History of photographic lens design is) also popular as a telephoto lens design – the Sonnar is always at least slightly telephoto because of its powerful front positive elements. The Zeiss Olympia Sonnar 180mm f/2.8 for the Contax II (both 1936, Germany) is a classic, if not mythic, example. In 1817 Carl Friedrich Gauss improved the Fraunhofer telescope objective by adding a meniscus lens to its single convex and concave lens design. Alvan Clark further refined the design in 1888 by taking two of these lenses and placing them back to back. The lens was named in honour of Gauss. The current design can be
Parallel projection Parallel projection A parallel projection is a projection of an object in three-dimensional space onto a fixed plane, known as the "projection plane" or "image plane", where the "rays", known as "lines of sight" or "projection lines", are parallel to each other. It is a basic tool in descriptive geometry. The projection is called "orthographic" if the rays are perpendicular (orthogonal) to the image plane, and "oblique" or "skew" if they are not. A parallel projection is a particular case of "projection" in mathematics and "graphical projection" in technical drawing. Parallel projections can be seen as the limit of a