LF Lenses Designed by Photographers

[Jody_S]

I had to do a little research on that one, Jody. From: http://www.brayebrookobservatory.org...%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.