Carl Kellner (optician)

Carl Kellner (March 26, 1826 – May 13, 1855) was a German mechanic and self-educated mathematician who founded in 1849 an "Optical Institute" that later became the Leitz company, makers of the Leica cameras.

In 1849 he founded in Wetzlar a company called "Optisches Institut" for the production of lenses and microscopes.

Kellner had invented a new achromatic combination of lenses for an eyepiece, published in his treatise Das orthoskopische Ocular, eine neu erfundene achromatische Linsencombination, that was able to produce an image with correct perspective and without the distortions that were usual for other optical instruments of the time.

After his early death in Wetzlar in 1855 from tuberculosis at the age of 29, his widow led the company, which had twelve employees at that time.

The company expanded quickly; its newly developed binocular microscope was a market success.

Carl Kellner