"Eugene" wrote in message
...
I don't think it has anything to do with the internet really. They've been
called prime lenses for as long as I can remember, and yes I do pre-date
the Internet ;-)

I certainly don't think it's some kind of fad. I suspect it would have
originated about the same time as zoom lenses.

Much later than that, I think. I was fairly heavily into photography before
I saw my first zoom lens, the Voigtlander Zoomar. That was around 1960. I
bought my first zoom in the late 1960s, and I'm dead certain no one used
"prime" to mean FFL at that time or for many years after. FFL lenses were
still the common kind of lens to have, in any focal-length range, and so
there was no need for a special term to distinguish them. Zooms were just
not highly trusted. Throughout the 1970s and well into the 1980s, most of my
lenses were FFL. There simply wasn't any need to use a term for something
that was assumed anyway. It was the *zoom* that was the exception and needed
a special designation. Now it's the other way around.


People needed a handy term to distinguish their FFL lenses from the new
zooms. FFL may be easy and quick to write, but 'prime' is quicker to say.

So is "egg," and even quicker to write. If a term must be coined for FFL on
the basis of quickness and ease, I suggest "egg." It even has a vague
logical connection to the idea of single focal length, since the egg is sort
of a symbol for unity. But best of all, it has the overwhelming advantage of
not being incorrect. No one at present is using "egg lens" for anything
else, so the likelihood of confusion is practically nil.


Also if we're going to get pedantic about linguistics then why not take
offence to the term "zoom lens". Surely they should be called Variable
Focal Length Lenses, or VFL lenses. That's much better... Now we just have
to re-educate all the millions of poor ignorant fools using the incorrect
terminology ;-)

Well, you're partly right there, except that zoom lenses are not just
variable focal length lenses. A zoom lens, strictly speaking, is a variable
focal length lens that is parfocal (stays in focus throughout its
focal-length range).

Now it is certainly true that not all "zoom" lenses do this, and those that
don't are properly called varifocal lenses. For example, every "zoom" lens
I've ever seen on a projector has been a varifocal and not a true zoom. And
the "zoom" lenses on point-and-shoot cameras are for the most part really
varifocals.

So yes, sure, if you want to do that, then by all means let's get people
straightened out on that terminological inexactitude.

Right after we correct the "prime lens" snafu. First things first.

N.