Micro Precision Products
Micro Precision Products Ltd, an optical company, of London and Kingston.
1941 Company formed to sell equipment produced by Celestion Ltd.; in its early days, MPP employees also worked for Celestion or the related McMurdo Instrument Co.
1947 Celestion was acquired by British Rola. The electronic and precision products division and the lighter operation remained with McMurdo and MPP.[1]
1948 First major product launched - the Micro Technical Camera, a versatile professional folding bed camera, almost like press cameras but without sports finder. Went through many variants.
1950s The Micro-Press Camera was based on the Graflex Speed Graphic but with a top mounted rangefinder pre-dating the Graflex top mounted rangefinder by at least 4 years.
1951 The Microcord was based on the Rolleicord; soon followed by the Microcord Mk II, with an improved shutter using a Ross lens.
1958 MPP brought out the Microflex, inspired by the Rolleiflex. This had excellent optics (by Taylor, Taylor and Hobson) and the camera was well made, but the crank invited hard use for which it was not designed.
MPP produced and marketed in Britain a number of cameras identical to the Iloca Rapid 1L, a leaf-shutter 35mm camera.
Other products included monorail cameras, fixed-focus prison cameras, enlargers (even for large format), projectors, and a flashgun.
1976 Name changed to MPP Photographic Products Ltd, and moved to Wandsworth
See Also
Sources of Information
- Camerapedia [2]