A modern camera lens is a stack of 15 or more shaped pieces of carefully chosen glass, each fighting a specific optical defect, and the engineering behind it is one of the more underappreciated stories in consumer technology. We walk the aberrations every lens has to correct, what aspherics and low-dispersion glass and fluorite actually do, why fast glass is heavy, and the honest case for a $2000 prime over a $400 kit zoom.
Optics
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Lens Engineering