Abstract

When the lens designer asks of the manufacturer, "Why didn't you make my lens right?" the stock answer is often another question: "Why didn't you design something I could make? Now we all know that this is not what we would call making progress. There are a number of lens design factors - we call them rules of thumb - that, from experience, the lens designer imposes on himself, because he knows that violating them produces thunder and lightning from the shop, and thunder and lightning are not what we are trying to produce. This paper deals with some of these constraints and the trade-offs faced by the lens designer in dealing with them.

© 1980 Optical Society of America