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Re: [OM] Plastic Lens question

Subject: Re: [OM] Plastic Lens question
From: Kennedy McEwen <rkm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2003 19:09:23 +0100
In article , Albert <olympus@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes
Sorry, slightly OT, but I was wondering, does anybody know the resolving
limit on plastic lenses?

One of my students went on a trip and just got back; well, the pictures
were horrible; taken with a P&S camera that had a plastic lens..

She said she was frustrated after seeing my pics as far as clarity and
resolution.  I'm just curious if anybody knows just how big of a
difference glass vs. plastics is.

I know based on glasses; glass is less than 1/2 as thick..  So I don't
know if that's linear or exponential, but that should mean that it at
least resolves 2x as well vs. plastic??

In principle there is no reason why a plastic lens must have a lower resolution than a glass one and, in systems where weight is a significant issue, high quality plastic lenses certainly are used. However, the main reason for using plastic instead of glass is to reduce costs by the use of bulk moulded lenses. This usually sacrifices quality due to difficulties controlling the refractive index of the plastic during the moulding process. There is no "rule of thumb" to scale the two just that, in general, plastic lenses are crap but there area significant number of exceptions to caution use of the general rule.
--
Kennedy
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed.
Python Philosophers

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