Lens Barrel Material Brass

Snap up a Vintage Brass Lens for Your Shelf or Your Shots

During the early 19th century, brass was the material of choice for clock and instrument makers because of its aesthetic beauty, durability, and corrosion resistance. In the early 1840s when Charles Chevalier’s photographic company created the worlds first photographic lenses, he used a brass lens barrel for the very same reasons. You can find a wide range of affordable vintage brass lenses on eBay.

Whilst vintage brass petzval lenses have different mounts to modern DSLR cameras, some lens specialists are able to modify vintage lenses, changing the obsolete lens mount to a Nikon F-mount fitting, this allows the brass lens to be used on Nikon DSLRs and some Canon DSLRs.

Many vintage lenses were made for magic lanterns rather than cameras. Magic lanterns were an early predecessor of the modern day projector, they worked by projecting a beam of light through an image printed onto a glass plate. The earliest magic lanterns were illuminated by Argand oil lamps or candles.

Adjustable stops were first used around the 1850s, with the Iris diaphragm we use today becoming dominant around the beginning of the 20th century. In the period between these dates, there were two other predominant types of stop:

• Rotary disc shutters:1800 to 1895 (approx).
• Adjustable aperture Watherhouse stops: 1858 to 1880 (approx).
• Adjustable aperture Iris diaphragm: 1880 onwards.

Brass lenses are highly collectable curiosities in their own right, they make great ornamental pieces and interesting desk paperweights. Vintage brass lenses are popular with photographers partly because of the aesthetic beauty they possess, and partly because unlike modern lenses, the glass used in vintage brass lenses is often uncoated. Modern lens coatings reduce glare and improve contrast, this leads to very sharp images. In many situations this is desirable, but if you are trying to take photographs that have a warmer and more natural appearance, an uncoated brass lens could help you to reduce digital harshness. In low light conditions, uncoated lenses can also often achieve a better contrast than coated lenses, this is because lens coatings reflect some of the light before it can reach the camera's aperture.