Find here some interesting lenses present in my collection. I dedicated more attention to “big glasses”, that means, large format photography lenses, because that is where the most important designs made their contribution to the endeavour of transforming light into images.
Article with brief history of the house Lerebours et Secrétan as exemplar of the transformations brought by the bourgeois and scientific revolution. Includes review of a landscape lens with a focal length of 255mm and an image made on a dry plate using the same lens.
Article addresses the technical and historical aspects of the first lens actually thought, calculated and developed for photography, in 1840 by Joseph Petzval.
Made in the nineteenth century this lens is a simple achromatic doublet and follows the same constructive principle of the lenses used by Daguerre in his first photographs.
Quick review of a Petzval type lens for portraits. Manufactured by Voigtländer in 1862. Sample of portrait made with it and links to useful resources.
– Orthoskop | Voigtlander | 1857/58 – This is the oldest lens in my collection. It came from an antiques shop in Santos – São Paulo, in a shoe box, wrapped in newspaper, with a Dagor 240 mm, a Tessar 300mm and some other non important photographic items. Unfortunately two elements are...
– 240 mm | ~ f:4 | c1862 – Louis Daguerre released his photographic process in France in 1839. At that time Jean Theodor Jamin was producing optical instruments since 1822. Like many others he quickly incorporated in his portfolio photographic lenses as the demand was soaring. In 1860 Jamin retired...
A short text, with photos, analyzes a portrait lens constructed by Derogy-France, based on the famous drawing by Josef Petzval of 1840. It briefly discusses, from this manufacturer, how the Industrial Revolution impacted the optical industry in 19th the century.
This lens, designed in 1881, was one of the highlights in photographic optics development prior to the introduction of crown barium glasses that allowed anastigmatic lenses.
Petzval-type lens, but from the end of the 19th century. Manufactured by Darlot, a French company, and distributed in the United States by Benjamin French & Co. of Boston. A good example of the longevity of the Petzval concept spanning decades and decades in photography.
Review of a Rapid Rectilinear lens from the very beginning of Wray's production, with comments on the firm's entrance and contribution to the history of photography. William Wray was very important in the diffusion of iris diaphragm for photographic lenses and recognised as a high quality lens...
Three Dagor lenses, 75, 120 and 240 mm are shown, all from Series III having lens aperture of f/6.8. With lens design developed in 1892, the Dagor, remains a very usable lens. See recent pictures made with them. At the turn of the century, with other anastigmats, Dagor contributed greatly to the...
Small lens whose design is among the first anastigmatics. The Collinnear, sometimes referred as Kollinnear, created by the Voigtländer firm in 1893, using the newly developed glasses in Jena was, among others of the same type, a step change in photographic optics.