Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/05/18
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Marc, Just my 2 cents. Petzval's design was created in 1840. It was the first lens designed for portraits called the Petzval Portrait Lens. This type of lens is used in many modern F2 microscopes objectives. The lens is basically a telescope objective in front, with a similar but modified second objective spaced wider from the front. Incidentally, H. Wollaston developed a Landscape lens in 1812, some twenty years before photography was invented. Chevalier took this and created the achromatic lens in 1850. So even pre-Zeiss there were thieves afoot in the lens business. Zeiss started operations (building microscopes) around 1846, correct? And Abbe later (1868 to 1872) developed his mathematical system at Zeiss to theoretically determine optical light transmission. Please correct me if I am wrong but it would appear that calculated lenses preceded Zeiss and Voigtlander lens designs. Peter K Incidentally, in 1560 (yes, 1560) the pinhole of a camera obscura was replaced with a simple lens. (Yes, Camera Obscura was already in use). I don't think the lens was mathematically calculated but I could be wrong. - -----Original Message----- From: Marc James Small [mailto:msmall@roanoke.infi.net] Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 1999 8:33 AM To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us Subject: Re: [Leica] Using old lenses At 12:40 AM 5/19/99 +1000, Horst Schmidt wrote: >I believe Voigtlander was the first lens manufacturer who managed to >calculate a lens. I'm not certain quite what is meant by this. Microscope objectives were being calculated at both Leitz and Zeiss in the 1870's, long before Voigtlander began to adopt modern mathematical design techniques at the turn of this century. Certainly, Paul Rudolph's work at Zeiss predates Harting's at Voigtlander by a decade and more. If you are referring to the Petzval lens, that was designed by Petzval and THEN turned over to Voigtlander for production and marketing -- the tale told is that Petzval was given a platoon of Austrian soldiers to do his maths. It was after this that Voigtlander pirated the design and moved, in the middle of the night, no doubt, from Vienna to Braunschweig to escape the process of Austrian law. (So, you see: the Japanese are certainly not the only thieves in the history of camera lenses!) Marc msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!