Frequently, confusion. As if we didn’t have enough trouble cataloguing lenses with names like Bender, Nooky and Veginar, (thanks Lumaplak, Leica and Boots), Delta-world is far from the semantic ideal of one name for one thing. Major changes to a lens design sometimes go unflagged, while other, outwardly dissimilar lenses are optically identical. In many …
NB: This is a draft article with a number of omissions and content to be added. If you have any in-depth information, or original manufacturer manuals, catalogues or period advertisements that might be relevant, please email Mark here. Peer review and contributors welcome, and will be credited. Similarly, if you have any memorable images shot …
Everyone and their aunt made a 50mm enlarger lens. And if you use a 50mm enlarger lens, you have to ask: why not use one of the hundreds – nay, thousands – of standard 50mm taking lenses, which everyone’s aunt and uncle made too? Adding to the excitement, we even find the odd wide angle …
Almost a century and a half of optical engineering: from taking lenses to sunglasses; from Rodenstock to Linos to Qioptiq to Excelitas. Rodenstock lenses and lens cells can be dated as follows: 50 000 1910 200 000 1920 400 000 1930 700 000 1935 900 000 1938 950 000 1940 2 000 000 1945 2 …
Based in Görlitz, a designation that often appears on their lenses, the “Optisch-Mechanische Industrie-Anstalt Hugo Meyer & Co.” was founded in 1896 by the optician Hugo Meyer and the merchant Heinrich Schätze. The maker, in co-operation with Paul Rudolph, was an early pioneer (from 1918) of Plasmat lens manufacture, and rapidly expanded between 1920-1942, largely …
Jos. Schneider Optische Werke has been a major player in global lens manufacture during our lifetime; it’s therefore strange to think of the company as a relative newcomer: ‘only’ being established in 1913 – almost forty years younger than their rivals Rodenstock. And yet within twelve months, Schneider released the first of many Symmar lenses, …
Most makers of 35mm slide projectors offered a bread-and-butter plastic-barrel 85/2.8 and an optically superior upgrade that could be specified at purchase or retro-fitted. These lenses typically (though not always) jumped to 90mm but were always a little faster: commonly f2.4 or f2.5. The glass wasn’t just longer, it was deeper: deluxe options eschewed triplets …
If you average out all the lenses sold with all 35mm slide projectors, the most average – the most commonly fitted and seen – would be the plastic-barrel 85mm f2.8. Zeiss, Rollei, Wilhelm Will, Isco, Schneider, Rodenstock, Cabin et al – their entry-level bog-basic triplets were always the best sellers, most often selected by customers, …
For over a century the Steinheil name was synonymous with elite German optical engineering but it’s probably unfamiliar those whose interest in photography extends no further than recent decades. Steinheil’s American advertising of the 1950s and 1960s claimed ‘a century and a quarter’ of experience for the company – and it’s true that in 1826 …
Agfa’s enlarger lenses never achieved the global awareness of other German brands, or other products in its stable. PhotoCornucopia’s Big List only listed two; in 1983 the ‘Darkroom Magazine’ overview overlooked them; forum chatter goes quiet when you ask. In fact, you can read widely online and never learn Agfa ever made them. Vade Mecum …