The Askania MZM 1 (and Askania in general)

[Scarodactyl]

I finally got a chance at one of my obscure white whales this month: the Askania MZM 1, a copy of which finally came up affordably on eBay after years of watching. It is both a photomacroscope, a category I like a lot, and by an obscure German microscope firm that still makes their own product and has some odd relationship with Zeiss.
It came in, and I got it mounted on a big aluminum plate to try out. Note the classic blocky shape and oldschool fonts in the printing.




Let's get the obvious out of the way: the head looks a lot like a Zeiss Jena head. And, as far as I can tell, it is! Not only is the ~41mm dovetail the same, with the head being made up of a base beamsplitter with the eyepiece binoculars and trinocular at the top mounted with the exact same dovetail, the bolts are arranged exactly the same as a Jena unit. The one I was comparing it to in photos had a slightly different bevel in one spot but that was the only difference.
With that in mind a few more basic facts: it is a finite microscope, which is unusual for a photomacroscope. The head is not needed and a photo tube can be mounted directly onto the zoom body using the same dovetail. It also has parts compatibility with Aus Jena parts--I happened to have a Jena rotating polarizer from an earlier project and it fits and works perfectly, except that the binoculars do not handle polarization very well (the photo tube is fine).
There is both a 30mm and a 23mm binocular available from Askania. This one came with the 23mm version and very Jena-looking 10x/18 eyepieces marked 'GF-P10x', just like the non-compensating Aus Jena ones. The 30mm eyepieces are only 10x/20s anyway. The head beamsplitter stops down the image that goes to the eyepieces, so while the Chinese 10x/22 eyepieces work OK compensation-wise there is a bit of vignetting with them.

It came with a 0.63x c mount adapter, but I printed an adapter to directly mount my dslr to the top. The camera port can just barely cover aps-c, with some corner darkening that gets worse at higher mags. With the 1.5x boost from the polarizer the corner darkening decreases a lot, though oddly vignetting gets a little worse in the eyepieces. Go figure, though it wouldn't be an issue with 10x/20s. Askania does sell a 1x adapter for dslrs, along with other magnifications. I assume their 1x is also lensless but haven't confirmed this. The image at maximum magnification is really not bad, but at minimum magnification the CA is fairly pronounced in photos.

Pros:
Nice sturdy construction, classic styling.
Parts compatibility with Aus Jena
Continuing production of old Aus Jena parts, continuing a legacy which was as I understand it mostly discarded when the wall fell.
Some interesting options available for the scope, including a 5x(!!) auxiliary lens, and very modular construction
Very easy to mount a camera on.

Cons:a
10x/18 is absolutely not "GF" and this isn't 1960 anymore. Aus Jena had 10x/20 23mm eyepieces, there is no reason at all for Askania to be making and selling 10x/18mm eyepieces in TYOOL 2021. Similarly, there is no reason to produce a 30mm variant if 10x/20 is as high as you can go on FN--23mm eyepieces can handle that field number just fine!
Only time I've run into such overt problems with polarization, that could have been fixed or designed around if they cared to.
Non-standard 29mm stand post.
Unimpressive image quality and field size*
*I admittedly am spoiled on this front!
Kind of short working distance of ~3 inches for the resolution (which is not terrible but not amazing).
Incomplete information from Askania, particularly a lack of any numerical aperture data or resolution information

Overall, it isn't ever going to compete with e.g. a Wild M420, but it was obviously not meant to hit in the same weight class. Optically it seems to be more like lower-tier industrial zoom lenses like the Meiji Unimac, Union optical/unitron zoom lenses, navitar, optem, the bausch and lomb monozoom 7 etc, but it does have a more microscope-like form factor. While the Unimac and Union optical lenses are still sold today and once did have versions with eyepieces, they seem to have abandoned those options.

Perhaps the most interesting bit is the confirmation that Askania is still making basically unchanged Aus Jena parts. One wonders if their stereo microscopes are also compatible with Aus Jena parts--their SMC 4 looks kind of like a souped up Citoval but is a CMO, and can optionally be purchased with a Leica apo objective and adapter for better performance.

[apochronaut]

Thanks for that review. This is a descendant of ROW? 18MM is so odd for a stereo, especially a relatively modern one.

[microEYE]

Hi

I've just joined this Forum but I might be able to shed some light on Askania and their microscopes. In the former East Germany, the original company was one of the "satellite manufacturers" of VEB Carl Zeiss Jena, not based in Jena, but in Rathenow (others have posted about the long optical tradition in Rathenow stretching back hundreds of years). Anyway, they made a range of models, sold as Carl Zeiss Jena (or aus JENA in some parts of the world). Models included the KMC student microscope, the Laboval range (thousands would have been made) and a range of stereomicroscopes, including the solid GSZ Greenhough zoom (now Askania GSZ2), the superb modular Technival (now the Askania SMT4) and Citoval zoom (now Askania SMC4)series. After reunification (of the country and of the two Zeiss companies) some of these models were,for a very short time, continued to be sold as Carl Zeiss Jena by the newly formed Jenoptic Carl Zeiss JENA GmbH.

Little wonder Zeiss Jena parts are interchangeable....they were indeed part of the VEB Carl Zeiss Jena family!

I believe that the MZM1 is a development from Askania's GSZ2 stereozoom microscope (I don't recall seeing it in the Carl Zeiss Jena line-up)....it also used components from their compound microscope range. I sold a few of these instruments (in the early 1990's), mainly to industrial companies, who preferred a vertical optical axis for observation, measuring and image capture. True, this macrozoom instrument doesn't come close to the WILD Makroskop, but it offered an excellent cost-effective option.

[Scarodactyl]

Thank you very much for the extra info! That does clarify things a lot and add some valuable context. I wonder if they've updated the designs of the stereos--the main objective (even the nonleica one) does look a bit more modern, but I have never handled a citoval.

[carlosdapolito]

Hi there, I have an Askania Variant mzm 1 and would like to find a trinocular head for it. Or a similar/newer one that would fit.
Anyone could help? thanks a lot

[Scarodactyl]

It's the exact same head from older finite Jena compound scopes--not a similar one, literally off the same production line. Other finite heads from different makers might work too if the dovetail happens to fit.