/ ABOUT / CALDWELL PHOTOGRAPHIC
Brian Caldwell earned a Ph.D. in Optics from The University of Rochester in 1988. He has more than 30 years experience in the fields of lens design and optical engineering, with more than 100 different manufactured products to his credit. In 1988 he founded Optical Data Solutions to develop LensVIEW, an extensive database of more than 30,000 optical designs from the patent literature. After working as an optical designer first at Projectavision and then at Concord Camera he founded Caldwell Photographic Inc. in 2001 to do independent consulting, and to develop and manufacture optical products.
The first project at Caldwell Photographic was to design a 300x zoom lens for Panavasion, affectionately given an internal project codename “PDBZ”, or “Pretty Damn Big Zoom!”. To date, this remains the largest zoom ratio ever manufactured. Commercial products designed by Dr. Caldwell include a 60mm UV-VIS-IR apochromat licensed for manufacture by Jenoptik Optical Systems, a 120mm UV-VIS-IR apochromat used to make multi-spectral photographs of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a high resolution viewfinder currently in use on Panavision’s latest digital cine camera, a special aberration corrector used to produce the Panavision Primo-V lens series, a series of 12 high speed cine lenses for a Panavision 70mm digital cine camera, and a series of universal photographic focal reducers currently marketed by Metabones with the Speed BoosterTM trademark.
Caldwell Photographic has recently embarked on the design and manufacture of a series of anamorphic adapters and prime lenses. These will combine the widely admired design and look of classic anamorphic optics with highly efficient and skilled manufacturing to produce a series of lenses that will be as affordable as they are desirable.
The first project at Caldwell Photographic was to design a 300x zoom lens for Panavasion, affectionately given an internal project codename “PDBZ”, or “Pretty Damn Big Zoom!”. To date, this remains the largest zoom ratio ever manufactured. Commercial products designed by Dr. Caldwell include a 60mm UV-VIS-IR apochromat licensed for manufacture by Jenoptik Optical Systems, a 120mm UV-VIS-IR apochromat used to make multi-spectral photographs of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a high resolution viewfinder currently in use on Panavision’s latest digital cine camera, a special aberration corrector used to produce the Panavision Primo-V lens series, a series of 12 high speed cine lenses for a Panavision 70mm digital cine camera, and a series of universal photographic focal reducers currently marketed by Metabones with the Speed BoosterTM trademark.
Caldwell Photographic has recently embarked on the design and manufacture of a series of anamorphic adapters and prime lenses. These will combine the widely admired design and look of classic anamorphic optics with highly efficient and skilled manufacturing to produce a series of lenses that will be as affordable as they are desirable.