Curious about Wolcott's Mirror Camera - Old Daguerrotype lens question...

holmburgers

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• Oct 25, 2010

• #1

Howdy,

I'm curious how a lens/camera like this would work. Any pictures out there?

"The world’s first studio system also included the most unusual camera. Alexander Wolcott patented a lensless camera on May 8, 1840, that was based on designs adopted by the scientific community for celestial telescopes. By replacing the lens with a highly polished concave mirror of speculum metal, Wolcott was able to create a faster camera suitable for portraiture."

http://notesonphotographs.eastmanhouse.org/index.php?title=Camera

 

Matthew Rusbarsky

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• Oct 26, 2010

• #2

The plate was positioned where the secondary mirror would be in a reflector telescope.

 

OP

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holmburgers

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• Oct 26, 2010

• #3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflecting_telescope#Gregorian Ok, that makes sense!

So would there have been some anaomaly present in the image, similar to the "donut-boke" in a catadioptric lens? Are there any images around that were taken with this lens?

Thanks for the response.

 

Andrew K

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• Oct 26, 2010

• #4

have a look at the Star Camera Company website - Ray has a new reproduction of it for sale

http://starcameracompany.com/cameras.html

Cheers

 

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holmburgers

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• Oct 27, 2010

• #5

Wow, Andrew K, thanks for that link! f/1.7 is quite impressive; no wonder it was such a boon for the slow daguerrotype.