This is a lens design created simultaneously by two lens makers: Dallmeyer and Steinheil back in 1866. Its big virtue is rendering straight in the image the straight lines in the scene. Very important in architecture and urban scenes in general. Lenses able to do that before had very low aperture and demanded very long exposures. Very convenient then to call this type Rapid Rectilinear, because it was a solution for both desirable qualities.



It consists of two doublets symmetrically arranged around the iris. The tricky part, besides the geometry in itself, is the choice of glasses to form the doublets.

It was very successful and many manufacturers launched their own Rapid Rectilinear or Aplanat lens. For more than 60 years it remained the first choice as a generalist lens. There were some yielding wide angle and others with higher aperture intended for portraiture. The next step-change in lens construction was the anastigmat but that came later at the turn of the XX century.



This one, comes from a camera maker that used to buy lenses from Rodenstock, Steinheil, Voiglander and Zeiss. Some of those lenses did not have reference to the maker and that is the case of this sample.



I have it in a lens board made to fit to a Graflex Auto RB. This is a single lens reflex camera in 9x12 cm format. really convenient for portraiture.