rolleistef
Well-known
A little Christmas tale for optical designers and photographers! 
Once upon a time, optical designers started thinking about more complex lenses that would have an inbuilt correction of all aberrations they could think about. They started increasing the number of elements inside the lenses, then thought about getting rid of all air-surfaces, later imagined coating, multi-coating, super-multi-coating, included rare elements inside glass, had to put lead as well as those elements were radioactive.
Later on, so that they could reduce costs, they replaced glass by plastic for cheaper lenses, and everybody was happy with his robot-ground polycarbonate 50mm.
This is the beginning of our tale :
the tale of the 7 element gauss and of the uncoated meniscus.
The Gauss belonged to a merry fellow who enjoyed street photography much, and who would often take photos at dusk or night, and thus needed a fast lens. His Gauss had been made long ago by Minolta, and he would use it along with a nice SLR body. The 50mm had many friends, such as Mary the 28/2.8, and Big Patrick, who fancied himself a Glasgow mafia boss and could cover in one move, the fast lane between 70mm-on-sea and 210mm-upon-the-hills. "No Pat, don't!' Would yell together his friends Gauss-Rokkor and Mary, you'll soon get blind if you do so!" But Patrick was a nice chap, and underneath the grumpy character he wanted everyone to think he was, he had an expensive secret : he could remain open at a constant f:4 all the way through.
He was very proud, anyway, of his 15 elements in 11 groups. He really felt important about having such a large team under his orders : nearly a small company!
Then a friend of the photographer's gave him a very uncanny present. He knew he liked collecting vintage photographic items, and had once handed him a little brown case, made of cheap plastic, saying "Agfa" on the front.
The photographer opened the case and laughed for a while : it was an Agfa Clack, not the folding one, entirely made out of Bakelite, with the exception of its lens, a very small meniscus who had to share the house with a very friendly though boring neighbour : a two position shutter. The shutter really lacked imagination. He could only say two things : when set on a certain position, he could open his mouth and sing "laaaaaaaaaaa!" as long as the photographer wanted so. On the other position, he could merely utter a little "clack", hence the name of his camera-house : "Clack".
When the little meniscus arrived on the shelf next to his new flatmates, he really was impressed. The photographer had Zeiss glasses (without which he had difficulties at focusing with an SLR), as well as a big bunch of Minolta lenses and bodies. Some of them had very important names, such as "Rokkor 50/1.7 PF" on a fixed-lens rangefinder camera, or even "SMC Takumar 55/2". But the most impressive of them all was a camera who seemed to doze most of the day, except when the photographer was taken it away for dusting. It had two lenses, one of which stated "Zeiss Tessar 75/3.5".
The little Meniscus thought, oh, "he's got a slow lens as well ! Maybe he can be a friend to me!"
When it is dark outside, Meniscus wakes up and starts calling quietly, "Mr Tessar! Mr Tessar" No answer. "Mr Tessar! Mr Zeiss Tessar!" Tessar woke up suddently. "Who's calling" he said, "I don't know that voice!" Meniscus was a little scared, but he was brave nonetheless, and replied, "Mr Tessar, I'm a newcomer, and as you're so famous, I thought you could, hm..." Meniscus was blushing. He didn't like blushing. He would turn white, and then people would think he was dirty. "you could introduce me to some friends!" Tessar told him, "listen, my boy, I'm a bit old for that nowadays, but you should go and see the Gauss family, they're more complex. I've only got 4 elements, and I'm single coated!"
Meniscus was really pleased with what he had learnt. He knew the Gauss family was a very large family, with thousand of cousins, with 2 to 11 elements, some of them were f:5.6, some others could see in the dark and were f:1. So he gained courage and said, not too loud not to wake the photographer up, "is there anybody nearby who belongs to the Gauss family?" After a couple of seconds, he hears somebody move and dress with a gown. "I am the youngest of the gauss family herre" he heard. The lens had a strong Russian accent. "I'm gonna fetch an older brrotherr and see what we can do."
After a short time, it was not a brother, but a cousin of the russian boy who came : she was a 50mm. She liked very much that his sibbling called her "Princess Rokkor". As you probably understood, she was a member of the Minolta branch, and shared a bit of her DNA with the Leica family.
"Who are you?" she said, "What is your name? what camera do you fit?"
Meniscus was very impressed. He had never seen such a beautiful lens. She was black and shiny, with green figures all around her body. "Miss... I'm Meniscus, just... Meniscus. I'm sorry I woke you up, I've just arrived... I'm looking for new friends..."
Then she started asking him embarrassing questions, what he was made of, how many elements he had, if he contain thorium, if he had fungi already. The little meniscus was really shy, and it took him a long time to say, half lying : "I have... two elements, I'm made of plain glass and I'm feeling very lonely, the only other person here is a very uninteresting shutter who can only either say "laaaaa!" or "clack" and we can never dialectise anything together. Do you want to be my friend?"
'I'll think about it" said the little princess, "i'll tell you tomorrow night".
The following day, Meniscus couldn't wait for the night to come. The photographer had been mending another Minolta, which, he was telling his friends, was his favourite, and the little lens was full of excitement as he knew he was to have new friends.
When the photographer is sleeping, Meniscus is patiently waiting for the beautiful Rokkor to give her answer. She came by 2am, but she was not alone. "Plenty of new friends!" thought the little lens. "aren't you happy, Shutter?" Shutter was already snoring, and said a little "clack", to Meniscus' great disappointment.
"Meniscus", Rokkor said, "my family and I have something to tell you".
A very old Rokkor 50/1.8, who belonged to a broken Hi-Matic, started talking and uttered : "Meniscus, you are a liar. You pretended you had two elements, though your name itself means you only have one. You're a meniscus, Meniscus! Did you reckon you could lie in such a disgusting way to the Gauss family? You shall be pushed by the other lenses and cameras down the shelf, and even if you survive, no one will ever talk to you ever again, you poor fool!"
The old Rokkor turned back and didn't say another word. The young Princess Rokkor was crying, the other Gausses remained silent. They started coming toward Meniscus and the Agfa Clack, accompanied by a bunch of ghastly lensless bodies, some of them devoid of even a body cap.
Then the Princess shouted, "no, stop it! now!"
No one dared oppose the Princess, as she could shriek so loud that she could wake the whole house up.
"Listen, she said, we can do something. I'm sure Meniscus can repay his sin. Let's say... with a lens resolution chart? If he stands the challenge, then he can remain with us, for instance"
"Do you really think he can be as good in the corners as in the center? Even the old Tessar wasn't good enough for that."
"Or... I know! Let's encourage the photographer to use him next time he goes out! Then we can give him a chance, he may have a good style though he's so poor and weak! Look at that, he cannot even open wider than f:8! And he doesn't even have a proper shutter!"
"clack clack" said the poor little shutter.
Indeed, what the children all know for sure, but their parents forget, is that cameras and lenses have a special power : they can influence a photographer to take them. Many photographer feel uncomfortable about it, though they don't know, or cannot remember why, and end selling up all their cameras and lenses except one or two, and believe they are as faithful as in a married couple. Others, on the other hand, buy plenty of cheap cameras and end with a large cupboard full of oddities they will never use. But the consequence of the latter is that photographers never know what camera to take. They then always take 3 or 4 cameras with them, as well as dozens of lenses they eventually forget in the mist of Amazonia or in a Hotel room in Honolulu.
Then came the following week end. The photographer decided he wanted to go to Paris and take pictures. He started thinking about what to take. He only had a medium format roll, and was hesitating between a half restored Rolleicord, his trusty Rolleiflex, a folding Agfa and the new little Clack. "take me! take me!" hissed Meniscus. "Take him! Take him!" silently shouted the other cameras and lenses.
And the photographer took the Clack.
Though the camera was so simple, with such a dreadful viewfinder, it had very peculiar format : 6x9, which the photographer didn't know well. He immediately enjoyed the panoramic vision the Clack conferred, and started joyfully Clacking around. "Clack, clack!" was singing the shutter, and one by one, the photographer took the 8 photos he had on the roll. He also liked the built-in yellow filter, and the little inner lens that gives you a closer focusing - as Meniscus was also a fixed lens.
When he got back, he found out he didn't have any more fixer, and that he couldn't process the film.
It took another 2 months during which the little lens was not allowed to talk to anyone. The photographer had given the camera a ridiculous nickname : "level Zero of photography", as it was so dead simple compared to his Minolta XD11.
The third month, some cameras had breached their vow of silence a little and had a tea once in a while with the meniscus, who at least wasn't a bad-tempered lens . But that was all. Worse, the photographer had a new digital SLR and he didn't use black and white film any more.
Then the lenses thought it was a little unfair, and started influencing the photographer. Without really knowing what he was doing, he thus went to a famous chemistry dealer, bought two 120 roll and 2 135 black and white films, paper processing chemicals and, at least, one litre of fixer.
Joyfully, he mixed the fixer (1+5), and loaded the FP4 he had used for the Clack in the tank. He was worrying a little about the film being potentially impossible to load after such a long time, but it went fine (unlike the next film, who refused for 50 minutes to go and take a bath, naughty child!). He processed the film at 1+25 in Rodinal for 9 minutes and a half, rinsed it, fixed it, rinsed it a second time, added a few drops of photoflo at the end so that he didn't have traces on the film and... the photographer was very impressed. He could see 6X9 negatives for the first time of his life, and was incredibly happy with the results : very detailed, rather sharp. He was very impatient to scan the film to see the results, and when he eventually did so, had a huge smile on his face. He immediately showed the other cameras the pictures Clack and Meniscus had made, and Meniscus was cheered by the whole collection.
The old Rokkor said, "I'm sorry Meniscus, I was unfair to you. But my grand-daughter Princess Rokkor would be very happy to be your friend, now you prove you are such a good piece of glass."
Princess Rokkor and Meniscus became indeed very close friends, and were brought in the same camera case to London the following week, where they could tenderly chatter one with another, shouting with joy when the other was in business. They never got married though. Princess Rokkor married Big Patrick, who happened to be a very nice fellow in spite of his custom of spying on everyone, while Meniscus had three little children with Mary, the 28/2.8, as he preferred wider angles to other focals he just thought were too standard.
The End! Merry Christmas!
Stéphane
Once upon a time, optical designers started thinking about more complex lenses that would have an inbuilt correction of all aberrations they could think about. They started increasing the number of elements inside the lenses, then thought about getting rid of all air-surfaces, later imagined coating, multi-coating, super-multi-coating, included rare elements inside glass, had to put lead as well as those elements were radioactive.
Later on, so that they could reduce costs, they replaced glass by plastic for cheaper lenses, and everybody was happy with his robot-ground polycarbonate 50mm.
This is the beginning of our tale :
the tale of the 7 element gauss and of the uncoated meniscus.
The Gauss belonged to a merry fellow who enjoyed street photography much, and who would often take photos at dusk or night, and thus needed a fast lens. His Gauss had been made long ago by Minolta, and he would use it along with a nice SLR body. The 50mm had many friends, such as Mary the 28/2.8, and Big Patrick, who fancied himself a Glasgow mafia boss and could cover in one move, the fast lane between 70mm-on-sea and 210mm-upon-the-hills. "No Pat, don't!' Would yell together his friends Gauss-Rokkor and Mary, you'll soon get blind if you do so!" But Patrick was a nice chap, and underneath the grumpy character he wanted everyone to think he was, he had an expensive secret : he could remain open at a constant f:4 all the way through.
He was very proud, anyway, of his 15 elements in 11 groups. He really felt important about having such a large team under his orders : nearly a small company!
Then a friend of the photographer's gave him a very uncanny present. He knew he liked collecting vintage photographic items, and had once handed him a little brown case, made of cheap plastic, saying "Agfa" on the front.
The photographer opened the case and laughed for a while : it was an Agfa Clack, not the folding one, entirely made out of Bakelite, with the exception of its lens, a very small meniscus who had to share the house with a very friendly though boring neighbour : a two position shutter. The shutter really lacked imagination. He could only say two things : when set on a certain position, he could open his mouth and sing "laaaaaaaaaaa!" as long as the photographer wanted so. On the other position, he could merely utter a little "clack", hence the name of his camera-house : "Clack".
When the little meniscus arrived on the shelf next to his new flatmates, he really was impressed. The photographer had Zeiss glasses (without which he had difficulties at focusing with an SLR), as well as a big bunch of Minolta lenses and bodies. Some of them had very important names, such as "Rokkor 50/1.7 PF" on a fixed-lens rangefinder camera, or even "SMC Takumar 55/2". But the most impressive of them all was a camera who seemed to doze most of the day, except when the photographer was taken it away for dusting. It had two lenses, one of which stated "Zeiss Tessar 75/3.5".
The little Meniscus thought, oh, "he's got a slow lens as well ! Maybe he can be a friend to me!"
When it is dark outside, Meniscus wakes up and starts calling quietly, "Mr Tessar! Mr Tessar" No answer. "Mr Tessar! Mr Zeiss Tessar!" Tessar woke up suddently. "Who's calling" he said, "I don't know that voice!" Meniscus was a little scared, but he was brave nonetheless, and replied, "Mr Tessar, I'm a newcomer, and as you're so famous, I thought you could, hm..." Meniscus was blushing. He didn't like blushing. He would turn white, and then people would think he was dirty. "you could introduce me to some friends!" Tessar told him, "listen, my boy, I'm a bit old for that nowadays, but you should go and see the Gauss family, they're more complex. I've only got 4 elements, and I'm single coated!"
Meniscus was really pleased with what he had learnt. He knew the Gauss family was a very large family, with thousand of cousins, with 2 to 11 elements, some of them were f:5.6, some others could see in the dark and were f:1. So he gained courage and said, not too loud not to wake the photographer up, "is there anybody nearby who belongs to the Gauss family?" After a couple of seconds, he hears somebody move and dress with a gown. "I am the youngest of the gauss family herre" he heard. The lens had a strong Russian accent. "I'm gonna fetch an older brrotherr and see what we can do."
After a short time, it was not a brother, but a cousin of the russian boy who came : she was a 50mm. She liked very much that his sibbling called her "Princess Rokkor". As you probably understood, she was a member of the Minolta branch, and shared a bit of her DNA with the Leica family.
"Who are you?" she said, "What is your name? what camera do you fit?"
Meniscus was very impressed. He had never seen such a beautiful lens. She was black and shiny, with green figures all around her body. "Miss... I'm Meniscus, just... Meniscus. I'm sorry I woke you up, I've just arrived... I'm looking for new friends..."
Then she started asking him embarrassing questions, what he was made of, how many elements he had, if he contain thorium, if he had fungi already. The little meniscus was really shy, and it took him a long time to say, half lying : "I have... two elements, I'm made of plain glass and I'm feeling very lonely, the only other person here is a very uninteresting shutter who can only either say "laaaaa!" or "clack" and we can never dialectise anything together. Do you want to be my friend?"
'I'll think about it" said the little princess, "i'll tell you tomorrow night".
The following day, Meniscus couldn't wait for the night to come. The photographer had been mending another Minolta, which, he was telling his friends, was his favourite, and the little lens was full of excitement as he knew he was to have new friends.
When the photographer is sleeping, Meniscus is patiently waiting for the beautiful Rokkor to give her answer. She came by 2am, but she was not alone. "Plenty of new friends!" thought the little lens. "aren't you happy, Shutter?" Shutter was already snoring, and said a little "clack", to Meniscus' great disappointment.
"Meniscus", Rokkor said, "my family and I have something to tell you".
A very old Rokkor 50/1.8, who belonged to a broken Hi-Matic, started talking and uttered : "Meniscus, you are a liar. You pretended you had two elements, though your name itself means you only have one. You're a meniscus, Meniscus! Did you reckon you could lie in such a disgusting way to the Gauss family? You shall be pushed by the other lenses and cameras down the shelf, and even if you survive, no one will ever talk to you ever again, you poor fool!"
The old Rokkor turned back and didn't say another word. The young Princess Rokkor was crying, the other Gausses remained silent. They started coming toward Meniscus and the Agfa Clack, accompanied by a bunch of ghastly lensless bodies, some of them devoid of even a body cap.
Then the Princess shouted, "no, stop it! now!"
No one dared oppose the Princess, as she could shriek so loud that she could wake the whole house up.
"Listen, she said, we can do something. I'm sure Meniscus can repay his sin. Let's say... with a lens resolution chart? If he stands the challenge, then he can remain with us, for instance"
"Do you really think he can be as good in the corners as in the center? Even the old Tessar wasn't good enough for that."
"Or... I know! Let's encourage the photographer to use him next time he goes out! Then we can give him a chance, he may have a good style though he's so poor and weak! Look at that, he cannot even open wider than f:8! And he doesn't even have a proper shutter!"
"clack clack" said the poor little shutter.
Indeed, what the children all know for sure, but their parents forget, is that cameras and lenses have a special power : they can influence a photographer to take them. Many photographer feel uncomfortable about it, though they don't know, or cannot remember why, and end selling up all their cameras and lenses except one or two, and believe they are as faithful as in a married couple. Others, on the other hand, buy plenty of cheap cameras and end with a large cupboard full of oddities they will never use. But the consequence of the latter is that photographers never know what camera to take. They then always take 3 or 4 cameras with them, as well as dozens of lenses they eventually forget in the mist of Amazonia or in a Hotel room in Honolulu.
Then came the following week end. The photographer decided he wanted to go to Paris and take pictures. He started thinking about what to take. He only had a medium format roll, and was hesitating between a half restored Rolleicord, his trusty Rolleiflex, a folding Agfa and the new little Clack. "take me! take me!" hissed Meniscus. "Take him! Take him!" silently shouted the other cameras and lenses.
And the photographer took the Clack.
Though the camera was so simple, with such a dreadful viewfinder, it had very peculiar format : 6x9, which the photographer didn't know well. He immediately enjoyed the panoramic vision the Clack conferred, and started joyfully Clacking around. "Clack, clack!" was singing the shutter, and one by one, the photographer took the 8 photos he had on the roll. He also liked the built-in yellow filter, and the little inner lens that gives you a closer focusing - as Meniscus was also a fixed lens.
When he got back, he found out he didn't have any more fixer, and that he couldn't process the film.
It took another 2 months during which the little lens was not allowed to talk to anyone. The photographer had given the camera a ridiculous nickname : "level Zero of photography", as it was so dead simple compared to his Minolta XD11.
The third month, some cameras had breached their vow of silence a little and had a tea once in a while with the meniscus, who at least wasn't a bad-tempered lens . But that was all. Worse, the photographer had a new digital SLR and he didn't use black and white film any more.
Then the lenses thought it was a little unfair, and started influencing the photographer. Without really knowing what he was doing, he thus went to a famous chemistry dealer, bought two 120 roll and 2 135 black and white films, paper processing chemicals and, at least, one litre of fixer.
Joyfully, he mixed the fixer (1+5), and loaded the FP4 he had used for the Clack in the tank. He was worrying a little about the film being potentially impossible to load after such a long time, but it went fine (unlike the next film, who refused for 50 minutes to go and take a bath, naughty child!). He processed the film at 1+25 in Rodinal for 9 minutes and a half, rinsed it, fixed it, rinsed it a second time, added a few drops of photoflo at the end so that he didn't have traces on the film and... the photographer was very impressed. He could see 6X9 negatives for the first time of his life, and was incredibly happy with the results : very detailed, rather sharp. He was very impatient to scan the film to see the results, and when he eventually did so, had a huge smile on his face. He immediately showed the other cameras the pictures Clack and Meniscus had made, and Meniscus was cheered by the whole collection.
The old Rokkor said, "I'm sorry Meniscus, I was unfair to you. But my grand-daughter Princess Rokkor would be very happy to be your friend, now you prove you are such a good piece of glass."
Princess Rokkor and Meniscus became indeed very close friends, and were brought in the same camera case to London the following week, where they could tenderly chatter one with another, shouting with joy when the other was in business. They never got married though. Princess Rokkor married Big Patrick, who happened to be a very nice fellow in spite of his custom of spying on everyone, while Meniscus had three little children with Mary, the 28/2.8, as he preferred wider angles to other focals he just thought were too standard.
The End! Merry Christmas!
Stéphane
rolleistef
Well-known
M4cr0s
Back In Black
Enjoyable story! Thanks for posting
Mac
Mac
pevelg
Well-known
Lol. A fabulous story!!! I never knew about the silent ability of lenses and cameras to "influencing the photographer!!!!" That explains so much!
