[Leica] Beamsplitter Visoflex

[lrzeitlin at gmail.com (Lawrence Zeitlin)]

Neither Forscher nor Goldberg invented the beamsplitting viewfinder,
although they may have been the first to use them in a Visoflex mount.
Beamsplitters, using a half silvered mirror, a pellicle or a beam splitting
prism were common accessories in microscopy for over 100 years. They were
usually used to permit two viewers to share a common monocular microscope or
to attach as small camera to a microscope to take a picture while looking
through the eyepiece. I have one myself. It was made by Canon but Leica made
a similar device called the Micro-Ibso, described in the Leica Handbook by
Morgan and Lester (1947). It slips into the microscope tube like a normal
eyepiece. You attach a camera body, usually a Leica, to a flange projecting
from the top and put the removed eyepiece in a tube projecting form the
side. When you see an image you like, you simply press a cable release and
take the picture.

Nothing new under the sun.

Larry Z