On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 04:44:00 +0000, Paul J Gans wrote:


I dimly recall the term "prime lens" as being the
lens whose focal length was equal (at least roughly)
to the diagonal of the film frame. That made a 50mm
(or 45mm) lens "prime" for 35mm film.
In the UK in the sixties they were called normal lenses.

A 135mm lens was then a "telephoto" and a 35mm lens
was a "wideangle".
The 135mm was often called a long focus lens (which most at that time
were), the 35mm were often retro-focus lenses but I cannot ever remember
them being called that.
Zoom hadn't been invented yet.
Zooms were used on cine cameras quite a while before still.


--
Neil
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