The lowly meniscus lens

OptiKen · Dec 8, 2014

Some people love the look that you get from a meniscus lens. Some people think it makes the print look flat and dull.

What would you say are the characteristics of pictures taken with a meniscus lens compare with most other lenses such as triplets, etc.

Larry H-L · Dec 8, 2014

Edge softness is probably the most obvious "signature," but other characteristics vary from lens to lens, some certainly are lower in micro-contrast.

Richard Man · Dec 8, 2014

Someone is loaning me a 4x5 Meniscus that is pretty darn amazing. It's a soft focus lens for sure with all the glow and aberrations. I haven't really play with it enough to do it justice, but it can look like this:

Two23 · Dec 8, 2014

I have an achromatic doublet from 1854 for my Chamonix, and use a Darlot doublet on my Nikon that's about 50mm. It's from around 1895, with wheel stops. Had it put in F-mount by SK grimes. Center of image is somewhat sharp, and it blurs rapidly away from center. Since it's uncoated it's lower contrast.

Kent in SD

OptiKen · Dec 9, 2014

didjiman said:
Someone is loaning me a 4x5 Meniscus that is pretty darn amazing. It's a soft focus lens for sure with all the glow and aberrations. I haven't really play with it enough to do it justice, but it can look like this:

SWEET!

OptiKen · Dec 9, 2014

Two23 said:
I have an achromatic doublet from 1854 for my Chamonix, and use a Darlot doublet on my Nikon that's about 50mm. It's from around 1895, with wheel stops. Had it put in F-mount by SK grimes. Center of image is somewhat sharp, and it blurs rapidly away from center. Since it's uncoated it's lower contrast
Kent in SD

I get the feeling you don't take a lot of 'snapshots'.

gone · Dec 9, 2014

Like Larry said, they vary in the effects you'll get. The first shot below shows your typical Holga look. Sharp as heck in the center (though w/o a lot of resolution), along w/ the typical vignetting these cameras produce. The second and third shots are from my Diana, which has a lens that is more "normal", at times, and other times not, like in the last shot. The one constant I have found on the two cameras I have w/ these lenses is that they are a bit unpredictable in their results.

I was going to build a pinhole camera to shoot some 4x5, but decided to look for a meniscus instead because I really like these lenses.

MDR · Dec 9, 2014

A meniscus that is not fast and does cover the Format is a sharp lens, problems arise if they are supposed to cover a format that is beyond their Limits e.g. Holga, Diana.
The Chevalier lens for the Daguerreotype camera was plenty sharp and super slow it was also a longer than normal focal length so covered the format with some room to spare. Portrait meniscus lenses are usually fast and exhibit all optical faults that is until they are stopped down, then they are sharp lenses. They will never be as sharp as a planar lens though. The meniscus lens is also the most widely used lens design in history from the simple boxcamera of the 19th century to the single use camera and cell phone camera of today.

blockend · Dec 9, 2014

The sweet spot pictorially is the triplet lens for my money. Sufficiently corrected stopped down with a hint of softness, and beautiful aberrations wide open. Some box camera meniscus lenses look pretty sharp at f11-16.

TheFlyingCamera · Dec 9, 2014

Thinking of which, I really need to get my act in gear and get my 12x15 rebuilt so I can use that gigantic Kodak 405mm f4.5 Portrait lens. It uses an 8" Packard shutter, and don't even think about filters for it.

MartinCrabtree · Dec 10, 2014

By all means Scott show some work when that is done. I have yet to develop (no pun) the patience to shoot with that kind of gear. Someday.

AgX · Dec 10, 2014

A plain meniscus lens has more spherical abberation than the respective symmetric lens. But less astigmatism.

Keep in mind that there are also cemented meniscus lenses, thus coping better with chromatic abberation.

The lowly meniscus lens

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