LF Lenses Designed by Photographers

[Mark Sawyer]

Just for fun, which large format lenses were designed by photographers and actually made it into commercial production? Although these were produced by commercial lens manufacturers, the designs were by practicing photographers who used these lenses themselves. I can think of a few, but I'm sure I've forgotten or don't know about others, so please add to the list if you know some I've missed.

1.) The Karl Struss Pictorial Lens. Struss was a pictorial photographer and an Academy Award-winning cinematographer.

2.) The Nicola Perscheid Portrait Objektiv. Perscheid was a well-known German portrait and pictorial photographer.

3.) The Objectif d’Artiste Formule Anachromatique, the Objectif d'Artiste, the Portrait Anachromatique and the Adjustable Landscape Lens by Puyo (and Pulligny). Constant Puyo was a leading advocate and practitioner for pictorial photography in France, aided in design by Leclerc de Pulligny, an important early optical designer/engineer.

4.) The Graf-Bishop Soft Focus Lens by Lloyd C. Bishop. Bishop was an Indiana portrait photographer.

5.) The Bodine Pictorial Lens by H. Oliver Bodine, a Wisconsin pictorialist photographer and photography retailer. (Note: the Bodine Pictorial Lens was reworked by Wollensak to become the famous Verito lens.)

6.) The Beach Multi-Focal Lens by Howard Beach. Beach was a New York pictorialist and portrait photographer.

As an aside, it's interesting that all these are soft focus lenses. I suppose this makes sense, as it would be difficult (and pointless) to design a sharp, well-corrected lens to compete with the conventional lenses being offered by the manufacturers. But to design a lens with aberrations deliberately left in, a lens with its own unique signature... well, that could be a wonderful and feasible challenge!

Okay, now which others did I leave out?

[Steve Goldstein]

How about the deGolden Busch lenses with which Doug Busch was involved?

[Steven Tribe]

7. Dallmeyer Bergheim.
Very little data available, but I believe it is a photographer, rather than an outside designer like Cooke.

I am not sure about Nicola Perscheid. I think there was a degree of "trend" in the use of known photographic artist's names.
They was certainly an association of sorts between photographer and lens maker, but Bergheim, Perscheid and others were perhaps used just as testers.

[Mark Sawyer]

7. Dallmeyer Bergheim.
Very little data available, but I believe it is a photographer, rather than an outside designer like Cooke.

I am not sure about Nicola Perscheid. I think there was a degree of "trend" in the use of known photographic artist's names.
They was certainly an association of sorts between photographer and lens maker, but Bergheim, Perscheid and others were perhaps used just as testers.

I wondered about including the Bergheim. According to Dan's site, it was "Designed by John Dallmeyer's son, Thomas, at the request of painter J.S. Bergheim." (http://www.antiquecameras.net/softfocuslenses.html) I'd guess that Bergheim was also a photographer, as he had the interest in having a lens designed.

If we include that one, should we also include the Pinkham & Smith "Smith Lens" Series I, designed by Walter Wolfe at the request of F. Holland Day? Actually, from the period literature, it seems several P&S lenses were designed with input from various photographers.

I can't say for sure about the Perscheid lens. Most of the citations I've found are a variation of "produced by Emil Busch AG after the specifications of Perscheid", which must have originated in an old journal and has been quoted or paraphrased since. So I'm giving design credit to Perscheid, though I may be wrong. F. Holland Day showed P&S a Bergheim lens and said something like "make me one of these", and P&S designed something completely different. Perhaps Perscheid did the same with Busch, and Bergheim with Dallmeyer, but the mention of Perscheid having "specifications" makes me think he was a bit more specific. But yes, I'm guessing...

[russyoung]

I wondered about including the Bergheim. According to Dan's site, it was "Designed by John Dallmeyer's son, Thomas, at the request of painter J.S. Bergheim." (http://www.antiquecameras.net/softfocuslenses.html) I'd guess that Bergheim was also a photographer, as he had the interest in having a lens designed.
.

J S Bergheim was a major photographer of his era, in major exhibitions and much admired.

Russ

[Mark Sawyer]

Thank you, Russ. Too many historic photographers to keep in my poor little brain...

[Jody_S]

Didn't Charles Piazzi Smyth design, or collaborate on the design, of a modified Petzval lens (as well as his collaboration with Barlow on astronomical instruments)?

[Mark Sawyer]

I had to do a little research on that one, Jody. From: http://www.brayebrookobservatory.org/BrayObsWebSite/HOMEPAGE/forum/Smyth-Barlow%20lenses.html

"Shortly after the introduction of Daguerreotype photography (1839), in 1841, Joseph Petzval (1807-1891) designed a portrait lens comprising a pair of crown-flint doublets; a cemented doublet and an air-spaced doublet. Charles Piazzi Smyth (1819-1900) Astronomer Royal for Scotland, surveyed and photographed the Gizeh Necropolis between the years 1860 and 1868. Smyth, dissatisfied by the poor edge definition of the Petzval portrait lens, modified the lens in 1873 by adding a negative field flattener element. Smyth realized that if astigmatism was corrected to leave only Petzval curvature, then a negative lens of suitable power close to the focal plane to act as a field lens would offset field curvature. (Brit. J. Phot. 22, 208 (1875). See also Brit. J. Phot. Almanac, 1874, p.43.)

Ernst Abbé proposed a negative element for microscope eyepieces in 1878. (E. Abbé, Fernrohrocular mit weit abliegendem Augenpunkt. J. Roy. Microsc. Soc., 1878)

The field flattener idea of Smyth was not further developed in camera lenses until 1911, when Moritz von Rohr used it to flatten the field of the Zeiss Biotar f/1.9 lens. In 1917 H. Dennis Taylor designed an f/2 Petzval type camera lens for Taylor Hobson with a negative element field flattener. A 4-inch f/2 lens of this type was used in the 1920's at Mount Wilson Observatory for wide field stellar photography. (Zeits. für Instkde. 31, 265 (1911) Brit. Pat. 127,058 (1917). See also Trans. Opt. Soc. (London) 24, 148 (1923))

Other photographic lenses with a Smyth field flattener were manufactured by Kodak in their Ektar range, including the Projection f/1.0 Ektar. A negative meniscus lens was placed immediately ahead of the image plane. (U.S. Pat. 2,076,190 (1934). See also JSMPTE 54, 337 (1950)) The lens arrangements of some of these systems may be found in Rudolph Kingslake, 'A History of the Photographic Lens'..."

I'd say that qualifies him, and he's the first to work towards a non-pictorialist lens!

[Mark Sampson]

The deGolden Busch lenses were designed for him by Rodenstock (and assembled by someone in Rochester, I think). I got that from a 'View Camera' magazine article from the early '90s, so I could be wrong.

[Peter De Smidt]

How about Frank Pechman and the Pinkham-Smith Bi-Quality?

[Jody_S]

I had to do a little research on that one, Jody. From: http://www.brayebrookobservatory.org/BrayObsWebSite/HOMEPAGE/forum/Smyth-Barlow%20lenses.html



It's amazing what useless information one can retain from reading something years ago, yet not be able to find one's keys...

[jp]

The Imagon is credited to Heinrich Kuhn.

[Bob Salomon]

The Imagon is credited to Heinrich Kuhn.

The 120 and 150mm Imagons had been discontinued for many years when a photographer named Burghard Schnactenburg
Invented a modified Prontor Professional shutter and a modular set of focusing
Tubes and camera mounts just for the above lenses. He then convinced Rodenstock to put the lenses back into production, by buying the complete production runs.

[Lou Baleur]

Here's a photographer that markets his lenses:

http://www.re-inventedphotoequip.com/Lenses.html

First one that popped into my head.

[Mark Sawyer]

I have a whole set of Imagons, and have read Kuhn's writings about them, but I never had any awareness of his work as a photographer! I spent an enjoyable half-hour googling his work, and it's quite lovely. Thank you, jp and Bob!

[Mark Sawyer]

Here's a photographer that markets his lenses:

http://www.re-inventedphotoequip.com/Lenses.html

First one that popped into my head.

I'd thought about Reinhold's lenses too, but as he's marketing them as Wollaston's design, I didn't include him. But he definitely deserves an honorable mention! I've seen dome lovely images come from his Wollaston lenses.

[goamules]

Charles Chevalier might be the first. He was asked to make the first lenses for the first Daguerreotype cameras, for Niepce, and then made the Verres Combinis.

Early on, it was a chicken or the egg question as to which came first. Optics makers often delved into photography, when those processes were being invented. But he certainly was a photographer.

[goamules]

One of my favorites, Charles C. Harrison, was a NYC daguerrotype photographer from 1846 to 1851, and had a studio on Broadway. He started making cameras first. He then learned to make Petzvals from Fitz (who learned from from English, German and the French optical makers in 1839), and started making them for his career, dropping the photography. Though CC Harrison didn't really invent the Petzval, he is notable as another early photographer that began to make lenses and cameras. Henry Fitz is another example of an optician coming before photography, as he was commissioned to make telescopes (early "lenses") in the 1830s, before daguerreotypes were invented.

In 1853 C.C. Harrison was awarded a bronze medal for his camera at N.Y. Crystal Palace Exhibition.

In 1858 he did invent a lens, the Harrison Schnitzer Globe.