I don't believe this is correct. I own quite a few Kodak and Navitar lenses for projectors, going back many years. Kodak originally produced flat field lenses which were designed for flat slides, but it caused Kodak's own mounted slides, (paper mounts) for Kodachrome and Ektachrome to look bad. So they introduced the curve field lenses to deal with this. As you mention, the curve field have the disadvantage of making a slide placed backwards into the tray twice as blurry on the edges as a flat field lens would.
They might be offering flat field lenses again now as standard since the advent of pretty much everyone switching to plastic mounts which float the slides to prevent popping. Art Jim Snyder wrote: > on 11/20/01 2:26 PM, Bill Fernandez at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > >>At 9:44 AM -0500 20-11-01, Bruce Kinch wrote: >> >>>Perhaps it's worth noting that Kodak now provides "curved field" >>>projection lenses as standard for normal (cardboard, presumably) >>>mounted slides in their Carousel projectors, but their older "flat >>>field" design is recommended for glass mounted transparencies. >>> >>BF: If memory serves correctly this has been the case at least since >>the 1970's. Curved field lenses were standard, and flat field lenses >>were special orders. >> > > Actually, I think the problem is that Kodak's original lenses curved the > opposite way the film did, exaggerating the out of focus edge effects. The > flat field lenses corrected this to a much improved image. Accidentally > showing a slide reversed often meant sharp corners, but writing that was > backwards, etc. > > Jim (old-timer) Snyder > > . > >