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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

How long does it take to design a new lens?

C

Christopher Polis

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I realise this is probably akin to 'how long is a piece of string', but does anyone have a realistic idea how much work actually goes into the design / preparation for manufacture of a lens, and what sort of process is involved?

It's not a topic I've been able to find much comment on around the web and just thought there might be a few people here who could shed some light on the process.
 
They have beautiful female workers...

I always suspected that the premium you pay for Zeiss lenses is because they are contracting models.

Imagine how hard is it to hire someone like this: Wanted Model, 20yo, blonde hair, also specialized in precise optics assembly.
 
kidding...

But seriously, it really changes from manufacturer to manufacturer.
Their approach makes a very large difference.
If a company is trying to make a simple lens with no bells and whistles, it's very easy.
THe designs have been around for decades and can be tweaked and tuned to ones liking.
If the company is trying to do something new and innovative, could take years.
Depends a lot on the companies motivation and priorities.
There really is no answer to your question.
I haven't used my automotive comparison lately... It's like asking how long it takes to design a car.
You can be like Chevy and just pull the chassis from your truck, slap on a body and call it a new SUV, or you can design a great car from scratch and spend years in research and development.
 
Matthew Duclos said:
There is a chart for design lead time.

18mm - 24 months
25mm - 18 days
35mm - 19 days
50mm - 2 days
85mm - 14 days
100mmm - 6 days
wide zoom - 2 months
mid zoom - 1 month
tele zoom - 1.5 months
Click to expand...

LOL!

Finally a concise answer!
 
I'll take a box of 50's. I expect them by the end of the week.
 
Matthew Duclos said:
kidding...

But seriously, it really changes from manufacturer to manufacturer.
Their approach makes a very large difference.
If a company is trying to make a simple lens with no bells and whistles, it's very easy.
THe designs have been around for decades and can be tweaked and tuned to ones liking.
If the company is trying to do something new and innovative, could take years.
Depends a lot on the companies motivation and priorities.
There really is no answer to your question.
I haven't used my automotive comparison lately... It's like asking how long it takes to design a car.
You can be like Chevy and just pull the chassis from your truck, slap on a body and call it a new SUV, or you can design a great car from scratch and spend years in research and development.
Click to expand...

Matthew, the question for me:
As new and innovative as a FF(DSLR) PL glass line??...
You think the gods of glass (Zeiss, Cooke, Angineux) are going to develop FF glass?? :shocked:

(Congrats for your develops)
 
Zeiss already has. The Compact Primes are PL mount and cover FF35.
 
Matthew Duclos said:
kidding...

But seriously, it really changes from manufacturer to manufacturer.
Their approach makes a very large difference.
If a company is trying to make a simple lens with no bells and whistles, it's very easy.
THe designs have been around for decades and can be tweaked and tuned to ones liking.
If the company is trying to do something new and innovative, could take years.
Depends a lot on the companies motivation and priorities.
There really is no answer to your question.
I haven't used my automotive comparison lately... It's like asking how long it takes to design a car.
You can be like Chevy and just pull the chassis from your truck, slap on a body and call it a new SUV, or you can design a great car from scratch and spend years in research and development.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the response Matthew.

So like most design tasks it depends on just how hard you are trying to push the current boundaries. Looking past the 'kidding..', are those time frames representative of a the complexity of those lenses? Seems like largely a logical progression (wides, zooms, take more time to develop).
 
Christopher Polis said:
Thanks for the response Matthew.

So like most design tasks it depends on just how hard you are trying to push the current boundaries. Looking past the 'kidding..', are those time frames representative of a the complexity of those lenses? Seems like largely a logical progression (wides, zooms, take more time to develop).
Click to expand...

The sarcastic list I pulled out of my @$$ is just that... Crap.
Of course, there are more challenges when developing a zoom lens than there are with a 50mm. But that reply was in no way a representation of actual design difficulty.
There are always optical-physical limitations in regards to lens speed and focal length that make a design difficult to improve on, but again, there are MANY variables in regards to optical designs.
 
Compact Primes were mainly the rehousing of their existing Zeiss still lenses.
The question is with most s35 lenses under 50mm they don't cover the 43mm optical circle. So will companies provide atleast 35mm & 25mm lenses which cover the 43mm circle?
I'm not sure larger companies will find decent business case to design them as most of the world will be s35 cine.
Red may enhance their Pro line but there again this would also cut across their electronic zooms with all their (focus) whistles/bangs.
Could they even make them at a price comparable to the other Red lenses? Who knows?

Companies like Uniq Optics are a likely contender as Red mania was key to their releasing their last set of primes and if FF35 cine lenses are in demand would surely like to supply.
The thing is, and Matt could chime in here....making 25mm & 35mm lenses that cover FF35 and don't breathe is a lot fucking harder than building a comparable s35mm lens, particularly for a niche market.
Canon/Nikon can build them as they're selling 100,000's. But for a small company to a limited market, it indeed is a hard call to design a >2.8T wide prime which covers 43mm and doesn't breathe.
Companies like Zeiss can just throw $$'s and use aspherics elements, low dispersion/expensive glass with rare metal coatings as they have for their expensive Master primes.
I guess it's a challenge that I hope designers for small lenses companies can achieve.

And this is just for primes.zooms...well!!!
For Red's electronic zomms, I'd say they've bought an existing still zoom design and modified or will use electronic compensation to calibrate out breathing/focus issues across zoom range.
Dave
 
Matthew Duclos said:
The sarcastic list I pulled out of my @$$ is just that... Crap.
Of course, there are more challenges when developing a zoom lens than there are with a 50mm. But that reply was in no way a representation of actual design difficulty.
Click to expand...

Ok, will just ignore that / smile at that.

Matthew Duclos said:
There are always optical-physical limitations in regards to lens speed and focal length that make a design difficult to improve on, but again, there are MANY variables in regards to optical designs.
Click to expand...

I can imagine - Even keeping things spherical -

- one for each surface
- one for each material
- one for the distance between each surface

So even with say 6 elements you are already up to 30 odd variables, and this doesn't even start to allow for things like focusing. I've done 30 variable optimisations for a ship's hull - optimising on a set this size starts to become somewhat complex and quite dependant on methodology and how constraints are set.

So I can see that while rough design can be done pretty quickly once you know what works, detail design very quickly can become a question of how much time you want to spend...
 
Patent

Patent

You can pull up the Patent for older Zeiss and Cooke lenses in an optical design program, adjust the setings and glass types and hit optimize and have a working perscription in less than an hour.

There are optical mfg in China that can produce lenses from the perscription if you have the money to pay in advance.

They have high volume and fast turn around.

Fujinon megapixel lenses with multi-coating are made in China now.

You might get 50% reject rates, but if it costs you $300 to make a PL mount lens you can sell for $3000 then you can have 80% reject and still make a profit.

If you want to design some lenses let me know, its one of my hobbies, when I get bored writing code I open some optical design software and see how sharp a lens I can make, you can try it for free with Oslo,

http://www.sinopt.com/software1/downloads1/dloads_lt.htm

The older version let you do double gauss so you could optimize Planar and Cooke Series I type lenses, the newer one only does 10 surface so you have to be more Biogon or something...

The newer glass types do not have lead or other toxic elements so are not as clear as the older glass types, so if you use thick lenses you will have a lower T/ stop than the lenses using the older glass types.

SENVIEW might be able to make lenses or contract to have them made,

http://www.senview.com/itemViewServ...0LENS&smallclassname=High%20Resolution%20Lens

http://www.senview.com/IndexCpayServlet?task=contact&flag=en

Most of the good perscription are in the Public Domain now,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-Gauss_lens

you can also take a good lens apart and measure the elements and then optimize on a computer, having the computer optimize gets you maybe two to three times better resolution than the best optical disigner of the past and "anyone" can do it now since you don't need rooms full of people doing math longhand.
 
Matt: How long to PL-ise rehouse a Tokina 16-50 f2.8?

Matt: How long to PL-ise rehouse a Tokina 16-50 f2.8?

Might be a nice addition to the 11-16 you already make.

Just came across this on another thread:

Tokina 16-50 f2.8 lens

It would be useful for underwater as 16 is wide enough (not ideal but sufficient) to give decent normal wide angle u/w but also enough zoom range at 50mm to do some macro on the same dive without switching. People use the 18-50 but that extra 2mm (12%) is a pretty big deal.

$549 at b&H by the way. Nikon or Canon

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search...tialSearch=yes


could use on Birger or Nikon with iris control, but also might be able to talk duclos into a pl conversion.

Also, apparently this lens was made in conjunction with Pentax and some reviews suggest that it can cover a 1.3x sensor which would suggest that it can easily cover RED 5k.
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Michael Hastings
 
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