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Lens design news from Japan
- Thread starter spiritdog
- Start date
fred b. palagonia
Member
to whom it may concern,
I'm new at this . I'm not sure what kind of licensing agreement they have with the top camera manufacturers, but I'm assuming its for the use of there lens technology . my thinking is you need there lens technology (canon , nikon etc..) in order for your lens( sigma ,tamron etc..) to work correctly on there cameras.
I'm new at this . I'm not sure what kind of licensing agreement they have with the top camera manufacturers, but I'm assuming its for the use of there lens technology . my thinking is you need there lens technology (canon , nikon etc..) in order for your lens( sigma ,tamron etc..) to work correctly on there cameras.
Thought you folks might enjoy hearing the latest in Lens design
from Japan. I run an industrial/military based optical company in
the US and I am in Japan this week working on a few programs. In
any event, I had a chance to sit down with some local lens
designers and get their take on the latest trends.
Just so everybody knows companies like Canon, Nikon and Minolta do
not necessarily design all of their own optics. They are often
farmed out to be designed and manufactured by a number of OEM
manufactures here in Japan. It always amuses me when the yahoos get
on their soap boxes and claim one manufactures lenses are so much
better then another’s. Truth is competing brands could very well
have been designed and manufactured in the same place. The only
real differences in designs between manufactures come from the
design software (very critical in optics!) and to a lesser degree
the opto-mechanics that controle focus. Up until recently the
design software being used by everyone was pretty much home grown.
According to my friends in Japan this has really changed in the
past few years. As it turns out the Japanese are abandoning their
home grown software in favor of commercial optical design software
developed in the US for commercial and military purposes. The
result is that everyone’s designs are starting to look the same and
as time goes on the only factor that will separate lenses in terms
of true image quality will be price.
So what is my take? With any luck companies like Sigma and Tamron
will continue to put price pressure on the high-end optics from
Canon and Nikon. Given that the preformance is likely to be the
same (except for those who can’t get over the brand loyalty in
their head) it should make for more competition. Of course there
will always be good and bad lenses but that is to be expected from
a marketing point of view. I also think the smaller guys also need
to improve their opto-mechanics a bit.
So is there any disruptive technology out there? Most of the people
I talked to didn’t think so. One Nikon designer told me off the
record that he felt Canon has the lead in terms of intellectual
property. Canon typically files more optical patents than any
companies in the world. However as someone who uses advanced
optical technology similar to Canons for military applications, I
can tell you the cost point is not there yet! Thus we are likely to
see the differences between brands become more about good
marketing…sort of like refrigerators I suppose
I can say a little bit - a good portion of Canon's consumer lenses aren't even made in Japan - they are made in low-wage countries. I suspect that nearly all of these lenses are made under license for Canon.
L-lenses are still manufactured in Japan. I don't have any clue as to whether Canon buys pre-ground elements, assemblies, or what, though I suspect that they still do their own exotic glass (and they do sell lens elements to Takahashi for telescopes, last I heard).
Computer-based lens design is getting very mature (lens design itself is mature already), meaning that very few innovations are likely to happen any time soon, unless there's a quantum leap in glass technology or some new math discovery.
Tom
L-lenses are still manufactured in Japan. I don't have any clue as to whether Canon buys pre-ground elements, assemblies, or what, though I suspect that they still do their own exotic glass (and they do sell lens elements to Takahashi for telescopes, last I heard).
Computer-based lens design is getting very mature (lens design itself is mature already), meaning that very few innovations are likely to happen any time soon, unless there's a quantum leap in glass technology or some new math discovery.
--spiritdog is right. the last time i checked sigma has a licensingThought you folks might enjoy hearing the latest in Lens design
from Japan. I run an industrial/military based optical company in
the US and I am in Japan this week working on a few programs. In
any event, I had a chance to sit down with some local lens
designers and get their take on the latest trends.
Just so everybody knows companies like Canon, Nikon and Minolta do
not necessarily design all of their own optics. They are often
farmed out to be designed and manufactured by a number of OEM
manufactures here in Japan. It always amuses me when the yahoos get
on their soap boxes and claim one manufactures lenses are so much
better then another’s. Truth is competing brands could very well
have been designed and manufactured in the same place. The only
real differences in designs between manufactures come from the
design software (very critical in optics!) and to a lesser degree
the opto-mechanics that controle focus. Up until recently the
design software being used by everyone was pretty much home grown.
According to my friends in Japan this has really changed in the
past few years. As it turns out the Japanese are abandoning their
home grown software in favor of commercial optical design software
developed in the US for commercial and military purposes. The
result is that everyone’s designs are starting to look the same and
as time goes on the only factor that will separate lenses in terms
of true image quality will be price.
So what is my take? With any luck companies like Sigma and Tamron
will continue to put price pressure on the high-end optics from
Canon and Nikon. Given that the preformance is likely to be the
same (except for those who can’t get over the brand loyalty in
their head) it should make for more competition. Of course there
will always be good and bad lenses but that is to be expected from
a marketing point of view. I also think the smaller guys also need
to improve their opto-mechanics a bit.
So is there any disruptive technology out there? Most of the people
I talked to didn’t think so. One Nikon designer told me off the
record that he felt Canon has the lead in terms of intellectual
property. Canon typically files more optical patents than any
companies in the world. However as someone who uses advanced
optical technology similar to Canons for military applications, I
can tell you the cost point is not there yet! Thus we are likely to
see the differences between brands become more about good
marketing…sort of like refrigerators I suppose
agreement
with the major camera manufacturers i.e; canon , nikon etc. ,to build
lenses for them.
Tom
Ok Michael lets see you dig a whole. Here are some optical tid bits to prove my knowledge.
1. Top two design code being used in the world today...Code V and Zemax
2. Top two optical design schooles in the US. U af A and U of R
3. Top supplers of off the shelf optics. Edmund Optics and Mellas Griot
3. Top supplier of military optics in the world. Thales Optics in Singapore.
4. First company to adopt glass molding technology. Kodak
5. Father of modern Lens design. Rudolph Kingslake.
7. Achcromats are typicly designed for what working distance. Infinity
8. Only Aspheric design that compensates for Chomatic. Hybrid
9. Leading line scan camera manufacture. Dalsa in Canada
10. What system controles the design during optimization. Merit function
11. What is the poly function that describes aberration...Zernike
Shall I go on. Ya see engineers are best at Math so your zeroing in on my spelling shows just how little software people know about engineering.
So go ahead in respond to this. What are you going to say. I looked all of this up on the web? So lets see some smart ass comments. Maybe I should post some designs. Tell me pal what is it going to take to have you admit you are wrong. Or perhaps you should not respond to this at all. That will surfice!
1. Top two design code being used in the world today...Code V and Zemax
2. Top two optical design schooles in the US. U af A and U of R
3. Top supplers of off the shelf optics. Edmund Optics and Mellas Griot
3. Top supplier of military optics in the world. Thales Optics in Singapore.
4. First company to adopt glass molding technology. Kodak
5. Father of modern Lens design. Rudolph Kingslake.
7. Achcromats are typicly designed for what working distance. Infinity
8. Only Aspheric design that compensates for Chomatic. Hybrid
9. Leading line scan camera manufacture. Dalsa in Canada
10. What system controles the design during optimization. Merit function
11. What is the poly function that describes aberration...Zernike
Shall I go on. Ya see engineers are best at Math so your zeroing in on my spelling shows just how little software people know about engineering.
So go ahead in respond to this. What are you going to say. I looked all of this up on the web? So lets see some smart ass comments. Maybe I should post some designs. Tell me pal what is it going to take to have you admit you are wrong. Or perhaps you should not respond to this at all. That will surfice!
The main problem with Wide angle is distortion, astigmatism at the edge of the feild and CA. The usual way to control astigmatism and CA is to let the lens vinette a bit. The distortion is not so easy without using alot of elements.
To be honest this is were digital is a huge advantage. Aberations such as distortion do not actually degrade the image. Rather they displace it. Thus taking it out in software is no less of a solution then designing it out of the lens. Astigmatism and CA are a bit more tricky.
My company has designed lenses that cover 180 degree feild of view with a two inch sensor. So to answer your question...yes it is possible. But as always the cost is not something you are going to want to pay for. The good new is that digital corrections are real and they work. In many ways this has made optical design less important from a system point of view. The fact that you can reduce the effects of CA in programs like Adobe RAW is really great! So I am not sure new designs are the best way to go?
To be honest this is were digital is a huge advantage. Aberations such as distortion do not actually degrade the image. Rather they displace it. Thus taking it out in software is no less of a solution then designing it out of the lens. Astigmatism and CA are a bit more tricky.
My company has designed lenses that cover 180 degree feild of view with a two inch sensor. So to answer your question...yes it is possible. But as always the cost is not something you are going to want to pay for. The good new is that digital corrections are real and they work. In many ways this has made optical design less important from a system point of view. The fact that you can reduce the effects of CA in programs like Adobe RAW is really great! So I am not sure new designs are the best way to go?
Japan is still holding on to a few things. The main things I see are glass technology and precision molding tecnology. Hoya and Ohara still supply most of the world camera raw glass.
When talking about "L" glass the volumes are actually not high enoungh to go into places like China or Indonesia. I was in a optics factory in China last week that kicks out 2 million elements a month going into the cell phones and consumer digital camera market. L-glass is a blip on their radar.
As for were elements come from...all over Japan and China. Optics manufacturing in Japan is a very layered procces. Of cource they also make some of their own stuff but for the most part the big guys concentrate of design and assemblie of the cameras. That is were their most vunerable IP is sitting. Not in the lens!
When talking about "L" glass the volumes are actually not high enoungh to go into places like China or Indonesia. I was in a optics factory in China last week that kicks out 2 million elements a month going into the cell phones and consumer digital camera market. L-glass is a blip on their radar.
As for were elements come from...all over Japan and China. Optics manufacturing in Japan is a very layered procces. Of cource they also make some of their own stuff but for the most part the big guys concentrate of design and assemblie of the cameras. That is were their most vunerable IP is sitting. Not in the lens!
L-lenses are still manufactured in Japan. I don't have any clue as
to whether Canon buys pre-ground elements, assemblies, or what,
though I suspect that they still do their own exotic glass (and
they do sell lens elements to Takahashi for telescopes, last I
heard).
Computer-based lens design is getting very mature (lens design
itself is mature already), meaning that very few innovations are
likely to happen any time soon, unless there's a quantum leap in
glass technology or some new math discovery.
--spiritdog is right. the last time i checked sigma has a licensingThought you folks might enjoy hearing the latest in Lens design
from Japan. I run an industrial/military based optical company in
the US and I am in Japan this week working on a few programs. In
any event, I had a chance to sit down with some local lens
designers and get their take on the latest trends.
Just so everybody knows companies like Canon, Nikon and Minolta do
not necessarily design all of their own optics. They are often
farmed out to be designed and manufactured by a number of OEM
manufactures here in Japan. It always amuses me when the yahoos get
on their soap boxes and claim one manufactures lenses are so much
better then another’s. Truth is competing brands could very well
have been designed and manufactured in the same place. The only
real differences in designs between manufactures come from the
design software (very critical in optics!) and to a lesser degree
the opto-mechanics that controle focus. Up until recently the
design software being used by everyone was pretty much home grown.
According to my friends in Japan this has really changed in the
past few years. As it turns out the Japanese are abandoning their
home grown software in favor of commercial optical design software
developed in the US for commercial and military purposes. The
result is that everyone’s designs are starting to look the same and
as time goes on the only factor that will separate lenses in terms
of true image quality will be price.
So what is my take? With any luck companies like Sigma and Tamron
will continue to put price pressure on the high-end optics from
Canon and Nikon. Given that the preformance is likely to be the
same (except for those who can’t get over the brand loyalty in
their head) it should make for more competition. Of course there
will always be good and bad lenses but that is to be expected from
a marketing point of view. I also think the smaller guys also need
to improve their opto-mechanics a bit.
So is there any disruptive technology out there? Most of the people
I talked to didn’t think so. One Nikon designer told me off the
record that he felt Canon has the lead in terms of intellectual
property. Canon typically files more optical patents than any
companies in the world. However as someone who uses advanced
optical technology similar to Canons for military applications, I
can tell you the cost point is not there yet! Thus we are likely to
see the differences between brands become more about good
marketing…sort of like refrigerators I suppose
agreement
with the major camera manufacturers i.e; canon , nikon etc. ,to build
lenses for them.
Tom
PalmsWestPhoto
Forum Pro
dog
You are funny
and it took you quite a while to come up with this useless list too.
Post your name and some personal info. Show us some of your glorious work in engineering as well as in photography.
That will show us who you are. It still will not show that the original message you posted is correct though as it is not.
One day you are the best engineer with 20 years of practice then suddenly you are the best photographer with 20 years of practice. Did you practice photography at night or engineering at night ?
So far all you did was to post nonsense. Not a good start. But funny
--
Michael Salzlechner
http://www.PalmsWestPhoto.com
You are funny
Where is the math in your google result list ?
and it took you quite a while to come up with this useless list too.
Right, like i said all you posted is a simple list of facts (btw i didnt bother to read the list so there may be things wrong with it as well, probably are)
What does surfice mean ? Surf Ice. What is that a new beer from Ice House for surfers ?
Post your name and some personal info. Show us some of your glorious work in engineering as well as in photography.
That will show us who you are. It still will not show that the original message you posted is correct though as it is not.
One day you are the best engineer with 20 years of practice then suddenly you are the best photographer with 20 years of practice. Did you practice photography at night or engineering at night ?
So far all you did was to post nonsense. Not a good start. But funny
--
Michael Salzlechner
http://www.PalmsWestPhoto.com
Game over;-)
http://home.comcast.net/~spiritdog/_MG_0292.psd
The file above tell's the whole story. If you take the time to figure it out...hint's are in the exif file and my name is all over the web if you type in optics or machine vision when you do the search. As it turns out I am well published in the world of optics.
Finnally, I would like to apoligize. As you will see I am am very real and in my position the comments I have made are not called for. However, you clearly did not read my first post and then attacted me for simply sharing information about an industry I have worked in for 16 years. You may want to ponder that?
Have a good day and happy shooting.
BTW. My poor spelling comes from being dislexic. Like I said before it is my engineering skills and buisness skills that got me to were I am. Thank god since I am the worst speller I know
http://home.comcast.net/~spiritdog/_MG_0292.psd
The file above tell's the whole story. If you take the time to figure it out...hint's are in the exif file and my name is all over the web if you type in optics or machine vision when you do the search. As it turns out I am well published in the world of optics.
Finnally, I would like to apoligize. As you will see I am am very real and in my position the comments I have made are not called for. However, you clearly did not read my first post and then attacted me for simply sharing information about an industry I have worked in for 16 years. You may want to ponder that?
Have a good day and happy shooting.
BTW. My poor spelling comes from being dislexic. Like I said before it is my engineering skills and buisness skills that got me to were I am. Thank god since I am the worst speller I know
snowwrestler
Forum Enthusiast
I would not classify this as news--the top companies have been farming out many of their lower-end lenses for years. I would say it is fairly well known around the photo industry.
I think this is misleading. It's a big step from knowing that manufacturers outsource some of their design and manufacturing, to asserting that any of their lenses could have been manufactured in the same place. There is method to the system--certain lens lines are more likely to be outsourced than others. In addition there are shades of oursourcing--was the lens designed and built wholely by a South Korean company? Or was it designed at Nikon and built in a jointly owned Nikon factory in China? These differences matter.
Again I think this is misleading. There is a lot more to a lens than simply its optical design, including special features, electronics, barrel materials, manufacturing tolerances, etc. I also think it's misleading to assume that all manufacturers design to precisely the same goals. Each company defines performance and value slightly differently, and each makes different trade-offs in the design--even if they're all using the same software.
Again I don't follow you. Are you asserting that because people are using similar design tools, they will therefore produce indistinguishable products? That does not necessarily follow.
Define performance. I offer my opinion that as an optical engineer, your definition is likely to skew to measurable aspects of design, or metrics on an optical bench. From my point of view as a photographer, there is a lot more to a lens than that.
But I bet everyone in the refridgerator industry has opinions as to which refridgerators they would or would not buy.So is there any disruptive technology out there? Most of the people
I talked to didn’t think so. One Nikon designer told me off the
record that he felt Canon has the lead in terms of intellectual
property. Canon typically files more optical patents than any
companies in the world. However as someone who uses advanced
optical technology similar to Canons for military applications, I
can tell you the cost point is not there yet! Thus we are likely to
see the differences between brands become more about good
marketing…sort of like refrigerators I suppose
I think the point you're trying to make is that the industry is maturing, consolidation is occurring along horizontals, and the performance difference between the top and bottom of the market is decreasing. It's a valid point in any industry, but I think it's possible to take it too far. There is a lot more to producing a product than its design, and often these other factors are what make or break the brand in the marketplace. Seeing similarities in tools and design--from an engineering perspective--can be illuminating, but in the end may not prove to be meaningful or predictive in the marketplace.
I worked for several years for a competitive intelligence company, where I read and edited hundreds of industry reports like the one you posted (only about 10 times as long). Like yours these were the result of contacts and discussions with those involved in the industry, seasoned by long experience in the industry in question (networking technology mostly). The data was always accurate, the conclusions logical and reasonable. Yet often things did not play out as expected in the marketplace. And typically it was most difficult to learn what would be most useful to know--what the most successful players considered most valuable and disruptive.
I have not had a chance to use the 70-300 DO. So best not to comment on that lens.
BTW I was not trashing this lens. Rather I was commenting on the basic technology. A diffractive optic uses a thin film with very fine lines in it. So when stray light enters the system and strikes this surface it tends to "light-up". Thus using this technoligy over a wide range of lens fl's is not likely to happen. Canons method seems to sandwich the diffractive in order to limit the stray light. Very very cool but I still think the lens would be prone to light up if one is not carefull.
BTW I was not trashing this lens. Rather I was commenting on the basic technology. A diffractive optic uses a thin film with very fine lines in it. So when stray light enters the system and strikes this surface it tends to "light-up". Thus using this technoligy over a wide range of lens fl's is not likely to happen. Canons method seems to sandwich the diffractive in order to limit the stray light. Very very cool but I still think the lens would be prone to light up if one is not carefull.
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