not have been able to use their own name in
this country. It was also the case that
the American immigration laws at the time were rather tight and it would have taken
too long to get entry permission for the number of people necessary to start
such a venture. Thus Canada was the best
choice.
Right from the beginning it was decided
to look for a location not larger than 30 or 40,000 people. In 1951 Leitz finally narrowed the choice to
three places, Granby in Quebec, Smith Falls, which is near Ottawa and, of
course Midland, Ontario. Smith Falls was
quickly eliminated from the list because the name was too difficult to pronounce
in German or Spanish as well as a number of other languages. Another consideration was the fact that
Midland had the same number of letters was Wetzlar. This enabled the insertion of the Midland
name in all of the Leitz trademarks without the necessity of any changes. Before the war a shipyard had operated in
Midland and a lot of the population had found employment there. But it had been decided to close the yard at
the end of the war. A lot of people were
out of work and since there were no other towns nearby that could have offered
jobs, the people in Midland were very eager to get Leitz to come to their
town. So Midland was the choice.
ELCAN Midland Ontario
A brick from the Leitz plant in Wetzlar was fitted into
the wall at the main entrance to the Midland plant.
But other obstacles had to be
overcome. One was that Leitz needed
permission from the German government because something like this had never
been done before. Leitz was actually the
first company to take such a step. It
was also necessary to establish a program that would allow some quick sales
right at the beginning because at the time Leitz was allowed to bring only
$50,000 into the country and they had to make sure that they would not run out
of money before new revenues started to come in.
Unfortunately, the new facilities were
not quite ready for operation when the “Leica people” arrived. To avoid losing precious time, an assembly
facility was temporarily set up in the Midland Ice Arena. Under the leadership of Walter Kluck, the
first lens components were finished after only one week and the first completed
Leica lenses and cameras were ready after only four weeks.
Soon after moving into the new
facilities they started not only to assemble but to actually manufacture part
as well. After only three years of operation
the Midland design department was established.
Initially it dealt only with mechanical designs, but after borrowing an
optical designer from Wetzlar, optical design was also taken up. This designer had a very good reputation and
it was planned to “loan” him to Midland for only six months. He never made it back to Wetzlar and his
skills were primarily responsible for establishing Midland as one of the
foremost lens design departments in the entire world. The gentleman's name was Professor Walter Mandler. His crowning achievement was the design of
the 50mm f/1 Noctilux. The design
department became so successful that at the time most of the Leica lenses were
designed in Midland rather than in Wetzlar.
Early computer installation at ELCAN
Besides the Leica program, Ernst Leitz
Canad (ELC) became involved with the production of optical equipment for other
companies, such as Hughes Aircraft, RCS and Picker X-ray. All told, there were about 100 companies that
did business with Leitz. Besides the civilian
market, ELC was also heavily involved in manufacturing for the US Defense
Department, primarily the US army but also the Navy. The research done for those branches has
greatly helped the development of civilian products as well. This is because the requirements of the armed
forces are always pushing towards the limits of optical design capabilities,
resulting often in the best possible instruments to be developed. One such cast-off to the civilian market was
the 180mm f/3.4 Apo Telyt R.
ELCAN Picker x-ray lenses
One of the most unusual military
developments was an underwater camera system which Leitz developed for the US
Navy. It primarily consisted of a
complete set of lenses for underwater work, not only for 35mm cameras but also
for medium format, 16mm motion picture and TV cameras. These were rather unique lenses because they
were not part of a camera that was simply put into a water tight housing. Instead the lenses were designed to be
exposed to the water with their front element.
The usual way of using under water housings for conventional cameras
incorporates lenses that are designed to work in air. When designing such lenses, Leitz even takes
the refractive index of air into consideration.
ELCAN under water housing for Leica M camreas
ELCAN under water housing for motion picture and video cameras
ELCAN under water lens system with water contact front lens element
The Leitz under water system instead was
designed according to the refractive index of water. As a matter of fact, since this system was to
be used primarily in salt water, it was the refractive index of salt water that
was used in the design of these lenses.
However, not all oceans have the same salinity. So Leitz went one step further and took the
refractive index of the salinity of the various oceans into consideration. This was possible with an interchangeable
front element of their water contact lenses.
This overall design actually considers the water as an integral lens
element of the entire system. To avoid
the need to test these lenses in the various oceans all over the world, Leitz
built a large water tank that could be flooded with water of the appropriate
salinity.
The correction of these lenses is so
good that, when water is clear enough, there is no way of telling that the
pictures were taken under water. Leitz
was the first company to suggest such a design.
What is even more amazing is the fact
that the thick water contact front element is so strong that the lenses can be
used in the greatest ocean depths without any problems at all, including the
deepest part on earth, the 36,200 feet deep Challenger Deep of the Mariana
Trench.
In the middle of the 1970s ELC decided
to look into the manufacture of cameras as well. Until then the whole operation had been
dependent on selling their wares to others.
They had been compared to a tire company supplying tires to car
manufacturers. ELC's success was
entirely dependent upon the successes of the companies they supplied. It was decided that the manufacture of
cameras would add a great new dimension to the Canadian Leitz operation. After Wetzlar had given its blessing and
given 100% support to this venture, all the tooling for the M4 cameras was
moved to Midland and a great number of specialists from Wetzlar helped to get
this venture off the ground. The first
camera of this new venture was the M4-2.
Basically identical to the old M4, it was modified to accept a motor winder
which greatly enhanced the versatility of the camera. Soon additional development of this camera
resulted in the M4-P with the added versatility of a 28mm and 75mm viewing
frame and a motor winder capable of running continuously at the rate of three
frames per second.
One little known fact is that in 1970
Ernst Leitz Canada was awarded the design and manufacturing contract for the
new 70mm IMAX projection system and in 1983 Ernst Leitz Canada began work with
Panavision for their state of the art cinematographic lenses. These are just two examples of the many
designs and manufacture they did for outside companies, both for civilian and
military use.
Thus Midland had developed into a fully
independent camera and lens manufacturer.
Their name Ernst Leitz Canada and their trade mark ELCAN have earned the
highest reputation throughout the world and it was only a matter of time until
additional new and exciting developments from this branch of Leitz would make
the news.
Lens coating machine
Camera assembly
EROS IV optical transfer analyzer
ELCAN mechanical department
When Leitz decided to build the
manufacturing plant in Midland there was no doubt that it should operate and
manufacture at the same high standards that the world had grown accustomed to
with the products from Wetzlar. Thus it
came as no surprise to me on my first visit to Midland that the interior was
very much like that in Wetzlar. Although
the buildings were not anywhere near as large as the main plant in Wetzlar, the
interior of the actual work areas was almost identical. The relatively stark interior immediately
showed a no frills, but all business attitude.
Quality control was as tight as in Wetzlar. Everywhere, regardless of what work was being
performed, there were people doing checks and rechecks. Virtually all workbenches had some sort of
testing instrument on them. The whole
place had a rather unhurried atmosphere.
The workers were under no time pressure at all. Everyone could take the time necessary to do
things right. This was further enhanced
by the total absence of assembly lines.
All work was done on individual workbenches.
The same was the case in the lens
grinding department. A lot of the work
was performed by machines, but I saw at least one person busy grinding a lens
element by hand. It is a known fact that
nothing can replace hand grinding when ultimate precision is of the essence and
Leitz was still doing it.
While there were obviously a lot of
people from the Midland area employed there. It was very obvious that there
still was a large German contingent, easily recognized by the many German
accents that could be heard in almost all conversations.
1982 marked the 30th anniversary of the
Midland operation. It had established
itself as one of the foremost optical design companies in the world and Leitz
would not have been at that time what they were without the branch in Midland.
In 1990 Hughes Aircraft Co. purchased
Ernst Leitz Canada. The company expanded its operations as Hughes Leitz Optical
Technologies. During the period from
1997 to 1999 Raytheon acquired the optical business units of Texas Instruments
and Hughes Aircraft Co. Midland and Richardson, Texas. The units were merged to form ELCAN Optical
Technologies. From 2000 to 2002 ELCAN
Optical Technologies underwent an aggressive marketing and technology
development program and focused its combined experience to serve
telecommunications, defense, commercial and industrial markets. In 2003 ELCAN integrated with Raytheon's
microelectronics facility in Malaga, Spain. Established in 1992, this advanced
electronics manufacturing plant expanded ELCAN's capabilities with complete EMS
operations, electro optical integration and better access to European
customers. The same year ELCAN launched
SpecterIR™, the world's first uncooled infrared rifle scope focused on Homeland
Security and low cost military applications.
In 2004 ELCAN launched PhantomIR™, a novel uncooled infrared binoculars
also focused on Homeland Security and military applications. In 2005 Elcan became the world's largest
manufacturer of military electronic rifle scopes and released its first
consumer rifle scope: DigitalHunter™. The world's first fully electronic rifle
sighting system designed for sportsmen, DigitalHunter™ is a quantum leap in
sporting optics technology, eclipsing the traditional glass-and-metal design of
conventional rifle scopes.
Today Elcan's total capabilities include
manufacturing in the fields of medical, electronic, defense and security,
sighting systems, and contract manufacturing.
For more information go to: www.elcan.com.
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A colleague linked me to your website. Thank you for the information.
ReplyDeleteMy page - Event dj adelaide
Great photo of the machine shop from the 70's. That's where i worked and i know most of these people, and some in the other photos too. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteWow. Those photos brought back memories. The EROS IV optical transfer analyzer was my "workbench" for 2 years in the mid 1980s. A great place to work.
ReplyDelete