Porro-prism binoculars
Prismáticos de prismas de Porro
- Date
- 1854 / 1894 · confidence high
- Place
- Jena, Thuringia, Germany
- Credited to
- Ignazio Porro (prism, 1854); Ernst Abbe and Carl Zeiss (binocular, 1894)
- Field
- Communication
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Two widely spaced objectives with prisms that erect the image and shorten the tube, for high-magnification stereoscopic viewing. Porro patented the prism in 1854 and Zeiss applied it to binoculars in 1894.
Galilean binoculars existed since the 17th century; the Porro-prism model was not the first, but it was the one that prevailed. Date: Porro's patent, 1854; Zeiss, 1894.
What it led to
- military and observation binoculars
- stereoscopic rangefinders
- bird-watching and nature observation