[2]: 141–142  The negative front group also serves to increase peripheral illumination; some symmetric wide-angle lenses require a radially-graduated filter or other means to make the exposure even across the frame.

[2]: 144 The inverted telephoto design was first employed in the 1930s by Taylor-Hobson for the early Technicolor "3-strip" cameras since the beam splitter unit behind the lens required significant space, so that a long back focal distance was essential.

[2]: 142 [3] Horace Lee patented an inverted telephoto lens design in 1930 with an angle of view of 50° and maximum aperture of f/2 which afforded a distance between the rear element and the film plane approximately 10% greater than the focal length.

The retrofocus lens addressed this situation by increasing the distance between the rear element and the focal plane, thus making wider-angle lenses usable while retaining normal viewing and focusing.

[23] The highly symmetric super-wide angle lenses developed in the late 1940s and early 1950s, including the Biogon, are sometimes described as a mirrored pair of inverted telephoto objectives, as first presented by Roosinov in 1946.

[28]: 204  By removing the constraint for rectilinear projection and deliberately introducing barrel distortion, the illumination of the field can be made more even; the resulting fisheye lenses can be considered a subset of the inverted telephoto lens design, with strong negative front elements.