Wednesday, March 19, 2014

LEICA UNDER WATER


THE ELCAN (ERNST LEITZ CANADA) UNDER WATER SYSTEM

Oene of the first German companies to establish a manufacturing branch overseas was Ernst Leitz, the makers of Leica cameras.  In 1952, they started making some of their equipment in Midland, Ontario, Canada.  They operated as Ernst Leitz, just like in Germany, but used ELCAN to identify some of their equipment.

Besides the manufacture of cameras and lenses, ELCAN was also very much involved in the manufacture of military equipment.  One of the most unusual military developments was an underwater camera system which ELCAN 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 common way of using under water housings for conventional cameras usually incorporate standard lenses that are designed to work in air.  Even with their standard lenses, Leica goes beyond standard practices by taking the refractive index of air into consideration when designing their lenses.

 
   35mm System, front view

 
35mm system Back view

35mm system, with inside front and back view with Leica M4 camera installed

 Motion Picture or Video system

  Three Lenses with the common Water contact Front Element

The ELCAN 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 ELCAN 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 considered 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, ELCAN built a large water tank that could be flooded with water of the appropriate salinity.


Water test tank

The correction of these lenses was so good that, when water is clear enough, there is no way of telling that the pictures were taken under water.  ELCAN 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 reported to be 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 November 1990, the Hughes Aircraft Company, California, purchased Ernst Leitz (Canada) Ltd.  In December, 1997 Hughes sold their operation to Raytheon Company, Lexington, Massachusetts.


Today  Raytheon ELCAN Optical Technologies is the largest and most fully integrated North American company with complete opto-electro-mechanical capabilities. 



10 comments:

  1. This is an amazing system. Is it still in production?

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    1. I doubt it. The system was initially developed for the US Navy and, to my knowledge, it was never sold on the civilian market.

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    2. I have an Elcan 21mm f/4 immersion lens. You use liquid inside the lens of a refractive index inside to match the seawater refractive index. Leica M mount. A very rare lens. Anyone know what it might be worth?

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    3. I am sorry, but I have no idea what your lens might be worth. Just as your lens, any of the components of the ELCAN under water system are extremely rare and it is even more rare to find any of them for sale. Subsequently there is not even a hint of an established market. One source for possible information might be the International Leica Society, LHSA, (ww.lhsa.org. Many of their members are avid Leica collectors and could possibly be of help to you.

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  2. How can this camera possibly withstand the immense pressure at great ocean depth like the Marianas Trench?

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    Replies
    1. Just like Piccard's Trieste and James Cameron's Deep Sea Challenger - making it strong enough. Keep in mind, these are not everyday under water housings, these are devices made to the specifications of the US Navy.

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    2. Who is Piccard and what is Trieste?

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    3. Jaques Piccard was an oceanographer who in 1960 reached the bottom of the Challenger Deep in the Marianas Tranch together with Lt. Don Walch in his bathyscaphe Trieste.

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    4. Interesting. So James Cameron was not the first to go down there. If you don't mind, what is a bathyscaphe?

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    5. A bathyscaphe is a special type of submarine where the actual crew cabin is a specially designed sphere. These were first used, suspended from cables and referred to as bathysphere. Bathyscaphe is derivative of that expression referring to the sphere being suspended from a dirigible submersible vessel.

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