Wide fields in exquisite detail

[dreed]

IEEE: New Optics Can Capture Wide Fields in Exquisite Detail

Compared to traditional camera lenses, the small, monocentric lens in the photo above doesn't look very impressive. The lens itself is a glass sphere the size of a jumbo school-yard marble. It’s held in a tear-drop shaped collet perched at the end of a machined rod. It looks very much like a crustacean’s eyestalk, and most photographers would instantly dismiss claims that this 20-mm-diameter, 16-gram crystal ball could outperform a highly engineered, 370g stack of compound lenses in the conventional Canon 12-mm fisheye lens next to it.