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Many people ask us for magnifying glasses as seen on TV and to be honest we’ve usually got no idea what programme they are talking about.

How to get magnifying glasses as seen on TV

But during lockdown, like everybody else, we’ve found ourselves watching TV more than ever, and seeing how often magnifiers appear in a scene. We’ve seen them on all sorts of programmes, including Amazing Spaces, Bridgerton and The Detectives. They’ve been featured in top French series like Lupin and Call My Agent too. We even spotted someone wearing a pair of Opera Glasses in Squid Game, the worldwide Netflix hit from South Korea.

In many cases we find that a magnifier shown is one that we can supply, such is the size of our range and product knowledge which goes back more than 20 years. This also puts us at the forefront of companies able to supply magnifiers to TV programmes and films.

That’s probably also one of the reasons why we are frequently approached by runners, and prop departments to supply of magnifying glasses, often at very short notice. Mission impossible? Not for us, we’re more than happy to help.

(Talking of Mission Impossible, did we mention that we supplied promotional magnifiers for that film?)

Last-minute London magnifier company

Being a London-based magnifier business definitely has its advantages. It seems there is no shortage of companies in and around the capital that need magnifiers at a moment’s notice, sometimes within hours of the request being made. We are based in Pinner, just 15 miles from central London, and barely half an hour’s drive from large studios at Pinewood, Shepperton, Leavesden, Elstree and Windsor.

We have supplied magnifying glasses to film crews, TV production teams, model shoots, advertising agencies and promotional marketing firms just about anywhere in London. The person asking us for help has typically been given the unenviable task of getting a magnifier at the very last minute. Often such companies have their own driver, who can be sent out to collect from us on the same day but even for the biggest companies that is not always possible…

Magnifiers for photo shoots and fashion

A case in point was when we got a call about 6 pm one Friday evening from Clinique, part of the Estee Lauder perfume company: “we desperately need 38 executive quality magnifying glasses for an event in London Fashion Week – oh, and is there any chance we could have them for Monday morning?”…

We had the stock immediately available but Clinique could not send anyone to collect them. We also knew that Fedex, our preferred courier company, would not be able to pick them up from us till Monday morning itself.

Magnifico goes the extra mile

Luckily the trains were running properly that weekend so we came up with another solution: first thing Saturday one of our team hopped onto the Metropolitan Line with a large box of magnifiers that were delivered to Clinique’s offices just round the corner from Oxford Circus – well in advance of their deadline.

Magnifying lamps for tattoo artists

We have mentioned how our magnifiers are often supplied to TV production companies and it is always fun to see a product from our range featured on a television programme.

Magnifying glasses as seen on TV programme Tattoo Fixers

The Channel 4 show Tattoo Fixers features a team of talented tattoo artists who get called upon to fix all kind of tattoo mistakes and nightmares. Often they manage to turn the most embarrassing or bad tattoo into mini works of art but talent alone is not enough: they also need the right tools of the trade and a high quality magnifying lamp is essential.

The one featured on Tattoo Fixers looks like it could be our Classic Magnifying Lamp with round 5-inch lens and a fluorescent daylight bulb. This provides the artist with a shadow-free light offering accurate colour rendition and with low heat emission, making it comfortable for all parties during the most intricate (and occasionally intimate) tattoo tasks. An extending long-reach metal arm and grab handle by the lens head enables the artist to easily pull the magnifying lamp down and over the working area or push it away when not required, after which the protective sun cap can be closed down over the lens to protect it from dust.

Apart from being widely used in tattoo parlours such lamps are also found in all kinds of artist, beauty and dental studios, either with the standard desk clamp supplied or with other available accessories like the table base, floor stand or wall bracket.

Head-mounted magnifiers for repair shops

Meanwhile BBC’s Repair Shop is another great show with a talented team of a different kind. Members of the public bring in treasured personal items that have fallen into disrepair or have simply aged over time. Jay Blades leads a highly skilled team of professional restorers, often using traditional craft techniques to bring the objects back to life. The personal stories are what makes it such compelling viewing, along with the loving care from the restorers themselves.

Like most art or craft tasks, it’s mostly the case that both hands need to be kept free for the repair work to be done properly. We’ve observed our Optivisor Pro Headband Magnifier being one of the chosen ‘tools of the trade’ on more than one repair job. This magnifier incorporates a pull-down visor, helping protect the eyes, with an interchangeable lens system to accommodate different working distances.

We offer many other head mounted magnifiers, frequently used by modellers and other craft professionals for repair and refurb work.

Detective magnifying glass

How many TV crime shows do you watch, where magnifiers feature in some of the scenes? Often it’s a magnifying lamp in the forensic lab, but also linen testers for fingerprints, to say nothing of the trusty old traditional Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass.

Film fans may remember the actor Peter Cushing appearing with a magnifying glass as Sherlock Holmes and in Hammer’s The Curse of Frankenstein.    

It wasn’t just through the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that the idea of a detective’s magnifying glass was brought to the public’s attention. The famous Home Office pathologist, Sir Bernard Spilsbury created the so-called ‘murder bag’ of essential forensic kit for Scotland Yard back in the 1920s. One of the items was a 2.5” inch magnifying glass, which is still used by crime scene teams today.

Need magnifing glasses for your production?

We offer one of the largest ranges of magnifiers in the UK, and can usually supply stock for your production or promotion. If your company is based in London and need magnifiers at very short notice then please email or give us a call – we’ll be happy to pull out all the stops to try and help you.

Celebrating the life-saving lens invented by Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788-1827)

Why are sheet magnifiers called Fresnel lenses?

One of the most frequent questions we get asked is: ‘what is the biggest magnifier I can buy?’ We have hand-held magnifying glasses up to 5-inches in diameter but that’s about as big as a normal magnifier can go. If you need something larger, then you will need to go for a fresnel lens, named after the French physicist who invented them – Auguste-Jean Fresnel.

Fresnel lenses are made from flat plastic sheets, comprising of a series of concentric rings, which gather and direct light towards the centre of the lens. They allow magnifier manufacturers to construct lighter-weight lenses over larger viewing areas, though it is fair to say that the optical quality is not as good as on a conventional lens.

They are very popular though, with a number of advantages for uses

• Lightweight magnifying lens – normally made from acrylic or PVC
• Large viewing area –
• Inexpensive – cheaper than standard magnifiers
• Different sizes – from credit card to A4 and above
• Flat, easy to store

When you look through one of these seemingly simple credit card or full page magnifying sheets, it seems amazing to think that the real reason for the invention came about from a need to save lives at sea.

A Life-saving Lens for Lighthouses

From around the17th century, maritime traffic increased as a means of carrying goods between nations. Lighthouses were critical for helping ships navigate their way along rocky coastlines. Unfortunately nobody had come up with an adequate way of making the light visible from a distance far enough away from treacherous rocks – often with fatal consequences.

For thousands of years lighthouses had just used open flames to warn sailors but these were ineffective in wind or rain. In the 1690s the glass lantern room was invented and first used with candles at Eddystone Lighthouse off Cornwall, to create brighter, more protected light; whilst mirrors were used elsewhere as crude reflectors to direct the light.

Despite these improvements shipwrecks continued because none of them could retain enough of the light to alert ships adequately of any danger. The number of shipwrecks reached such a level that the French government set up a commission with a financial prizes for anyone who could come up with a solution.

Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788-1827)

The breakthrough came through the work of Augustin-Jean Fresnel, a 19^th century physicist, born in Broglie, France in 1788. He was brought up in a strict Catholic household, and received his early education from his parents. As a child he was initially regarded as a slow learner, who could barely read by the age of 8, and showed little aptitude for languages or tests of memory.

Despite all this his boyhood friends regarded him as something of a genius, who would spend hours on ways to increase the power of popguns and bows, gradually leading him to an interest in mathematics and a university education studying engineering.

After graduating he worked in various French government departments until finding himself cast out following the return of Napoleon from exile in Elba in 1815.

By this time Fresnel had started conducting his own separate scientific studies into the behaviour of light, calculating different formulas to show how light could change direction, or refract, as it passed through prisms made from glass. Instead of creating one gigantic lens, Fresnel worked with leading glassmakers of the day to produce a thinner, lighter and more efficient lens, made up from multiple panels and prisms to retain and re-direct virtually all the available light.

The first Fresnel lens was installed in 1822 in the Cardovan Tower lighthouse on France’s Gironde River. With a large lamp in the centre, Fresnel’s lighthouse lens could gather, magnify and project the light for more than 20 miles away. In the following years many more European and US lighthouses had fresnel lenses installed, doubtless saving the lives of thousands of sailors.

Thanks to Fresnel, the world gained a greater understanding of the behaviour of light, and his work led to a major breakthrough for lighthouses and maritime safety.

Fresnel’s Lenses – the legacy

Augustin-Jean Fresnel never lived long enough to see how successful his studies proved to be. He did not enjoy good health during much of his lifetime and was only 39 when he died in July 1827. In the century after his death some 10,000 lights with fresnel lenses were installed in lighthouses and other buildings across the world.

He is buried at the famous Pere-Lachaise cemetery in Paris. Once you have taken in the more famous graves of other ‘residents’ – Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, Jim Morrison, Frederic Chopin, Yves Montand, Simone Signoret, Camille Pissaro – it’s worth exploring a little further to find Fresnel’s tombstone.

For someone whose invention has made its way to everyday magnifying vision aids, it seems ironic that his grave is somewhat hard to find. It is not well marked and even the original inscription on his tombstone has been eroded. You can just still make out the remaining words ‘To the memory of Augustin Jean Fresnel, member of the Institute of France“.

Where To Buy Fresnel Lenses Today

Magnifico offers the biggest selection of fresnel lenses in the UK. They are very popular, with several variations – card, bookmark, A6, A4, some with frame, some not, flexible sheet magnifiers and rigid page options.

In case you were wondering, ‘fresnel’ being French, has a silent ‘s’ in the middle so the pronunciation is ‘fre-nel’ (actually ‘fray-nel’ if you wish to go for the full French accent).

Cimetière du Père Lachaise, 16 rue du Repos,75020 Paris 
Tel.. +33 (0) 1 55 25 82 10
http://www.paris.fr/cimetieres

Subway – Père Lachaise, Philippe Auguste

Bus – 26, 54, 60, 61, 64, 69, 76, 102, La Traverse de Charonne

Magnifico (The Magnifier Company) has been around since 1999.

In that time we have answered thousands of questions about magnifying glasses. Sometimes we hear of usage requirements that are completely new to us. We are always happy to hear of any situation where a magnifier might come in handy, and can normally provide a solution of some kind for any related question.

Here’s a list of 20 things that you can do with a magnifying glass – some well-known, others less so. What do you use magnifiers for? Let us know. Perhaps we’ll add your use to a future list

1. Find a rare stamp
   Stamps are often tiny little design delights, with beautiful graphics and vivid bright colours, all in an area the size of a…well postage stamp. And sometimes they are of great value too. Enjoy them more and maybe find something more to treasure by inspecting one under a magnifying glass.
2. Read a book
   Make words leap off the page with a magnifier. Go for one with a light to make that text stand out more.  Bright LEDs highlight contrast, allowing you to finish that report, or read that final chapter late into the night, without straining your eyes.
3. Sewing and needlework
   Keep hands-free for embroidery, cross-stitch, quilting, sewing or needlework with a round-the-neck magnifier. Sit comfortably so you can concentrate and complete your creation sooner
4. There’s a great big world out there
   Once you start looking at a map it’s hard not to feel inspired and get ideas of places to go. Larger magnifiers give you a wider view and bring to life place names that perhaps would not have stood out otherwise. See them all more clearly and put them on your next itinerary.
5. Complete a cryptic crossword
   A crossword, or puzzle of any kind is a great way to stretch your mind and maybe broaden your vocabulary. Sometimes you think you’ve got the clue but is there such a word? Use a magnifying glass to check your answer in a dictionary or reference book.
6. Find that jigsaw piece
   So you’re up to 1000 pieces now but the manufacturer forgot to tell you how small they are. Don’t give up – just level the playing field by using a hands-free stand magnifier when you need to make one bigger.
7. Watch what you eat
   For some time manufacturers have been under pressure to reduce packaging but that means there’s so much information crammed on that much of the text is too small to read. If you’re counting calories, or have an allergy, then a magnifier might be just as helpful to you in the supermarket as your shopping list.
8. Mend something
   Perhaps you’ve been inspired to mend something by a restoration programme on TV. Unfortunately the last time you looked at the item was 30 years ago and time hasn’t been so kind on your eyesight either. Don’t worry – a magnifying lamp will light the subject and show up the detail you need.
9. Pigeon eye sign
   What? Oh come on, surely everyone knows that intense black pigeon eyes are one of the indications of good sight. That’s why pigeon fanciers often carry an eyeglass with them to spot the potential winners.
10. Bring back the memories
    Professional photographers always used high-powered loupes to check slides, negatives and prints. Nowadays digital has taken over but many of us at home still have albums full of old photos. What a joy it is to look at them, and remember ‘the good old days’ with the aid of a magnifying glass.
11. Coins – make a mint
    Got some old coins in the loft but wondered if there’s any value in them? Could be – especially those with silver content. Powerful magnifiers can help you see the years where there’s money to be made.
12. I was working in the lab late one night
    From medical schools to science labs, police forensic units to hospitals, none of them would be without a magnifying lamp or two, to help them with their investigations.
13. Beauty – you’re worth it
    Check you’ve still got those glamorous good looks with a magnifying mirror. Treat yourself to a manicure or facial at the local beauty salon, and let them look at you under a magnifying lamp.
14. Call a Plumber…
    ..or an Electrician, or a Gardener, or a Builder, or anyone in the small ads of your local magazine, that would be easier to find if the text wasn’t so small.
15. Buy shares on the stock market
    If you study the financial pages in your newspaper you’ll be used to looking at numbers. Spend too long concentrating though and the figures might begin to blur into each other. A good bar magnifier keeps your place on the page and makes each share price stand out – perhaps that’s the one that will make you that first million?
16. Insects – get the bug
    You don’t always need to go far from home to find something amazing. While away the hours by spending time with your children, and encouraging them to be inspired by nature by seeing bugs and plants in all their glory under a magnifying lens.
17. Electronics repairs
    Holding your breath while your try and get to something with a tweezer or screwdriver can be hard work – make it easier by putting it under a light and a lens. Use the most powerful magnifier you can find to show up component parts and replacement reference numbers.
18. Stop! Who goes there?
    You can’t come in unless you’ve got the right documents. Passport, driving licence, either will do. Hand them over for inspection under a desk loupe.
19. Give your project wings
    Model makers spend hours looking at intricate details, from plans to parts.  Putting it all together under a magnifying glass is one of the most satisfying moments for anyone’s passion.
20. I’m going back to my roots
    Trace your past, and find out who you really are. Large Fresnel lens magnifying sheets are ‘tools of the trade’ for genealogists who use them for research in libraries and public record offices to look up their family history.

Welcome to In The Loupe, our blog about Magnifiers.

Magnifico (The Magnifier Company)

By way of introduction, Magnifico was established in 1999 as a small company selling magnifiers online. Our range includes everything from a traditional hand-held Classic Magnifier, to Fresnel Lenses, Linen Testers, Loupes and Magnifying Lamps. We also supply helpful carefully-selected, helpful Low Vision products like our Needle Threader and Liquid Level Indicator.      

Everyone can make life easier by using one of our magnifiers!

Of course everyone knows that magnifiers are great for reading books, enlarging stamps, studying maps and enlarging tiny insects. They are invaluable as magnifying aids for the blind, and for those with impaired or low vision. Magnifiers are great for elderly users – or indeed anyone over the age of 40 who finds their eyes no longer focus as quickly as they used to. And there are also countless professional uses for magnifiers – archivists, science lab technicians, production line inspectors, crime scene detectives and beauty therapists could not manage without them.

• For reading, maps, art and craft, beauty work and viewing images
• For DIY, repair, industrial and medical inspection and some outdoor tasks
• For ‘spot’ tasks like reading mail, contractual documents, food packaging, medicine jars, instruction manuals
• For many other tasks around office or home

“Kill them with kindness”

This blog is dedicated to the memory of the greatest friend our business ever had -the late Joe Zalman, owner and president of the famous US magnifier company UltraOptix.

It is probably no exaggeration to say that without Joe’s help Magnifico may never have got off the ground. We came across the fabulous UltraOptix range back in 1999 and placed a small opening order covering perhaps a dozen or so lines. These lines formed the backbone of the Magnifico range, along with several under our own brand. There was nobody better than Joe at finding great magnifiers and it is a testament to his expertise and product selection skills that virtually all the original lines we started with are still going strong today.

Joe was incredibly loyal to us and always gave us his time so promptly even though we must have seemed like the tiniest of minnows by comparison to his giant US customers like Walmart and Staples. His philosophy was to “kill people with kindness” – the perfect way to deal with any problem, sometimes irrespective of cost. Time and again he would win over people with a simple approach that is easy to praise but sometimes requires an awful lot of pride to swallow!

We were so sad in early 2017 to hear that our lovely friend had passed away after bravely enduring several years of failing health. We miss his kindness, his humour and his generosity and hope the words on these pages convey the same enthusiasm for magnifiers that we always shared with him.