On 2016-02-02 17:43, Anton Aylward wrote:
On 02/02/2016 10:23 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:
I'm sure of it. In the question of lenses and sensors, size does matter :-)
yes, but .... its getting increasing irrelevant as engineers "cheat" physics.
...
But ultimately we don't care because the software can accommodate a whole raft of lens aberrations. And it does.
Yes, true, but that is "cheating", so to speak. The truth is, it is always easier to make a big lens than a small one (but not huge lenses that would be used on astronomy). If you have the same, top notch, technology, the same manufacturing error has more effect on the photo the smaller the lens is. Yes, you can correct for aberrations with software, but realistically, only for the defects common for the entire tirade of a set of optics; not for the defects particular to your unit. Unless there is a simple way to create those corrections yourself for a single camera.
Finally we can escape from the idea that the image plane the sensor, the "film" has to be flat. Or even in a single place. We've long had radar and radio telescopes that build up the 'aperture' by having a thinly dispersed set of sensors over a large area, gaps in between. we're learning to do that with optical wavelengths as well. Its a computational issue. We don't need lenses that focus, in fact there are cameras that don't have lenses. Its a computational issue.
Mmmm... -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 13.1 x86_64 "Bottle" at Telcontar)