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Thread: Periscop - rejected soft focus lens?

  1. #1
    renes
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    Periscop - rejected soft focus lens?

    Could you give an examples of famous persicop lenses (consisted of two menisci)? I know about Steinheil one, but were there others?

    Periscop is a soft focus lens? why it did not attract photographers serious attention? Anyone shooted with it?

  2. #2

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    Re: Periscop - rejected soft focus lens?

    R. D. Gray made some good Periscopes. I have an Extreme Wide Angle made by Gray that is very good. But it's not soft, it's a landscape lens with about 115 degrees of view.

  3. #3
    All metric sizes to 24x30 Ole Tjugen's Avatar
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    Re: Periscop - rejected soft focus lens?

    Some Steinheil Periskop's are double meniscii, but not all - Steinheil used that name for a lot of different experimental designs. The one I have is a landscape doublet, for example.

    At the time when the Periskop's were made the goal was NOT to make a soft focus lens, but to make a rectilinear lens for architecture.

  4. #4

    Re: Periscop - rejected soft focus lens?

    Some of the early casket sets were Periskop designs, these weren't indented to be SF, but are. The Verito is a modified Periskop.

  5. #5

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    Re: Periscop - rejected soft focus lens?

    Like Ole said the Periscopes were originally designed for rectilinear renderings but showed varying degrees of spherical aberration. I think the Steinheil doublet was patented just after the US civil war. The Hypergon wide angle versions are properly Periscopes, the earliest being doublets of extremely deep meniscus but surprisingly rectilinear. Light falloff at the periphery was extreme. The Goerz Hypergon (German Pat. 126,500, 1900) was a wonder at the time.

    Nate Potter, Austin TX.

  6. #6

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    Re: Periscop - rejected soft focus lens?

    i have a great big one (22 inch focal length!). i shot with it a while back. nice lens. i will try and find the photos.

    i loaned it to galli. i am sure he can make it sing!
    My YouTube Channel has many interesting videos on Soft Focus Lenses and Wood Cameras. Check it out.

    My YouTube videos
    oldstyleportraits.com
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  7. #7

    Re: Periscop - rejected soft focus lens?

    Attached, is what R. Kingslake in Image Magazine Sep/Dec 1982 had to say about the Periskop

    Dan

    Antique & Classic Camera Blog
    www.antiquecameras.net/blog.html

  8. #8

    Re: Periscop - rejected soft focus lens?

    This is a rough sketch and my memory isn't great but here it is. The Zentmeyer Globe was Periskopic in the original Steinheil Periskopic sense of two single glasses around a central stop.The Zentmeyer was in response to the Harrison Schnitzer Globe but had only the two glasses and was not symmetrical, while the Harrison Globe has two cemented pairs and four glasses and was symmetrical. Both the Zent globe & the Harrison globe had globe like hemispherical elements in both front and rear. The original Steinheil Periskop did not have globe like elements. I believe It took Zentmeyer some time, over a year, to get a patent because he was sued by Steinheil claiming the Zent Globe infringed on the original Periskop design, which it did not because the design was different and globe like. Zentmeyer's patent was 1866. The true Steinheil Periskop of 1865 patent was manufactured by Voigtlander and, from what I understand, this is the only lens that bore the names of both Voightlander and Steinheil. Very few of these lenses were made and only four are known to exist. They were slow and somewhat rectilinear, more so than the earlier Petzval and landscape achromat, not chromatically corrected, and slow, I think f32. They had only one stop, take it or leave it, most left it. One year later Steinheil designed and manufactured the Aplanat, Dallmeyer the Rapid Rectilinear, a much faster lens at f8, was rectilinear and chromatically correct. The Periskop was quickly obsolete but very rare and collectible today, perhaps the most rare and sought after 19th Century lens. Later the term Periscope was used but these lenses were not truly periskopic as they have cemented pairs. Hope this helps.

    http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/2453586

  9. #9

    Re: Periscop - rejected soft focus lens?

    more on the Globe influence, from Kingslake ( attached )

    and from Milan Zahorcak who actually has owned and held most of the lenses:

    http://books.google.com/books?id=VYy...page&q&f=false
    go to page 166


    Dan

    Antique & Classic Camera Blog
    www.antiquecameras.net/blog.html

  10. #10

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    Re: Periscop - rejected soft focus lens?

    Another photo of the Voigtländer periskop - after the Steinheil name was given up.
    Looks exactly the same as a well known super wide angle Goerz lens!

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