Author The Chemists, the Potter, and the Aristocrat: Imaging Before the Photograph | Lensrentals Blog

I'm Roger and I am the founder of Lensrentals.com. Hailed as one of the optic nerds here, I enjoy shooting collimated light through 30X microscope objectives in my spare time. When I do take real pictures I like using something different: a Medium format, or Pentax K1, or a Sony RX1R.
History of Photography
By Roger Cicala
Since I started my articles on the early development of photographic lenses, I’ve been wanting to write an article on the development of the first cameras. The early days are so much more fun to write about, back when photographic advances were about people rather than corporations. Many of the major players despised each other, […]
Lenses and Optics
By Roger Cicala
Introduction There’s a scene in the old movie Marathon Man where Dustin Hoffman wakes up strapped in a Dentist’s chair, mouth forced open, while the evil dentist drills into the nerves of his teeth, repeating the same question over-and-over: “Is it safe”? Tortured past endurance, he would answer if he could, but the question has […]
Lenses and Optics
By Roger Cicala
This is not an article. A good article is like a five course meal, leading you through various tastes until you get to the big point of the whole thing: cheesecake. But I had a few things I wanted to talk about that weren’t an article in themselves, just blurbs, really. So I planned this […]