Brass And Other Specialized Lenses

Quick Guide Lenses Originally Used For Historical Photographic Processes 

Most of these lenses come from more than a century ago. They were made and rapidly developed from the beginnings of photography. There's a long list of lenses that will easily produce period correct esthetics. Some of these looks are not obtainable with modern optics and there's a long list of purpose made portrait lenses that were made for alternative processes.

Most of the lenses in this category are not mounted in the shutter. Combined with slow speeds of the materials, exposure times are routinely in seconds, even minutes. Fast lenses were appreciated for practitioners of these alternative processes. At the time lenses were calculated or empirically derived. There were no coatings. Aberrations were coming from many different sources. Combination of the right amount of aberrations, flaring and wide apertures provide the unmistakable character apparent in the images produced by these lenses.

Some of the examples:

Cooke

Later Wollensal Verito

Voigtländer Euryscop