It's almost become a mantra how I start my articles with phrases like, "The only lens in the universe," "A ridiculously rare contraption," or "Rarer than hen's teeth." What can I say? I revel in the extraordinary, basking in the illusion of my own uniqueness. Enough self-defense, though - let's dive into today's lens. A piece so outrageously rare,...

Those who remember my previous articles will surely recall my adventures in the land of ping pong shows and papaya salad, where I started with a muttering about dragging medium-format gear to places where I could barely drag myself. Since then, however, my tendency toward self-punishment has progressed considerably, and I've had no qualms about...

We learned what are those pictorialisms in my previous article here. However, among all the confusion about knee menisci, the fact that I like it soft and where one can use vaseline, one would miss the most essential information - what is the initial impulse, who is the cornerstone around which the temple of my photographic ingenuity has been...

Who would have expected that with such a lesser speedy lens with a more modern look, right? Well, still waters run deep, don't judge a book by its cover and have your cup half empty or completely empty like me, or as those Nepali monks who bend spoons at will say. Well, enough of the wisdom - the advantage is...

Aldis may not have been the largest, best-known or longest-running factory, but it had a surprising number of successes in a variety of industries. And since I'm in an extra-dry factual mood today, you'll find some fascinating and shocking data below!

The Sinar brand is synonymous with Swiss precision and, along with Arca Swiss and Alpa, belongs to the photographic triquetry and holy trinity of large-format cameras from the land of cogged railways and melted cheese. The word is an acronym for "Still, Industrial, Nature, Architectural and Reproduction photography."

Photography didn't have it easy at first. Before its invention, painting was the only way of capturing reality, and painters were naturally afraid of losing their privileged position and going to paint rooms. After the battle, everyone is a general, and we now know that's nonsense - but it's an interesting analogy to today's rise of artificial...

M.P.P., or Micro Precision Products, was a British manufacturer of optical accessories that dabbled in several related industries.

Once upon a time, beyond nine mountains, nine rivers and one English Channel, there was once a Dallmeyer company - I recommend paying particular attention to the position of the letters in the name, it will come in handy in a few moments.

If you're sane, you'll naturally pack the most basic, lightest and most versatile gear available for a photo shoot.

You're a reporter in the US in the twentieth century and you're wondering what kind of camera you should get. Actually, you don't have to. Graflex. Done, solved.

The USSR, the land of mud and wooden spoons, also produced its only line of wooden cameras, FKD, for several decades (I feel in my bones that the acronym means something, but I haven't looked up what).

Today we're going to talk about brass and aluminium. This lens is made of brass and aluminium. We've done our education on the materials side of things, and now we're going to please the linguists - it's a Hugo Meyer Atelier Schnellarbeiter 310mm f3, which the translator peculiarly translates as "fast worker."

There were many lenses for aerial photography. A lot of them. Some companies switched to their production in times of need from other, related fields, for example from the production of binoculars (the case of British Aldis). They were also produced under license - often they weren't even signed and could only be recognized by serial number or...

Just as there was times when radioactive substances were put into everything from medicines, foods and drinks (Marie-Curie gives it a thumbs down), so too did the manufacturers of optics (but here it had a positive effect, Jiří Zouhar gives it a thumbs up).

We can start with perhaps nothing else than one of the most famous lenses in history - the Heliar from the German company Voigtländer, first created in 1900, here in one of its many iterations in 360mm focal length and f4.5 aperture.