Very interesting article about reducing spherical aberration in lenses
"Camera lenses are insanely complex and extraordinarily precise devices, and one of the reasons for this is spherical aberration. This is distinct from chromatic aberration, or color fringing, which you get when a lens is unable to focus light from all parts of the visual color spectrum together. Spherical aberration is what causes some lenses to be sharp in the middle, but blurrier toward the outside edges.
Lens manufacturers have for years been building aspherical lenses to try to counteract this effect, modifying the sphere shape slightly to try to sharpen up the whole image. By and large, many have done a great job, as evidenced by the general optical sharpness of today's lenses. But rather than working to a precise mathematical formula that works to correct all spherical lens aberration, lens companies have had to work on each lens as a separate problem, finding solutions that worked, more or less, but forcing them to start over each time.
What does it all mean? Well, Gonzalez's formula should vastly reduce trial and error in the lens making business. It could result in simpler, smaller, cheaper and sharper lenses with fewer elements. And optics, of course, isn't restricted to the camera game. There could be even more interesting effects at the tiniest end of the scale, with sharper microscope imaging, and at the biggest end of the scale with deep-space telescopy."
"Camera lenses are insanely complex and extraordinarily precise devices, and one of the reasons for this is spherical aberration. This is distinct from chromatic aberration, or color fringing, which you get when a lens is unable to focus light from all parts of the visual color spectrum together. Spherical aberration is what causes some lenses to be sharp in the middle, but blurrier toward the outside edges.
Lens manufacturers have for years been building aspherical lenses to try to counteract this effect, modifying the sphere shape slightly to try to sharpen up the whole image. By and large, many have done a great job, as evidenced by the general optical sharpness of today's lenses. But rather than working to a precise mathematical formula that works to correct all spherical lens aberration, lens companies have had to work on each lens as a separate problem, finding solutions that worked, more or less, but forcing them to start over each time.
What does it all mean? Well, Gonzalez's formula should vastly reduce trial and error in the lens making business. It could result in simpler, smaller, cheaper and sharper lenses with fewer elements. And optics, of course, isn't restricted to the camera game. There could be even more interesting effects at the tiniest end of the scale, with sharper microscope imaging, and at the biggest end of the scale with deep-space telescopy."
