GINSBERG, Aleksander
* 1871, Sosnowiec, Poland
† 13. 7. 1911, Warsaw, Poland
optician, entrepreneur
After graduating high school in Piotrków Trybunalski, Ginsberg studied mathematics and physics in Paris. He received his engineering diploma at the Technical College in Berlin-Charlottenburg.
Afterwards he worked for a few years in K. Krauss’s optical workshop in Paris and later for C. Zeiss in Jena as chief constructor. In 1899 he founded the first workshop for optical appliances in Poland, called „Pierwsza w Kraju Fabryka Instrumentów Optycznych FOS”. Later it was renamed „FOS Towarzystwo Firmowo-Komandytowe Ginsberg i Spółka”.
The workshop manufactured: measuring devices, prism binoculars, visor devices for firearms, submarine objective lenses, cameras, objective lenses for cameras and picture-telegraph devices for verifying hit accuracies, constructed by Ginsberg.
The workshop produced high-quality goods, which were sold all across Europe. The „FOS” objective lenses were used by the biggest camera manufacturers, for example, for „Block-Notes” of the Parisian company „Comptoire General de Photographie“, for L. Gaumont and the objective lenses for Krugener’s „Minium” appliance, for Huttig’s „Ideal“, as well as for „Format 9x12“ by Kodak. Planistygmat FOS with 1: 6.6 brightness modelled on the German Anastigmat „Dagor” lens by Goerz (later Zeiss) received great recognition.
Products of the FOS company received an honorary diploma in 1900 at an exhibition in Krakow, gold medals at an exhibition in Warsaw, at the Pan-Slavonic exhibition in Wieliczki in 1901, and at the exhibitions in St. Petersburg and Witebsk in 1902. Ginsberg also held public lectures at the Polish Association of the Friends of Photography and published articles in the newspapers Wiadomości fotograficzne and Fotograf Warszawski.
