ROSS EPIDIASCOPE
In addition to cinema projection equipment Ross Ltd. of London produced visual aids equipment and perhaps one of their most renowned is the Epidiascope. This projector can be remembered as being in most schools and educational establishments. Not only could glass slides be projected, but via the elevated platform at its base photographs, printed papers and even solid objects could be shown. With a powerful 400mm lens and a 1000watt lamp it could project a good picture on any light surface. It is still a good match for anything similar today.

This Epidiascope is part of the late Barry Diamondstone Archive which has been donated to the Collection by Odeon Ltd. Barry was the chief projectionist for many years at the Odeon Muswell Hill, London. He was a keen preservationist and spent much of his spare time collecting and renovating heritage projection equipment.

Four items from the Archive have been donated to the Curzon Collection three of which are on these pages. Perhaps the Epidiascope could be seen as a fore-runner of the Overhead Projector of today but it really was a still projection instrument in it's own right.

The two lens mountings represent two methods of projecting still pictures. The lower has, fitted to the rear, a standard glass slide carrier which would be operated in the normal way. The upper lens mount was for projecting photo's, cuttings and in fact any printed matter and even some small flattish objects. This was accomplished by the use of the projection platform below the body on which objects could be placed then raised mechanically until it made contact with a glass plate under the body.

Lit by the Epidiascope's powerful lamp and through various prisms the image was projected by the upper lens. The lower lens is a F1.3 500mm and the upper lens is F1.3 250mm.

Very large pictures could be obtained using an Epidiascope and it gets it's name with the combining of an EPISCOPE- a devise for projecting opaque objects and the DIASCOPE -basically a slide projector. There must have been hundreds of these instruments around in the early twentieth century and this is a excellent example of one.