Article: Triplet's go! The Story of the Triplet Lens
p.1 #1Article: Triplet's go! The Story of the Triplet Lens
I finally managed to finish yet another lengthy article. This time on a topic, which I wanted to write about for quite some time, since I've always been fascinated by these seemingly simple lenses.
It's called
TRIPLET'S GO! The Story of the Triplet lens
https://www.simplejoy.at/articles/triplets-go
and is a deep dive into the history of the Taylor-Triplet, its predecessors, derivatives and the overall impact on optical design as a whole. In addition to that I've also tried to capture some of the characteristics of Triplet lenses, created an overview of all the Triplet lens names which I was able to come up with and also show a lot of sample images taken with Triplets I found interesting for a variety of reasons ranging from Agfa, Goerz, Taylor-Hobson, Zeiss, Emil Busch to Dallmeyer, Steinheil, Ernemann and many more.
It was a really vast but highly interesting topic to look into and I was truly surprised to find that quite a bit of the information seems barely documented online. I really hope that I've managed to change that a little bit. If you happen to know more about anything in there, spot some missing or flawed information, please reach out and let me know! I'm always happy to learn.
Thanks to the people here who have shared some thoughts and information about interesting Triplet lenses. I truly appreciate it!
Here are some sample shots:
Shot point-blank by simple.joy, on Flickr
They open as daisy fit by simple.joy, on Flickr
AlPine by simple.joy, on Flickr
The (forest) floor is yours... by simple.joy, on Flickr
Poor in rain by simple.joy, on Flickr
Light-est decay by simple.joy, on Flickr
Focus on your luck by simple.joy, on Flickr
Music is feeling... not calculation! by simple.joy, on Flickr
Apple presentation to my liking... by simple.joy, on Flickr
These wrinkles make me interesting! by simple.joy, on Flickr
Rad color! by simple.joy, on FlickrNov 13, 2026 at 09:16 AM
p.1 #2Article: Triplet's go! The Story of the Triplet Lens
Nice one! Will spend some time reading this over the weekend. So much to go through.
Nov 13, 2026 at 01:08 PM
p.1 #3Article: Triplet's go! The Story of the Triplet Lens
Your welcoming and well-organized site, as well as this article, is a tour de force - thank you so much (and thank you for bringing it to the attention of FM readers).
Nov 13, 2026 at 02:01 PM
p.1 #4Article: Triplet's go! The Story of the Triplet Lens
kiaora wrote:
Nice one! Will spend some time reading this over the weekend. So much to go through.
Thanks a lot! That's really kind. I know it's a lot of information... I was surprised myself what kind of rabbit hole the topic turned out to be.
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philip_pj wrote:
Your welcoming and well-organized site, as well as this article, is a tour de force - thank you so much (and thank you for bringing it to the attention of FM readers).
I'm really happy you think so! Thank you very much. I hope there are some people here who appreciate Triplet lenses and perhaps a couple who are willing to add some information on the matter or share some more sample images, showing the possibilities. I've learned about a couple of lenses here as well, including the MS-Optics Perar series, which seems nice but unfortunately out of my budget.
Nice one! Will spend some time reading this over the weekend. So much to go through.
Thanks a lot! That's really kind. I know it's a lot of information... I was surprised myself what kind of rabbit hole the topic turned out to be.
---------------------------------------------
philip_pj wrote:
Your welcoming and well-organized site, as well as this article, is a tour de force - thank you so much (and thank you for bringing it to the attention of FM readers).
I'm really happy you think so! Thank you very much. I hope there are some people here who appreciate Triplet lenses and perhaps a couple who are willing to add some information on the matter or share some more sample images, showing the possibilities. I've learned about a couple of lenses here as well, including the MS-Optics Perar series, which seems nice but unfortunately out of my budget.
Nov 14, 2026 at 03:35 PM