Has any manufacturer ever attempted to build/sell a retrofocus (or inverted telephoto) lens for LF cameras. Looking at the block diagram for the Canon 24 mm TS lens which is well known for its excellent image quality:

http://www.canon.co.jp/camera-museum/lens/index.html

do you think something similar can be made for LF cameras? I would imagine that retrofocusing a lens would reduce light fall-off as well or am I completely wrong about all of this?

-- Carlos Co (co@che.udel.edu), April 04, 1999

Answers

Besides there not being a perceived need for retrofocus designs in LF, I wonder if an inherent problem with a retrofocus design might be a smaller image circle?

-- Ellis Vener (evphoto@insync.net), April 04, 1999.

I read a post by Richard Knoppow on rec.photo.large-format that said that he did not know of a retrofocus lens for LF. If he said it you can be pretty sure its true. I imagine one difficulty is that retrofocus designs are inherently asymmetric, which means they stink at close range, hence the floating elements usually used in 35mm lenses to correct for this. Since performance at close range is important for wide-angles and there is no real need for retrofocus in LF, I guess noone has ever bothered.

-- Lanier Benkard (lanierb@leland.stanford.edu), April 19, 1999.