Wray (Optical Works) Ltd. was a British

camera A camera is an optical instrument that can capture an image. Most cameras can capture 2D images, with some more advanced models being able to capture 3D images. At a basic level, most cameras consist of sealed boxes (the camera body), with a ...

and

lens A lens is a transmissive optical device which focuses or disperses a light beam by means of refraction. A simple lens consists of a single piece of transparent material, while a compound lens consists of several simple lenses (''elements ...

manufacturer based in Ashgrove Road,

Bromley Bromley is a large town in Greater London, England, within the London Borough of Bromley. It is south-east of Charing Cross, and had an estimated population of 87,889 as of 2011. Originally part of Kent, Bromley became a market town, c ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, UK. It operated from 1850 to 1971, making lenses for cameras, photographic enlargers, reconnaissance, mapping, microchip replication, and an anamorphic projection system for cinemas. It also made binoculars.

History

W. Wray founded his optical company in 1850 initially making microscope lenses. By at least the 1880s it was making lenses for cameras.A Ray of Light on Wray
thewatchforum.co.uk Accessed 7 April 2019 The company had a reputation for producing excellent quality

lenses A lens is a transmissive optical device which focuses or disperses a light beam by means of refraction. A simple lens consists of a single piece of transparent material, while a compound lens consists of several simple lenses (''elements''), ...

and durable quality

s including models such as the ''Wrayflex.'' Many Wray lenses remain in use, especially in photographic enlargers. Wray also made aerial reconnaissance lenses. Their 36" is particularly good but has some residual spherical aberration at full aperture. They also made a highly distortion-free 36" for mapping. This can only be used with an orange filter and orthochromatic film to avoid the residual secondary spectrum (

chromatic aberration In optics, chromatic aberration (CA), also called chromatic distortion and spherochromatism, is a failure of a lens to focus all colors to the same point. It is caused by dispersion: the refractive index of the lens elements varies with the w ...

). Other products included the 12" Wide Angle Lustrar Code A 30010, Focusing Magnifiers, 4" F.10 APO Lustrar Code A 10010, and Wray Process Prisms. Arthur Smith was the managing director and owner of the company, which had been created by his father, who left the Ross Optical Company to start it, initially as a small unit in Peckham. Both World Wars caused the company to grow in size, due to the manufacture of service instruments such as binoculars. Probably the most sophisticated lens produced by Wray was a 135 mm which has the unusual feature of a triple correction for

astigmatism Astigmatism is a type of refractive error due to rotational asymmetry in the eye's refractive power. This results in distorted or blurred vision at any distance. Other symptoms can include eyestrain, headaches, and trouble driving at n ...

. It was designed by Charles Wynne, who was Wray's head optical designer at the time, having joined the company in 1943. In later years he went on to become a professor at

Imperial College London Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...

, Optical department. Wray had a specific development shop for unusual products, which was substantially replicated by Wynne at Imperial College. Subsequent to this, David Day was appointed the technical director of Wray, heading a specialist optical design team. During this period, Wray developed special lenses for CERN and for microchip replication, with advanced features which probably accelerated the early development of

microelectronics Microelectronics is a subfield of electronics. As the name suggests, microelectronics relates to the study and manufacture (or microfabrication) of very small electronic designs and components. Usually, but not always, this means micrometre-s ...

. Among many other projects, he developed an anamorphic projection system for cinemas, based on Brewster prisms. Wray was closed in 1971 still in profit, its assets were worth more than the company

References

External links

Article based on a book about the history of the Wrayflex camera
Photography companies of the United Kingdom Lens manufacturers Photography in the United Kingdom {{UK-manufacturing-company-stub