Olympus 35RC lens design?

darinwc · Jun 8, 2015

Does anyone have a diagram for the E. Zuiko 42mm f2.8 on the Olympus 35RC?

5 Elements was pretty nice for a camera of that size. I am curious what the design was.
THX

AgX · Jun 9, 2015

I assume that it is of the Biometar type.

flavio81 · Jun 9, 2015

darinwc said:
Does anyone have a diagram for the E. Zuiko 42mm f2.8 on the Olympus 35RC?

5 Elements was pretty nice for a camera of that size. I am curious what the design was.
THX

For 42mm and f2.8 you wouldn't be able to do it high-performance with 4 elements, that's why they used 5.
45mm or 50mm f2.8 is just fine with 4 elements.

The only lens that i can recall that does f2.8 at such wide angle perfectly with only 4 elements is the Minotar 35/2.8 on Minox 35mm cameras, which was IIRC the first design that pushed such limits. But that one is really really close to the film plane.

However, the 40/2.8 on the Olympus Trip 35 also does it with 4 elements, but I don't have idea of its full-aperture performance.

Steve Roberts · Jun 11, 2015

However it does it, the 35RC does it very well. Three of my favourite framed/hanging shots at home were taken on my 35RC.
Steve

flavio81 · Jun 11, 2015

Steve Roberts said:
However it does it, the 35RC does it very well. Three of my favourite framed/hanging shots at home were taken on my 35RC.
Steve

I have been waiting to get one in good shape for a long time... It is a very nice camera. Sadly the lens is a bit slow. I did have the opportunity to buy an Olympus 35SP with the f1.7 lens, but I found the shutter too agricultural for my tastes.

The best Olympus camera i've owned is the Olympus Pen S, the half-frame type. All the other Olympii i tried (35SP, Trip 35, Pen F, EES-3) were either too big or too limited, in comparison. I think i'll buy myself another one, having regretted selling the last one. It is very compact, the lens is excellent, and has full manual control.

Steve Roberts · Jun 11, 2015

I'm not familiar with the 35SP. The 35RD has always interested me, though the faster lens is considerably more chunky. I normally keep HP5 in the 35RC and for the things I tend to do I find that combination fast enough.
Best wishes,
Steve

AgX · Jun 11, 2015

The lens of the DC has definitely a modified Biometar design.

Xmas · Jun 11, 2015

The critical thing is the glass catalogue the latest post '94 elmars (four element triplets) are only a shade below the (four group six element) Summicron(79). High refractive index and dispersions reduces aberrations.

AgX · Jun 11, 2015

It would be nice to a have an overview of the stages of development of a standard design as the Tessar type over the years.

I only know about it up into the 50s or so.

flavio81 · Jun 11, 2015

AgX said:
It would be nice to a have an overview of the stages of development of a standard design as the Tessar type over the years.

I only know about it up into the 50s or so.

AgX, have you seen MARCO CAVINA's website? It's the best website to check out camera lens designs and evolutions. Mostly it's on italian, but you can use google translate.

http://www.marcocavina.com/articoli_tecnici_fotografici.htm

I think he has a page covering the Tessar evolution.

flavio81 · Jun 11, 2015

Update: Here you can see many Tessar designs:
http://www.marcocavina.com/articoli_fotografici/Zeiss_cute_DFR_DDR_lenses/00_pag.htm

AgX · Jun 11, 2015

No, he does not present what I'm looking for.
As he switches between FLs and years, making comparison difficult.

Nodda Duma · Jun 11, 2015

AgX, after that time period Tessars and all the other basic types branched out into so many variants that even lens designers don't keep track. They're just catalogued by family types for use as starting point designs for tailoring to program-specific requirements. Ref: ZeBase or the Lens Database that comes with Code V. With computer aided design the setup of the design problem became more important than the actual optimization. For this reason the whole family is just described as Tessar or "Tessar variant" without naming the individual result. Out of all the designs I've done over the years, none are formally named. Usually just a descriptor like "day imager objective". The closest I have is an eyepiece that the team dubbed "two beer eyepiece" because I designed it one night after a couple beers. Came out real nice.

AgX · Jun 12, 2015

I was thinking of a plain 4E 3G lens in the Tessar arrangement. Maximum aperture and image quality were cranked up over 3 steps up to about 1950. Here my knowledge ends.

Nodda Duma · Jun 12, 2015

AgX said:
I was thinking of a plain 4E 3G lens in the Tessar arrangement. Maximum aperture and image quality were cranked up over 3 steps up to about 1950. Here my knowledge ends.

Ah gotcha. Ok with the understanding I think in more applications than just photography objectives: Tessars are still widely used in the design world. I think the next step from what you know was to split the rear element, producing the "split rear triplet" design group...so 4E 4G in your nomenclature. It is also not symmetrical and corrects like a Tessar so it's distinctive from Double Gauss and Cookes.

For those type of designs and more traditional Tessars you'd also see variations in the stop location, from all the way back behind all the groups up to between the first and second element. This was all in attempt to increase speed while maintaining image quality. In the latter case and when the stop is actually on the first element, the form begins to take on Petzval-like aspects...so there you see the boundary between design forms get blurred.

Look up Milton Laikin's "Lens Design". He has a nice graph showing appropriate starting design forms for given f/# & focal length. Looking at this you'll understand why the vast majority of modern (fixed focus) lenses are based on the Double Gauss & Tessar.

flavio81 · Jun 12, 2015

AgX said:
No, he does not present what I'm looking for.
As he switches between FLs and years, making comparison difficult.

Let me help you, exactly what do you need to know?

The basic Tessar design has not varied in any way over the years, what has changed is the computations of each Tessar lens; thanks to better glass types the performance has been improved and improved.

Regarding lens speed, i think f2.8 is the max reasonable limit for all tessars; or at least i haven't found a faster Tessar.

As for lens designs, here is a basic rundown of the typical classic designs used as "starting point" for a lens. Using the 35mm format, for each focal length:

50 to about 80mm:
f3.5 and slower -> triplet aka "Cooke triplet" aka "Triotar"
f2.8 -> tessar aka "xenar" aka "skopar" aka a lot of brand names for the same configuration
f1.7 to f2.0 -> double gauss, either 6-element or 5-element ("xenotar") configuration
f1.4 -> double gauss, typically 7 element aka "deluxe double gauss"

Typical "deluxe double gauss":

f1.2 -> deluxe double gauss, perhaps with some aspheric lens
f1.0 -> super deluxe gauss with aspheric elements (Canon) or glass of ultra high refractive index (Leitz)

Sample: Canon EF 50/1.0:

24 to 35mm: The classic design was the Angenieux Retrofocus, but this design is not used anymore. Wideangles are custom designed but wideangle designs of the 70s and 80s look very much alike.
The exception was with the Canon EF system which broke a little bit the mold: Their EF 24/2.8 is a rear-focusing design, very interesting. And their 28/2.8 was perhaps one of the most simplest 28mm lens designs; they used an aspheric lens to bring down the lens element count to about 5.

Here is what the 80s Canon 24mm lenses looked like -- many many other wideangles follow a similar design to the 24/2.8 pictured at the right:

Interesting article about the evolution of the Canon FD 24mm lens -- the image came from here:
http://www.marcocavina.com/articoli_fotografici/Canon_24mm_evolution/00_pag.htm

A similar wideangle lens: The 50/4.5C for the RB67 sytem. Look how similar is the design:

28mm lenses are pretty similar, just with less lens elements. An innovative departure was the Canon EF 28/2.8 mentioned before, look at how simple is the design:

100mm to 135mm: They mostly use a telephoto design that looks more or less similar, looks like this usually:

thuggins · Jun 12, 2015

flavio81 said:
I have been waiting to get one in good shape for a long time... It is a very nice camera. Sadly the lens is a bit slow. I did have the opportunity to buy an Olympus 35SP with the f1.7 lens, but I found the shutter too agricultural for my tastes.

The best Olympus camera i've owned is the Olympus Pen S, the half-frame type. All the other Olympii i tried (35SP, Trip 35, Pen F, EES-3) were either too big or too limited, in comparison. I think i'll buy myself another one, having regretted selling the last one. It is very compact, the lens is excellent, and has full manual control.

Hmmmm, "too big" and "too limited" are not phrases usually associated with Olympus products. The 35SP is big for an Oly, as were the other 35's in its profession RF series. They needed to be big to hold those heavy, fast lenses. The description of the shutter as "agricultural" is apt. Running a roll of film thru it can produce a case of pushbuttonitis. The Trip 35 was essentially a point and shoot and was one of the most popular cameras ever produced.

I have seen comments in the past about the RC's aperture and slowest shutter speed (1/15s) being limiting, but in practice I've never missed a shot with mine - and that is with slide film. With negative film you can use the bulb setting and get close enough in low light.

flavio81 · Jun 12, 2015

thuggins said:
Hmmmm, "too big" and "too limited" are not phrases usually associated with Olympus products.

Compared to the Pen F, the Olympus Pen S is much smaller and lighter.

Compared to the Trip 35 and Olympus Pen EE-3, the Pen S offers full manual control with an almost full range of speeds, full range of focusing and apertures.

Nodda Duma · Jun 12, 2015

Nice write-up flavio

thuggins · Jun 16, 2015

flavio81 said:
Compared to the Pen F, the Olympus Pen S is much smaller and lighter.

Compared to the Trip 35 and Olympus Pen EE-3, the Pen S offers full manual control with an almost full range of speeds, full range of focusing and apertures.

The Pen S is also a half frame (single frame), making size comparisons to any full frame camera pretty much moot.

flavio81 · Jun 17, 2015

thuggins said:
The Pen S is also a half frame (single frame), making size comparisons to any full frame camera pretty much moot.

That's depending on your criteria. On my criteria, i got good 8x10" enlargements from the half frame negative, and 72 shots instead of 36. Advantages compared to full frame.

Olympus 35RC lens design?

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