What Lens Is IN This Photo?

[Richard K.]

I know it's a long shot, but can anyone identify the lens that Lewis Caroll is polishing in the photo below?

http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn15/RichardK47/LewisCarroll.jpg

[Pete Watkins]

It looks like a Dallmeyer.
Nice to see that he kept his hands off little girls at times.
Probably the photographer who Jock Sturges base his quest to produce his grubby little images on.
He was otherwise known as Charles Lutwidge Dogson. Taught at The University of Oxford.
Pete.

[erie patsellis]

Pete, isn't it Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dogson?

[Richard K.]

So it wasn't just lenses that he buffed?

[Steven Tribe]

Surname is Dodgson - not Dogson - although he did have conflicts with his father! I think you are all thinking of his father and paternal grandfather (all Charles's I think) who were ministers/bishops. Lewis was a mathematician/algebrist with a real interest in all arts.

[Pete Watkins]

Sorry Steven,
It was Dodgson, don't know how I got that wrong.
I'm pretty sure that he didn't become ordained but he did lecture on maths in Oxford.
Pete.

[Robert Hughes]

I'd heard he was also an acquaintance of Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace, pioneers in developing the mathematics that led to the digital computer a hundred years later.

[Alex Tymków]

HI, he was a rev, you had to be to teach at Oxford then. Alex

[IanG]

When Roger Taylor researched the Carroll archives, diaries etc for Lewis Carroll, Photographer: The Princeton University Library Albums (http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7241.html) he found that contrary to previous belief the images of young girls where made over a short period, and all documented in the diaries.

They were taken at a time when there was a craze for printed cards of artists drawings & paintings of similarly semi clad or nude young girls and they sold in huge numbers, and the conclusion was that Dodgson (Carroll) wanted to sell similar photographs.

But not all sections of society viewed these cards/images in the same way, and Dodgson's position made it easy for people to pillory him, and of course it's right to ask if he should in fact have made some of them.

Prior to Roger's work no-one had cross matched any of Dodgson;s (Carroll's) known images with the diary entries, but they where all there in his diaries. The entries show that the girls were always chaperoned.

Ian

[erie patsellis]

HI, he was a rev, you had to be to teach at Oxford then. Alex

An extremely rare dispensation was made for him, he rose no higher than deacon of the Anglican church. While he completed all his studies, he had no desire to be ordained. Somewhere in the boxes of books I have packed I have several biographies, if I ever find that box, or my heirs do....

[Steven Tribe]

Surely this so-called requirement to be a ordained minister of the Church must be a misunderstanding by somebody!

I don't believe that Oxford had such a requirement for teaching staff. The University runs (ran) it's own system with lecturers, professors etc. But it does require that teaching staff have an association with the "self-governing" University Colleges - typically as Fellows. So individual Colleges could have a requirement that Fellow must have at least part I Tripos (exam after 1/2 years) in Divinity. As Dodgson was a third generation at Oxford, he may have joined a "family" college with an organised Christian emphasis. Even in my day - the 60's (I went to "the other place" though - the pale blue), the entry requirement for both Latin and Greek proficiency was only just a thing of the past.

[IanG]

I think it was more Dodgson's way of entry as a Don, via the clergy, which would give him the equivalent of a Doctorate (PhD) as a Minister of the Church.

Ian


Surely this so-called requirement to be a ordained minister of the Church must be a misunderstanding by somebody!

I don't believe that Oxford had such a requirement for teaching staff. The University runs (ran) it's own system with lecturers, professors etc. But it does require that teaching staff have an association with the "self-governing" University Colleges - typically as Fellows. So individual Colleges could have a requirement that Fellow must have at least part I Tripos (exam after 1/2 years) in Divinity. As Dodgson was a third generation at Oxford, he may have joined a "family" college with an organised Christian emphasis. Even in my day - the 60's (I went to "the other place" though - the pale blue), the entry requirement for both Latin and Greek proficiency was only just a thing of the past.

[Steven Tribe]

OK - now I have googled. It was Christ Church College who insisted he take a religious order in order to get his "tenure" as a Fellow of the College. His Tripos part I were Classics (Latin and Greek) and Mathematics. He got the best result of his year for Mathematics. One of his study areas was optics!

[Pete Watkins]

Ian,
They don't do PhD's at Oxford, they do Dphil's, it's the same as a PhD but different. Oxford, Cambridge & Durham Dphil's, all the rest PhD's. Don't ask 'cos I don't know. Just because others were photographing young pre-pubersent girls in the nude really does not justify his position, especially if he had possibly taken religous orders.
Steven, I know that in the early days a degree in "religous stuff" was necessary but I have no idea when that ended. Just to upset you a qualification in ancient Greek is no longer needed to study Classics at the University of Oxford (but I suspect that it helps). Didn't know about the optics thing, thanks for that. As far as I can find out Dodgson did go to "the family college".
Best Wishes,
Pete.

[Ash]

...but I'm still waiting to find out what lens he was holding!

[Richard K.]

...but I'm still waiting to find out what lens he was holding!

LOL!! Now I remember why I posted!! :rolleyes: :D

[Ash]

I bet it was a Ross lens

[Steven Tribe]

Pete, as there are probably just a handful of "normal schools" with Greek masters because the extinction of State Grammar Schools, it doesn't surprise me! I was in the period with a Latin requirement which gave me great difficulty ( along with German!) but there was a Greek class for the real Classics scholars.

I think the objective is a very large rectilinear.

[Ash]

Latin was compulsory in the first two years of my secondary education, that was only 12 years ago now.

[IanG]

Ian,
They don't do PhD's at Oxford, they do Dphil's, it's the same as a PhD but different. Oxford, Cambridge & Durham Dphil's, all the rest PhD's. Don't ask 'cos I don't know.
Pete.

My brother in law did his PhD at Oxford, it means Doctor of Philosophy in Latin -Philosophiae Doctor. Dphil is more a slang/abbreviated term, not used officially by any University.

Ian

[Steven Tribe]

Sorry Ian - you are absolutely wrong. The Oxon qualification has always been DPhil since it started around WW1. Some with the qualification automatically "translate" this to PhD to increase understanding for other people - not in the know. Otherwise it shows like a participant in a TV daytime hospital soap - "Dr. Phil"!

[IanG]

Steven, Oxford offers a Ph.D programme, the qualification like any other UK University is a "Doctor of Philosophy" they don't award a DPhil, it like PhD is just an abbreviation that people use.

Sometimes where the person uses the term Dr then their name they add DPhil to try to differentiate from a medical doctor but it's a very wooly area.

More importantly Roger Taylor's work reading the diaries would almost certainly tell us what the lens was, the diaries where quite thorough.

Ian

[Richard K.]

OK, I found this:

http://www.comlab.ox.ac.uk/admissions/dphil/

A few lines from the top it states:

"In Oxford, the Doctor of Philosophy degree is abbreviated D.Phil. but in other respects is equivalent to a Ph.D. elsewhere."

Now can we please try to figure out what lens that is?!?! :) :rolleyes: :D

[Richard K.]

Dphil is more a slang/abbreviated term, not used officially by any University.

Ian

Except apparently Oxford (see post above)...:eek: :) :D
But what do you expect from a place that shortens Oxford to Oxon?! :rolleyes:
That's almost as bad as Cantab...

OK is the lens a Ross or a Dallmeyer or...?

[goamules]

Almost all petzvals look the same from that little exposed section. Do you really think someone can tell what make it is? It could be anything.

[Richard K.]

Almost all petzvals look the same from that little exposed section. Do you really think someone can tell what make it is? It could be anything.

You're right of course. I guess I was hoping that someone may have had peripheral knowledge or remembered a reference to Carroll or read an ad in which it was stated
"Lewis Carroll loves our super-fast lenses", etc. etc. From just the photo - agreed that it's nigh impossible other than perhaps a generic (Petzval) identification...