Carl Zeiss lenses

[tclune]

E.T wrote:

tclune wrote:

Wrong, it matters, and the more complicate lens design is the more work quality matters.

I have worked for a company thatdeveloped medical-grade multispectral optics for clinical applications. Perhaps you have different professional experience, but in my experience the hard part is the design. If you can provide a proper specification for what you need, the rest can be done by just about anyone. Of course you need to monitor the quality of the product. That can also be done by just about anyone. I have no professional experience with NASA-type optics, and the degree of difficulty in manufacture for a very large lens at high tolerances may require specific manufacturers. But, for most optics, including those that require closer tolerances than consumer optics, it is well within the capability of most every manufacturer to do the productin work. The materials for some of the more demanding applications have relatively few providers, and sometimes need to be single-sourced. But, in my professional experience, the optical engineer does the hard part, which is the design and specification.

[E.T]

Meryl Arbing wrote:

Look at the reviews for the new Sony R1 (and its Zeiss lens) and you will see that there is minimal distortion (Barrel distortion and/or pin cushioning). A good lens is never a waste of money.

Sure, but you have to remember that lens with bigger zoom is always harder to make. And price of that camera is quite much higher than many compacts.

BTW, Why would Sony make worse sensor version for themself and better to direct competitor?
But nevertheless, that shows that just name in side doesn't mean anything, total is as good as that weakest link.

Also it's quite sure camera makers give tight price limit for lenses so lens designers propably have to do lot of compromises even though they could do lot better.



tclune wrote:

If you can provide a proper specification for what you need, the rest can be done by just about anyone. Of course you need to monitor the quality of the product.

And that's the point... Do all those cheap manufacturers really have necessary quality control for constant high quality? (same for high quality of raw materials)

You're right in that good quality can be made in everywhere if its wanted. They have done (and do) some very good quality optics even in Soviet Union/Russia... as strange it might sound considering that corruption seems to be best working thing they have.
But there's really much all kind of stuff made in those East Asia's cheap factories with lower and wildly varying quality and it's quite sure lenses of cheaper cameras are made similarly in cheaper factories.

[Carskick]

Here is a 100% crop of a picture I took with my Fuji F10. The left is the middle of the original picture, the right is the right side. The Purple Fringing or Chromatic Aberration, which ever it is, is much more severe the further you go to the edge. This makes me think it's a lens artifact, not sensor. If the lens does not effect things like Purple Fringing or Chromatic Aberration, then what defines a basic Carl Zeiss lens from a Fujinon lens if all specs are the same and the Fujinon has less distortion?

[Carskick]

I found a good explanation here