Toss out your 500mm lenses

A news article that appeared today advises that "clunky telephoto
lenses" could soon be a thing of the past. The story lumps phone
cameras and long teles together as giving lousy quality images that
are distorted like funhouse mirrors.

These scientists (who have probably never used a telephoto lens
before) have developed a new flexible sensor material that can form
concave sensors. Such sensors can compensate for field curvature of
lenses, which can be an advantage (if your subject has a flat focus
plane).

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0113155847.htm

If these guys succeed and if their invention is adopted by the SLR
camera makers, you might as well toss out your flat field macro lenses
too.

Or, the SLRs of the future might need interchangeable sensors, each
with different convexity, because different lenses will have different
curved fields.

What exiting things the future holds in store.

Wally

Wally wrote:
A news article that appeared today advises that "clunky telephoto
lenses" could soon be a thing of the past. The story lumps phone
cameras and long teles together as giving lousy quality images that
are distorted like funhouse mirrors.

These scientists (who have probably never used a telephoto lens
before) have developed a new flexible sensor material that can form
concave sensors. Such sensors can compensate for field curvature of
lenses, which can be an advantage (if your subject has a flat focus
plane).

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0113155847.htm

If these guys succeed and if their invention is adopted by the SLR
camera makers, you might as well toss out your flat field macro
lenses
too.

Or, the SLRs of the future might need interchangeable sensors, each
with different convexity, because different lenses will have
different
curved fields.

What exiting things the future holds in store.

Just love this gem:

"That's why some photos can turn out looking like images in a funhouse
mirror, with an enlarged nose or a hand as big as a head."

Seems these experts have never heard of "perspective".

The cluelessness of college professors never ceases to amaze me.



Wally

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

J. Clarke wrote:
Wally wrote:
A news article that appeared today advises that "clunky telephoto
lenses" could soon be a thing of the past. The story lumps phone
cameras and long teles together as giving lousy quality images that
are distorted like funhouse mirrors.

These scientists (who have probably never used a telephoto lens
before) have developed a new flexible sensor material that can form
concave sensors. Such sensors can compensate for field curvature
of lenses, which can be an advantage (if your subject has a flat
focus plane).

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0113155847.htm

If these guys succeed and if their invention is adopted by the SLR
camera makers, you might as well toss out your flat field macro
lenses too.

Or, the SLRs of the future might need interchangeable sensors, each
with different convexity, because different lenses will have
different curved fields.

What exiting things the future holds in store.

Just love this gem:

"That's why some photos can turn out looking like images in a
funhouse mirror, with an enlarged nose or a hand as big as a head."

Seems these experts have never heard of "perspective".

The cluelessness of college professors never ceases to amaze me.

That's why we are so indebted to the Wallys of the world. I mean what
would a physicist know about light.
Dave Cohen

Wally

Dave Cohen wrote in news:gklql0$h9l$1
@news.motzarella.org:

J. Clarke wrote:
Wally wrote:
A news article that appeared today advises that "clunky telephoto
lenses" could soon be a thing of the past. The story lumps phone
cameras and long teles together as giving lousy quality images that
are distorted like funhouse mirrors.

These scientists (who have probably never used a telephoto lens
before) have developed a new flexible sensor material that can form
concave sensors. Such sensors can compensate for field curvature
of lenses, which can be an advantage (if your subject has a flat
focus plane).

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0113155847.htm

If these guys succeed and if their invention is adopted by the SLR
camera makers, you might as well toss out your flat field macro
lenses too.

Or, the SLRs of the future might need interchangeable sensors, each
with different convexity, because different lenses will have
different curved fields.

What exiting things the future holds in store.

Just love this gem:

"That's why some photos can turn out looking like images in a
funhouse mirror, with an enlarged nose or a hand as big as a head."

Seems these experts have never heard of "perspective".

The cluelessness of college professors never ceases to amaze me.

That's why we are so indebted to the Wallys of the world. I mean what
would a physicist know about light.
Dave Cohen

Wally


The article is half-rubbish. They are confusing curved focal planes
with wide angle distortion. In addition, they fail to mention that
almost no lenses produce a curved focal plane today, edge problems being
primary the result of coma and spherical aberration.
What the article could have said (with less clueless general-science
writer filler) is that having curved focal plane greatly simplifies and
cheapens the cost of making lenses do what they do. Years ago, Berhard
Schmidt developed ultra fast (200mm f0.7, etc) lenses that actually
curved the film in a mount, so they could achieve the lens speed without
undue lens complexity of design.

Dave Cohen wrote:
J. Clarke wrote:
Wally wrote:
A news article that appeared today advises that "clunky telephoto
lenses" could soon be a thing of the past. The story lumps phone
cameras and long teles together as giving lousy quality images
that
are distorted like funhouse mirrors.

These scientists (who have probably never used a telephoto lens
before) have developed a new flexible sensor material that can
form
concave sensors. Such sensors can compensate for field curvature
of lenses, which can be an advantage (if your subject has a flat
focus plane).

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0113155847.htm

If these guys succeed and if their invention is adopted by the SLR
camera makers, you might as well toss out your flat field macro
lenses too.

Or, the SLRs of the future might need interchangeable sensors,
each
with different convexity, because different lenses will have
different curved fields.

What exiting things the future holds in store.

Just love this gem:

"That's why some photos can turn out looking like images in a
funhouse mirror, with an enlarged nose or a hand as big as a head."

Seems these experts have never heard of "perspective".

The cluelessness of college professors never ceases to amaze me.

That's why we are so indebted to the Wallys of the world. I mean
what
would a physicist know about light.

Maybe you should ask one. The particular professors are not
physicists, two are electrical engineers and third a materials
scientist.

Now, try addressing the points raised rather than practicing
scientism.

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Rich wrote:
Wally wrote:
A news article that appeared today advises that "clunky telephoto
lenses" could soon be a thing of the past. The story lumps phone
cameras and long teles together as giving lousy quality images that
are distorted like funhouse mirrors.

These scientists (who have probably never used a telephoto lens
before) have developed a new flexible sensor material that can form
concave sensors. Such sensors can compensate for field curvature
of lenses, which can be an advantage (if your subject has a flat
focus plane).

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0113155847.htm

The article is half-rubbish. They are confusing curved focal planes
with wide angle distortion. In addition, they fail to mention that
almost no lenses produce a curved focal plane today, edge problems being
primary the result of coma and spherical aberration.
What the article could have said (with less clueless general-science
writer filler) is that having curved focal plane greatly simplifies and
cheapens the cost of making lenses do what they do. Years ago, Berhard
Schmidt developed ultra fast (200mm f0.7, etc) lenses that actually
curved the film in a mount, so they could achieve the lens speed without
undue lens complexity of design.

Interesting but yes there's a lot of confusion in the article. The
advantage goes to wide angle lenses though, not 500mm telephotos. The
most extreme wide angles are only practical with fisheye distortion and
most of those are actually very compact & lightweight. Long telephotos
don't seem to suffer much from geometric distortion. I've seen similar
invention ideas and my first thought was if you capture on a domed
sensor, you still have to flatten that out for printing and there will
still be resolution loss in that stretching process. It's probably
easier to just shoot fisheye & flatten in software, I don't know, maybe
a little advantage shrug. The best application might be for 3D
panoramas like google maps street view and those virtual reality real
estate browsing plug-ins. Fisheyes are used there and perhaps this idea
could lower the cost of these very specialized needs. Maybe making it
possible to wear a 3D VR cap beanie for super cheap :-) or some other
scientific application but I don't really see the application for
general photography.

Fast, Bendable Computers
Military antennas are the closest application.
http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/18283/?a=f

Notice the bend is in one dimension, not a dome/parabolic shape.

--
Paul Furman
www.edgehill.net
www.baynatives.com

all google groups messages filtered due to spam

Rich wrote:
Dave Cohen wrote in news:gklql0$h9l$1
@news.motzarella.org:

J. Clarke wrote:
Wally wrote:
A news article that appeared today advises that "clunky telephoto
lenses" could soon be a thing of the past. The story lumps phone
cameras and long teles together as giving lousy quality images that
are distorted like funhouse mirrors.

These scientists (who have probably never used a telephoto lens
before) have developed a new flexible sensor material that can form
concave sensors. Such sensors can compensate for field curvature
of lenses, which can be an advantage (if your subject has a flat
focus plane).

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0113155847.htm

If these guys succeed and if their invention is adopted by the SLR
camera makers, you might as well toss out your flat field macro
lenses too.

Why throw out the working technology you already have just because
someone has invented a new technology to do the same job?

Or, the SLRs of the future might need interchangeable sensors, each
with different convexity, because different lenses will have
different curved fields.

The point is the flexibility, which means the convexity can be changed
in camera.

The article is half-rubbish. They are confusing curved focal planes
with wide angle distortion. In addition, they fail to mention that
almost no lenses produce a curved focal plane today, edge problems being
primary the result of coma and spherical aberration.
What the article could have said (with less clueless general-science
writer filler) is that having curved focal plane greatly simplifies and
cheapens the cost of making lenses do what they do. Years ago, Berhard
Schmidt developed ultra fast (200mm f0.7, etc) lenses that actually
curved the film in a mount, so they could achieve the lens speed without
undue lens complexity of design.

The tiny Minox spy camera curved its film plane in both camera and the
special required enlarger, in order to get the most detail out of the
smallest package.

It's considered efficient and economical these days to train
technicians and engineers only in the aspects of science needed for
their specific job, rather than wasting time giving them a general
scientific education as preliminary groundwork. That article clearly
shows what a false economy that attitude is.

--
Chris Malcolm

Wally wrote:
A news article that appeared today advises that "clunky telephoto
lenses" could soon be a thing of the past. The story lumps phone
cameras and long teles together as giving lousy quality images that
are distorted like funhouse mirrors.

These scientists (who have probably never used a telephoto lens
before) have developed a new flexible sensor material that can form
concave sensors. Such sensors can compensate for field curvature of
lenses, which can be an advantage (if your subject has a flat focus
plane).

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0113155847.htm

If these guys succeed and if their invention is adopted by the SLR
camera makers, you might as well toss out your flat field macro lenses
too.

Or, the SLRs of the future might need interchangeable sensors, each
with different convexity, because different lenses will have different
curved fields.

What exiting things the future holds in store.

Wally

Actually, most telephotos do not have significant distortion.
Distortion usually comes from high field angles, and of course
telephotos do not have high field angles. Only in the case of very fast
telephotos do we have the problem. Most of us can't afford that kind of
lens anyway :-)

Whether college profs understand optics that well depends on which
college. Guys from Arizona State or Rochester sure do- those are
excellent schools for optical engineering.

I suspect the talk was an attempt to get more funding for development.
Some folks will say anything for funding.

Indeed, if they are trying an unconventional approach, they well may not
have used lenses much for practical things. I worked on projects with
diffractive optics, with semiconductor processing folks doing much of
the work. While we had some optical designers involved, the
semiconductor fab people were definitely not well acquainted with
actually using optics.

Dave Cohen wrote:
That's why we are so indebted to the Wallys of the world. I mean what
would a physicist know about light.
Dave Cohen

Wally


I suspect much of the article was written by marketing types, or the
reporter himself may have garbled things. Many times the actual
scientists are "filtered" by other folks.

As someone in another post mentioned, scientists and engineers are
getting very specialized, so the optics experts who probably did work on
the project may not have been the ones quoted.

I worked with a number of physicists who, like me, were putting in
considerable time as lens designers. Some had some pretty good patents
in optics to their credits. One had the patent for tilting lens elements
for image stabilization. Unfortunately, his patent was dated over
thirty years ago, and undoubtedly ran out before lens stabilization
became so popular.

Wally wrote:

A news article that appeared today advises that "clunky telephoto lenses"
could soon be a thing of the past. The story lumps phone cameras and long
teles together as giving lousy quality images that are distorted like
funhouse mirrors.

These scientists (who have probably never used a telephoto lens before)
have developed a new flexible sensor material that can form concave
sensors. Such sensors can compensate for field curvature of lenses, which
can be an advantage (if your subject has a flat focus plane).

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0113155847.htm

If these guys succeed and if their invention is adopted by the SLR camera
makers, you might as well toss out your flat field macro lenses too.

Or, the SLRs of the future might need interchangeable sensors, each with
different convexity, because different lenses will have different curved
fields.

Put an appropriate sensor in the lens. Contacts between the body and
lens carry the image to your storage medium. Or you could move the image
from sensor to storage with RF telemetry. Wait. If you put your controls
and your storage medim and a VF on the lens, too, you won't *need* a
body. Then photography will become an out-of-body experience. I
apologize in advance.


--
Blinky
Killing all posts from Google Groups -
The Usenet Improvement Project: http://improve-usenet.org