Why do we call them lenses instead of objectives?

[Steven Tribe]

For most of us, objectives are something found at the front end of microscopes or telescopes (in contrast with occulars, that are found at the other end!). Yet, in the 19th. Century, camera lenses were called objectives (or occasionally, objective lenses). The function of non-camera objectives and camera "lenses" are exactly the same and all European languages I know use their local variant of "objective" for lenses. Is it just because the word is shorter or has it something to do with the mass popularisation of photography in the 1890's?
Using the word as it used to be used would help an awful lot with descriptions ( objective - cell - groups - individual lenses)!

[BrianShaw]

As I put on my spectacles, and loosen my cravat, to better read your message...

[Bob Salomon]

Why do we say hood rather then bonnet? Umbrella rather then brolley? Trunk rather then boot? American English rather then British English? Or Australian English or Canadian English?

[Robert A. Zeichner]

Why do we say garbage truck instead of refuse collection and compaction vehicle?

[Marko]

And then what about lift, escalator and elevator?

[Jan Pedersen]

In Danish Objektiv is used instead of lens, a lens is part of an Objektiv.
In English an objective is a target or a goal one set in order to accomplish something.
I have never heard the word Objective used as a term instead of a lens.

[Steven Tribe]

No - this isn't an english/american english thing! Both in the USA and the UK they used to be called ( and written as) objectives.

[George Kara]

I would like to contribute to this discussion but wouldn't be giving an objective opinion.

[BradS]

here in the US, objectives are something like goals.

Sometimes we refer to a camera lens as an optic....which seems more proper to me than lens but it isn't heard often enough in the everyday vernacular to be considered common...or probably even correct.

[Steven Barall]

Bob, you forgot New Jersey English.

[Jan Pedersen]

I would like to contribute to this discussion but wouldn't be giving an objective opinion.

Subjective is fine :) and seems to be prefered in this discussion :rolleyes:

[adietrich]

Steven,

To me 'lens' sounds a bit less pretentious than objective, but on the other hand, 'glass' is a bit too casual for me.

So, somebody who takes photos uses a lens, a scientist uses objectives in his lab, and that jaded camera collector has all kinds of 'glass' which he rarely uses.

-Arne

[Jan Pedersen]

A lens we can see through, that is not always the case with objectives.

[Sevo]

The problem is that a "lens" is made up of lenses - it is not exactly easy to communicate about lens problems with English-speaking laymen.

[bvstaples]

For most of us, objectives are something found at the front end of microscopes or telescopes (in contrast with occulars, that are found at the other end!). Yet, in the 19th. Century, camera lenses were called objectives (or occasionally, objective lenses). The function of non-camera objectives and camera "lenses" are exactly the same and all European languages I know use their local variant of "objective" for lenses. Is it just because the word is shorter or has it something to do with the mass popularisation of photography in the 1890's?
Using the word as it used to be used would help an awful lot with descriptions ( objective - cell - groups - individual lenses)!

As a user of cameras and a user of telescopes, I've come to realize that that the difference between a camera's objective lens and a telescope's objective lens (if it has one, not all telescopes, and not all camera lenses, have lenses) is moot: both can be used with a film holding body, and both can be used with an eyepiece (ocular) for visual observation whether terrestrial or heavenly. In essence they are all objective lenses (even those without lenses).

So what is proper usage? I don't think there is a well defined standard. Lately I personally have been referring to all objective and ocular lenses as "glass" because when I talk about them, the conversation invariably comes around to the quality of the glass used. A lot of photographers are taking very good images with mediocre (camera) glass, just as a lot of amateur astronomers do meaningful observing and excellent imaging with mediocre (telescope) glass. Those in the know, however, realize the glass can give a slight edge to the quality of the picture.

Just my humble opinion...

Brian

[cowanw]

I was looking through my old photographic dictionaries and my 1911 copy freely uses both objective and lens interchangebly.
Common usage aside, there is still nothing wrong with using Objective and in literature that has to be precise, such as patents, it is still de rigeur.
Regards
Bill

[Steven Tribe]

A dictionary definition called up from Google just now says that an objective is:

"Also called object glass, object lens, objective lens. Optics. (in a telescope, microscope, camera, or other optical system) the lens or combination of lenses that first receives the rays from the object and forms the image in the focal plane of the eyepiece, as in a microscope, or on a plate or screen, as in a camera."

[Greg Lockrey]

My first studio's name was "The Optimum Aperture". I thought it was a cool name that I found in a Leica catalogue and it looked good in Avant Garde type. The problem was that it was over everyone's head and the majority of the phone calls I got came from furnace manufacturers looking for injector orifaces.

[Ernest Purdum]

The word "lens" is very ancient and comes from the resemblance of the shape of a biconvex lens to that of a lentil.

[sidmac]

We call it a lens because that's what it is!

[David Lindquist]

I have a Bausch & Lomb publication from 1932. It uses the term "photographic lenses".
I also have a Carl Zeiss publication dated 1938 (in English). It uses the term "photographic objectives".

Now what is the proper name (or as I learned in the Army over 40 years ago, "nomenclature") for the front and back parts of your typical large format photographic lens/objective. That what screws in to the front and back of the shutter or in the case of a barrel mount, into the barrel fore and aft of the diaphragm, and which in the case of a convertible lens/objective, constitutes a discrete lens/objective in itself? Component? Cell? Thingy?
David

[goamules]

And in some optical devices, riflescopes, it goes like this:

Objective Lens:
The objective lens is the lens closest to the object being viewed.

Ocular Lens:
The ocular lens is the lens closest to your eye.

[John Kasaian]

I've always thought that the objctive was to make a purty pitcher :D

[Archphoto]

I might come from the diferences between German and English
in German a lens is a part of an objective
in English a lens can be both.

Peter

[Peter K]

I might come from the diferences between German and English
in German a lens is a part of an objective
in English a lens can be both.
And what about "lens" in Netherlandish? ;)

Peter

[Archphoto]

Lens in Dutch: mostly a single lens, both German and Dutch belong to the same language group.
Through the influence of th English language both words are used for the same thing: a camera lens.
Languages evoluate, change over time, in one area more than in an other.

And there is street-language and school-language aswell, but than you are talking about things within a language.

I think dividing lines are disapearing, like "zoom-lens" and 150mm objective, it sounds better in Dutch than in English......

Peter

[Bill_1856]

God calls them lenses, so we should too.

[Alan Davenport]

God calls them lenses, so we should too.

But, being omnipotent, God is not required to be objective.

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

I'm sorry not to be able to bring any clue to the original question in English, but I can say that in French we follow exactly the same rule and for the same reasons as in German.
Regarding lentils, une lentille is a single lens element and nothing else ; not to be confused with une lentille verte du Puy which is the best-of-our-best lentils.

A compound lens is called un objectif ; as said above, it comes from the difference between the entrance lens element(s) and the eyepiece in a telescope or in binoculars. In fact telescopes were known at least since Galileo Galilei, I realize that in Galileo's telescope there are only two single lens elemens, the "objective" on the object side and the eyepiece on the eye's side so things are really simple. For those who are interested in optical terminology, French differenciate the terms telescope and lunette, lunettes being made of transparent glass lens elements only and telescopes having one of several mirrors.
We would say Galileo's lunette and Newton's telescope.

Photographic lenses per se started in the XIX-st century, so probably the differences between "objectives" and "eyepieces" were already well-established when the new photographic systems without eyepieces started to be developed. Hence the name "objective" for the whole optical system in a photographic camera ??

So the only answer to the original question is : British-English is plain wrong regarding the nomenclature of optical systems, but since "they" drive on the other side of the road, we should not be too much surprised by "their" eccentricity ;-)

Now another good question is : letting the British be eccentric, why did some others on the other side of the Atlantic (who drive on the proper side of the road) actually did follow the British in their error ? ;-)

[Preston]

If you have objectives, you will go far toward meeting your photographic goals.

-Preston

[goamules]

disregard

[Alan Davenport]

Why do we call them lenses instead of objectives?

Probably for the same reason that most of us refer to fixed focal length lenses as "primes;" it's either:


1) We do not understand the technical terms, and are using them incorrectly.

or

2) Languages change. Word usage and meaning changes over time.

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

I have found reading a US patent for a Zeiss lens in the fifties that
"Photographic objective" is the title
and that the first sentence says :
"the invention concerns photographic objectives for taking or reproduction consisting of six lenses..."

see for example at google patents, Zeiss US Patent for (probably) a Planar lens
Patent number: 2831397
Filing date: Feb 13, 1956
Issue date: Apr 1958

Probably translated somewhere in Germany before submission to the USPTO... however the patent was issued in due form.
But the language used in patents is far from ours, isn't it ? ;-);-)