Ross is the name of a succession of

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

-based lens designers and their company. Ross_Extra_Rapid_8x5_lens

Andrew Ross (1798–1859) founded his company in 1830; from 1840 he began producing camera lenses signed "A. Ross". During his lifetime, the company was one of the foremost lens manufacturers. The year after his death in 1859, his son-in-law

John Henry Dallmeyer John Henry Dallmeyer (6 September 183030 December 1883), Anglo-German optician, was born at Loxten, Westphalia, the son of a landowner. On leaving school at the age of sixteen he was apprenticed to an Osnabrück optician, and in 1851 he came to ...

left the firm to establish his own optical company and the company was run by Ross's son, Thomas, and became known as Ross & Co. By the 1890s it was also making Zeiss and Goerz lenses under licence for sale in the UK and the British Empire. Ross patented a wide-angle lens design and Zeiss took this further to produce their EWA Protars. Before World War 1, Ross and Zeiss worked quite closely together, but at the outbreak of War the British Government put Ross in control of the newly opened Carl Zeiss binocular and optical factory in Mill Hill, London. A 1902 Ross advertisement includes: *Ross Symmetrical Anastigmats *Zeiss New Planar and Unar lenses *Zeiss Convertible Anastigmats *Goerz Double Anastigmats Ross also made some cameras from about 1855 to the late 1930s. A range of Ross Standard Reflex cameras is listed with an illustration in the 1935 British Journal Photographic Almanac, the sizes ranged from up to half plate.{{quantify, date=May 2021 In the mid-20th century, Ross continued to produce lenses, as well as binoculars, epidiascopes, etc. They had begun supplying lenses for Ensign cameras in the 1930s. After World War II Ross merged with Barnet Ensign, and the company later became Ross Ensign, lenses were also made for other companies such as MPP. Ross was taken over by Avimo in 1975; Avimo was later taken over by

Thales Thales of Miletus ( ; grc-gre, Θαλῆς; ) was a Greek mathematician, astronomer, statesman, and pre-Socratic philosopher from Miletus in Ionia, Asia Minor. He was one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Many, most notably Aristotle, regard ...

Optics. File:Ross wide-angle surveillance lens side view.jpg, A Ross wide-angle lens mounted in an aerial surveillance camera,

Swedish Air Force Museum The Swedish Air Force Museum ( sv, Flygvapenmuseum) is located at Malmen Airbase in Malmslätt, just outside Linköping, Sweden. Malmen is where Baron Carl Cederström, nicknamed the "Flyer Baron" founded his flying school in 1912. Malmen Airb ...

Linköping Linköping () is a city in southern Sweden, with around 105,000 inhabitants as of 2021. It is the seat of Linköping Municipality and the capital of Östergötland County. Linköping is also the episcopal see of the Diocese of Linköping (Chu ...

. File:Ross wide-angle surveillance lens closeup view.jpg, Close-up of the Ross wide-angle lens.

Sources

*Wilkinson, Matthew, and Colin Glanfield. ''A lens collector's vade mecum.'' (CD publication) "Version 7/5/2001" (7 May 2001). *''British Journal Photographic Almanac 1935'', Henry Greenwood & Co 1935 Lens manufacturers Photography companies of the United Kingdom Photography in the United Kingdom Armoured fighting vehicle vision and sighting equipment Ross logo