14 researched events, 1853 to present. Each is dated as its sources date it and carries the references it rests on.
Read the Bausch & Lomb company history →
John Jacob Bausch opened a small optical shop in Rochester in 1853. Henry Lomb, another German immigrant, lent him $60 and became his partner. Their early trade centered on imported spectacles and optical goods, but the partnership paired Bausch's practical lens work with Lomb's commercial discipline.
History & Heritage · A History of Rochester Camera and Lens Companies
During the Civil War, imported horn for eyeglass frames became scarce. Bausch adapted Charles Goodyear's vulcanite hard rubber to frame production in 1861, giving the firm a scalable American-made product. The business used the Vulcanite Optical Instrument name before returning to Bausch & Lomb Optical Company in 1876.
History & Heritage · A History of Rochester Camera and Lens Companies
Microscope production began in the mid-1870s and pushed the Rochester works toward precision optical manufacture. By 1883 the company was making photographic lenses. That sequence matters: photography grew from an established instrument shop with glassworking, mechanical, and measurement skills rather than from a camera cabinetmaker.
History & Heritage · A History of Rochester Camera and Lens Companies
Edward Bausch patented a between-the-lens iris diaphragm and shutter in 1887, and commercial shutter manufacture followed. Bausch & Lomb soon supplied both essential sides of the camera's optical package. A surviving circa-1895 stereo camera shows lenses, pneumatic shutter, focus, and movements combined in a complete instrument.
History & Heritage · A History of Rochester Camera and Lens Companies · Folding plate stereoscopic camera
An 1892 agreement made Bausch & Lomb the American producer of important Zeiss anastigmat designs. Planar, Unar, Tessar, and Protar names joined Rochester-made Plastigmat and Universal lenses. The initial contractual era changed during the First World War, yet Bausch & Lomb catalogs continued several design names afterward.
A History of Rochester Camera and Lens Companies · Semi-Centennial Catalog: Photographic Lenses, Shutters and Apparatus · Photographic Lenses and Shutters, F-11 V-28
By 1903 the company reported roughly half a million photographic lenses and 550,000 shutters made. Catalogs from 1904, 1920, and 1928 reveal a striking range: still-camera, portrait, process, projection, photomicrographic, telephoto, wide-angle, and motion-picture optics, backed by Rochester optical-glass work.
A History of Rochester Camera and Lens Companies · Semi-Centennial Catalog: Photographic Lenses, Shutters and Apparatus · Bausch & Lomb Photographic Lenses, Shutters and Accessories · Photographic Lenses and Shutters, F-11 V-28
Motion pictures asked for speed, even coverage, reliable focusing mounts, and repeatable manufacture. The 1928 catalog paired f/3.5 cine Tessars with a 50 mm f/2.7 Ultra Rapid Anastigmat. Later Baltars extended that cinema branch, preparing the ground for the better-documented Super Baltar series.
Dated in the sources as “1920s-1930s”. Decade wording normalized to its full calendar span for scaling.
Photographic Lenses and Shutters, F-11 V-28 · Super Baltar Lenses
Bausch & Lomb's Metrogon adapted wide-angle optical thinking to aerial mapping. Period technical literature describes lenses selected for large negatives and controlled distortion, including the widely used 6-inch f/6.3 class. A Harvard collection specimen preserves the K-22 association and physical evidence.
Dated in the sources as “1940s”. Decade wording normalized to its full calendar span for scaling.
Some Recent Developments in the Photogrammetric Equipment Field · Metrogon wide angle aircraft lens
Bausch & Lomb worked with 20th Century-Fox on the combination lenses used for CinemaScope photography. The wide-screen process arrived commercially in 1953, and the Academy's technical awards record recognized both organizations for the lens work. The episode put Rochester optics into a highly visible industrial transition.
History & Heritage · Scientific and Technical Awards database
The Super Baltar cinema family ranged from 20 mm through 9 inches in a 1967 brochure, with faster apertures at the shorter focal lengths. A NASA technical report identifies a 76 mm f/2 Bausch & Lomb Super Baltar in the Ranger camera system, connecting a studio lens line to lunar reconnaissance.
Dated in the sources as “1960s”. Decade wording normalized to its full calendar span for scaling.
Super Baltar Lenses · The Ranger VII Flight Path and Its Determination From Tracking Data
The company's photographic achievements remained part of its identity, but eye care increasingly drove the operating business. SofLens contact lenses arrived in 1971, followed by expansion in lens-care, pharmaceutical, and surgical products. By the end of the century, cameras and photographic objectives were legacy fields rather than the corporate center.
Warburg Pincus completed a take-private acquisition in October 2007 in a transaction valued at about $4.5 billion including debt. Valeant then completed its acquisition in August 2013, making the business a subsidiary. These transactions changed ownership and financing, not the historical attribution of Rochester photographic products.
Warburg Pincus acquisition completion announcement · Valeant acquisition completion filing
Bausch + Lomb returned to public markets in May 2022 under the BLCO symbol while Bausch Health retained a controlling interest. The offering created a separately traded eye-health company but did not revive photographic-lens production. Present corporate status should therefore be kept distinct from the vintage catalog.
Bausch + Lomb Corporation 2025 Form 10-K · Bausch + Lomb initial public offering closing filing
The 2025 annual filing describes a global eye-health company with about 13,000 employees and roughly 400 products, with Bausch Health still holding about 88 percent in February 2026. It also records substantial owned Rochester office, research, and manufacturing space, preserving a real geographic continuity.
