Is there interest in a New Rapid Rectilinear lens?

Nodda Duma · Nov 30, 2014

Drawings are out to vendors. I'm requesting info for prototype quantities (3), plus a few production run quantities. Getting the quotes back is the most nerve-wracking part for me. I pulled every trick to reduce fabrication and assembly costs.

Attached is final layout, along with numbers for size & weight. I squeezed every gram out of it that I possibly could. The outer lenses are the same, as are the second lenses in (from either side).

This is designed to cover 8" x 10" format. By shifting the first lens (on the left) out, you can adjust the amount of soft focus. As shown, it is in the "best focus" position. As you move the lens away from the second lens (imagine unscrewing the lens cell), you increase the spherical aberration. However, it maintains color correction even then which will be good for those shooting color film.

Next step is the barrel design.

Whatcha think?

Dan Fromm · Nov 30, 2014

Cute. Please refresh my failing memory. What's the image circle, in other words, does it allow movements on 8x10? Also, what size shutter do you expect it will fit?

winterclock · Nov 30, 2014

I am quite impressed by this whole evolution, from the offer of an RR to the design of a WA with soft focus capability. Hopefully it comes in at a reasonable cost and can be produced almost as rapidly as it has been designed. If I didn't have too many irons in the fire as it is, I would be tempted to work up a shutter design for something like this. Water jet or laser cutting would make fabrication of sheet good shutter parts approachable on a limited production basis.

TheToadMen · Nov 30, 2014

This is gonna be a nice project!!

MattKing · Nov 30, 2014

What will you call the result - a Noddanor?

Nodda Duma · Nov 30, 2014

Dan Fromm said:
Cute. Please refresh my failing memory. What's the image circle, in other words, does it allow movements on 8x10? Also, what size shutter do you expect it will fit?

That assumes my memory's any better

Post 119. It'll illuminate a 13" diameter circle.

Yes it does allow some movement. ... Maybe not as much as you'd like but that's the trade-off for size and for fitting into a Copal 1 shutter.

Here's another thought: Waterhouse stops supplied with a simple barrel for those who don't have a Copal 1 available?

Nodda Duma · Nov 30, 2014

MattKing said:
What will you call the result - a Noddanor?

Haha noddanor. That's so negative I have a couple ideas for names, but have yet to decide.

pdeeh · Nov 30, 2014

Dumagon

winterclock · Nov 30, 2014

Dumagon +1

Old-N-Feeble · Nov 30, 2014

How about Affordagon?

pdeeh · Nov 30, 2014

Apugon

SchwinnParamount · Nov 30, 2014

Armageddon

Nodda Duma · Nov 30, 2014

Megatron?

TheToadMen · Nov 30, 2014

Softron - for it is capable of making soft images (Pictorialism style) due to the moving front lens.

Nodda Duma · Nov 30, 2014

All great suggestions. Toad I have to laugh because the mechanical engineer who will help me with the barrel is Ron...I don't think I could tell him the lens' name is "Soft Ron" with a straight face.

Old-N-Feeble · Nov 30, 2014

I think, at this point, if I was Nodda, I'd call it the F-U-Gon. LOL!!!

Dr Croubie · Nov 30, 2014

I'malreadygon

Nodda Duma · Nov 30, 2014

I could name it after a favorite drink: The IPAgon

SchwinnParamount · Nov 30, 2014

Mr Duma,
Shouldn't you be out engineering and fabricating our new lens? Let the marketing folks do the thinking about labeling... You know, how they always do with brilliantly engineered products. You're a MAKER, not a TAKER... of someone elses ideas. Now go MAKE.

Just kidding.

Meanwhile, I'm anxious to get one of these rigs for my 8x10.

adelorenzo · Nov 30, 2014

Haha you guys are killing me with the names.

The lens sounds awesome. Thanks for bringing us along for the ride, here's hoping for favourable quotes.

Nodda Duma · Dec 1, 2014

Lenses overlayed on the Copal 1 shutter. This should give you a better feel for the size of the lens.

Had to perform an adjustment. When I overlayed the lens onto the shutter drawing (and properly scaled), the second lens from the left was crashing into the shutter body. Had to pull that away to clear not just the lens but allow the barrel (design in progress) to clear the shutter as well.

It's about as tight as it can be.

SchwinnParamount · Dec 1, 2014

How do you spec the actual glass used in the lens? I understand that different glass properties (rare earth... etc) have vastly different optical properties. Is this true, or just marketing hype?

Nodda Duma · Dec 2, 2014

Of course that is true. Different optical glasses have different properties (like index of refraction and dispersion). These differences are what makes optical design possible. For example, when you talk about an achromat you're talking about a flint and crown (different indices and dispersion).

Interestingly enough, due to a cursory and improperly executed experiment, Sir Isaac Newton deduced that any and all glass refracts (bends) light in the exact same way, and therefore glass lenses could not be made achromatic (color correcting). Of course, we know this is incorrect. Newton was so well-respected that no one questioned his conclusion, and refractive optical design was set back ~100 years when an English optician named Chester Hall designed the first achromat.

Anyways..You can browse through, say, O'Hara glass catalog and see the multitude of glass types... all are different in some way.

Knowing which glass to use where and in what shape.... well, that's the secret sauce that earns me a salary

SchwinnParamount · Dec 2, 2014

Nodda Duma said:
Yes different optical glass has different properties (like index of refraction and dispersion). That is what makes optical design possible. You can browse through, say, O'Hara glass catalog and see the multitude of glass types... all are different in some way.

... but there's no *gee wizz*, that's the magical glass that will make everything work perfectly?

Dr Croubie · Dec 2, 2014

SchwinnParamount said:
... but there's no *gee wizz*, that's the magical glass that will make everything work perfectly?

Fluorite, anomalous dispersion glass, DO (if you listen to Canon's marketing department, that is).
Or there's always the Radioactive (lanthanum?) glass in a 50/1.4 Takumar, at least something that they put in that lens is magical...

Actually, I did read a thing a few weeks ago about someone who'd just discovered/invented negative refraction materials, not sure if that'd be a magic bullet to better pictures or if it'd make the universe implode.

Is there interest in a New Rapid Rectilinear lens?

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