Lenses with the fewest number of elements?

[Roger Hicks]

Hi,

This is Kodak's opinion:-

Regards, David

Dear David,

Well spotted!

Cheers,

R.

 

[David Hughes]

Thanks Roger but it wasn't that difficult.

Thanks to the obvious link with Barnack; his early Leicas and the strange habits of the USPS it was easy to remember the reference. The hardest part was finding the book in the heaps that decorate my part of the house...

Regards, David

 

[tunalegs]

Hi,

This is Kodak's opinion:-

Regards, David

Interesting then, that Kodak's own catalogs state the base camera was fitted with an achromatic lens.

I suppose given the VPK was in production for over a decade, specifications changed occasionally.

 

[David Hughes]

Hi,

That was one of the puzzles when I was looking for details of the VPK camera. Some said single lens, some single meniscus and some meniscus anastigmatic. That's from memory as I could never justify the price people wanted (mostly for postage like US$ 33 or so for a little booklet smaller than a Christmas card).

The problem with early Kodak stuff, as I see it, is that most of it is in the USA.

Regards, David

 

[tunalegs]

I have not seen every Kodak catalog ever, but from the ones I have seen, the VPK came with an achromatic (two elements, one group, meniscus) lens. The VPK Model B (introduced in 1925) which is quite a simpler camera is listed as having a "single meniscus" (non achromatic obviously) lens in catalogs. So there might be some confusion between the two (I see some websites state the Model B had a doublet, and perhaps this was an option, but the catalogs and ads I have seen say it has a single meniscus lens).

 

[David Hughes]

Hi,

Add ebay's descriptions and the original adverts and then the instruction books and it gets confused. For example the 1923 manual is for the "Single (Meniscus Achromatic)" lens.

Although bitter experience tells me to get hold of original material, the $35 postage stops me even thinking about it. There's also the "How to Make Good Pictures" series of books and the later versions "How to Take ..." which are generally better and easily available.

My quotation was from what I suspect is the 1927 version of the book but they stopped dating them very early on. As there's a code at the back of the book ending in 527 that includes the printer's initials and many of the pictures in it are also in the dated "Eighth Edition 1920" version I reckon 1927 is a safe date to guess.

I often wonder why, in the stories about Oskar Barnack wanting a lightweight camera for mountaineering, there's no mention of the VPK which was available with a Zeiss f/4.9 lens, with readily available film and enlargers etc. OTOH, it does add strength to the stories about the original Barnack being made for clip testing of cine film and the realisation that it would start a completely new style of photography etc.

Regards, David

 

[Dwig]

I have not seen every Kodak catalog ever, but from the ones I have seen, the VPK came with an achromatic (two elements, one group, meniscus) lens. ...

The lens, or lens options, varied over the production run. By 1917, there were 3 options.

This catalog should add some clarity to the fog, or perhaps fog to the clarity...

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33183

 

[David Hughes]

Hi,

Thanks.

Interesting that it gives the focal length as 3 inches, which is what I'd expect and suspected after reading a lot of variations around 73 - 78 mm. And, of course, 84mm on one of the special's lens.

I suspect people have measured it from the cleaning port in the back of the camera and forgotten that it is not at infinity but at some distance to give 6ft to infinity* DoF at f/11 and so on...

Regards, David

* but need it really be infinity?

 

[goamules]

Being Cooke triplets with one group consisting of a cemented doublet. Tessars are stunning at f/6.3; often good at f/4.5; usually not too bad at f/3.5; and rarely any good at all at f/2.8 (or worse, faster).

As I said earlier, It's when you want a wider angle or a faster lens that you need more glasses.

Cheers,

R.

An F4.5 large format Tessar is about the same as an F2.0 35mm. A Cooke triplet at F3.5 for, say, an 8x10 is astonishingly fast, and would be like about an F1.2 35mm lens. The Cooke answers the OPs question best....but they were mostly made for Large Format. The least amount of elements that are well corrected would be again in LF, an early landscape lens, which at first (1840s) were a cemented doublet achromat, then later a triplet single group (Dallmeyer 1860s). But they were slow.

A single meniscus will have a lot of chromatic aberration. For small format (35mm) they learned quickly you need a lot of elements to correct all the aberrations. A 50mm Hektor (a classic triplet) would probably have the least number of elements (3) for 35mm that you can get in a normal mount.

 

[Roger Hicks]

An F4.5 large format Tessar is about the same as an F2.0 35mm. . . .

A lot depends on what you mean by "about the same". If you mean "perfectly fine on LF, just as all but the worst f/2 lenses are perfectly fine on 35mm", well, yes; but then again, you rarely enlarge 4x5 inch to the same extent as 35mm. I have an f/3.5 300mm Tessar which is great on 5x7 inch, but it's not in the same class as an f/6.3. And on 35mm, comparing apples with apples, I stand firmly by my original assessment.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Skiff]

Hi all,

I've been doing some reading about microcontrast and 3D pop lately (I know it's a controversial subject, so I don't intend to start a flaming war). One of the things claimed was that the least amount of elements in a lens usually leads to more microcontrast and real-life likeness and pop, albeit with less corrections.

I guess I know to which internet source you are referring to ( a guy who recently made some "click-baits" articles about that topic).
Honestly, lots of nonsense which he wrote, and he delivered no evidence, even not in his sample pictures.
From my own experience with dozens of older and more modern lenses I also have to disagree with his articles, especially with his simple general statements.
I've also talked to lens designers and experts of lens manufacturers like Dr. Nasse (met him several times at Photokina). They also have a much more differentiated view on that topic.

This "3d-pop" is dependant of lots of different optic design steps. And the number of lens elements is only one step among dozens of other steps which influence this "3d-pop" and microcontrast.
Some examples from my own experience:
- the latest Zeiss Milvus/Distagon 1,4/50 with 10 lenses has better microcontrast/3d-pop (especially at f1,4-2,0-2,8) than the Zeiss Planar ZF/ZE 1,4/50 with 7 lenses
- the Zeiss Makro-Planar ZE/ZF 2/50 with 8 lenses has better 3d-pop/microcontrast than the Nikon Nikkor AI-S 1,8/50 and AF-D 1,8/50 with 6 lenses
- the Nikkor AF-D 2/105 DC with 6 lenses has better 3d-pop/microcontrast than the Nikkor AI-S 2,5/105 with 5 lenses
- all the current multi-element Nikkor and Canon long teles (300, 400, 500, 600, 800) have better 3d-pop/microcontrast compared to the former 2 lenses (in one element, cemented) long teles from Novoflex and Leica.

From my own experience, from every single lens I have tried over the past years, Leica and Zeiss lenses always had an edge over everyone else's (Nikon, Canon, Zuiko, etc.) and older lenses (at least amongst those I have tried) tend to have the most microcontrast. I have seen this the most in a few lenses I have owned: a Summaron 35mm 3.5, the Summicron 50mm 1st version Collapsible, but also modern Zeiss glass and old Sonnars. I know that all of these have much fewer elements than, say, modern SLR lenses (some of which, particularly zooms, have up to 20 elements).

From my experience it is just the opposite:
My modern Nikon, Zeiss, Sigma lenses have all better 3d-pop and microcontrast than my older lenses with less elements.
I am talking of primes here, not zooms.

So I was wondering, what are the very simplest designed lenses? As I said, I have no intention to start a flaming war about optics theory, but I really am wondering if for my style of photography there might be some gems I have never heard about.

There are currently still some 2 lenses/one element (cemented) optics on the market. The most prominent probably being the 8/500 tele lens, which is offered for decades under several brand names (Beroflex, Dörr, Danubia etc.):
https://www.foto-erhardt.de/Objektive/Danubia-Objektive/Doerr-Objektiv-Danubia-500mm-1-8-T2.html

Then we have of course all the Tessar design (4 lenses in 2 elements) lenses.

And German manufacturer Meyer Optik Görlitz is currently bringing back also classic Triplet-design (3 lenses) optics back to the market:
https://www.meyer-optik-goerlitz.com/en/

 

[Dwig]

... The least amount of elements that are well corrected would be again in LF, an early landscape lens, which at first (1840s) were a cemented doublet achromat, then later a triplet single group (Dallmeyer 1860s). But they were slow.

A single meniscus will have a lot of chromatic aberration. For small format (35mm) they learned quickly you need a lot of elements to correct all the aberrations. ...

Now you introduced another factor into the "fog".

Early lens design was helped by the limited spectral sensitivity of the materials of the day. That 1860s Dallmeyer did not have to deal with red. The introduction of panchromatic emulsions added additional demands on chromatic corrections.

 

[David Hughes]

Hi,

Exactly, I often wonder when panchromatic film became the normal film, instead of an unnecessary luxury, and ortho. became old fashioned etc. It would have a lot of bearing on lens design...

Another point I wonder about is Hall and Dollond's contributions but they were well before photography.

Regards, David

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear David,

Ortho: quite quickly in the late 19th and early 20th century; pan, in the 20s.

Cheers,

R.

 

[dmr]

My dad used to shoot original Verichrome (ortho) into the mid 1950s and complained when they discontinued it and Super XX.

 

[Scrambler]

I know we are well off topic but its very interesting to me. Ive been looking at 1930 photography. My impression is that both panchromatic and ortho film was available with a lot of amateurs likely to keep using ortho. The big change was in Kodak motion picture film which changed from colourblind pre-ortho to pan in the late 1920s. This was a hard changeover as I read it.

Bear in mind you can still buy ortho film. So its more like what people wanted to use rather than what they HAD to use. Except in motion pictures.

 

[tunalegs]

Verichrome Pan was not introduced until 1956, and although it was certainly not the first panchromatic film, I think it is a significant marker of the changeover from ortho being "normal" to being something specialized.

 

[Roger Hicks]

.. . My impression is that both panchromatic and ortho film was available with a lot of amateurs likely to keep using ortho. . . . .

Not least because it was cheaper.

Cheers,

R.

 

[sevo]

When did the last pictorial Ortho films vanish? By the mid seventies at least Western Germany was strictly Pan film, with all remaining Ortho films high contrast specialities.

 

[Roger Hicks]

When did the last pictorial Ortho films vanish? By the mid seventies at least Western Germany was strictly Pan film, with all remaining Ortho films high contrast specialities.

Ilford Ortho Plus (formerly Ilford Commercial Ortho) is still available.

Cheers,

R.