The Effect Of Lens Elements On The Image.

[Solarflare]

Or another new strike of the engineering geniusses, the Nikkor 1.4/105E:

Thats a turd. Cheaply made and horrendously overpriced, too.

 

[Frank F.]

Solarflare: I have seen so many examples shot by pro photographers I know personally that I cannot believe what you just said.

What is your source?

Are we speaking about the same lens? Nikon | Imaging Products | NIKKOR Lenses

 

[Derrel]

Wikimedia Commons cross-sectional view of the Zeiss Tessar design.

There's a theory that FEWER elements actually leads to photos that show more of a sense of roundness of subjects, more apparent "depth" to scenes, and that newer lens designs with 11,12,13,14,15,20,21,22,23,24 etc. lens elements produce images that appear very "flat" and which do not convey a good sense of lens rendering or lens drawing. That, in a word, many modern lens designs (especially zooms) create photographic images that shoot very well on test charts, but which create boring images. The biggest proponent of this theory that I know of is a colorful fellow named The Angry Photographer, on YouTube/ Earlier proponents number in the thousands, but are not so well-known as he has become. You might want to look to The Manual Focus Forum for more discussions about how lenses render, and how they draw.

Some VERY good, well-loved lenses use only a few lens elements. The old Zeiss Tessar lens design for example has only four elements; the modern version of it is the Nikkor 45mm f/2.8 P-Nikkor, introduced in 2000, but with modern, computer-aided design and coating of a then 104 year-old lens design; it is a VERY good lens. Fewer elements delivers a lot less light lost at air-to-glass surfaces, and fewer elements can lead to richer color, and higher saturation, higher contrast, higher micro-contrast, and...better images....than say a lens that loses .4% of the light at each air-to-glass surface, and which has, say 24 elements in 17 groups...

Other lenses that have VERY few elements, and which are good imagers would be say the 105mm f/2.5 Nikkor, or the 135mm f/2.8 Ai or AiS Nikkor, 200mm f/4 Ai Nikkor...it its easily possible to make a lens with five, or six, or seven elements, and to produce lovely images, in the real world.

 

[astroNikon]

Solarflare: I have seen so many examples shot by pro photographers I know personally that I cannot believe what you just said.

What is your source?

Are we speaking about the same lens? Nikon | Imaging Products | NIKKOR Lenses

FYI, he's against anything that isn't medium or large format or insanely expensive FF lenses.

 

[astroNikon]

I don't think it's been mentioned.
But the quality of glass (or even plastic for some P&S) has a large impact on everything related to capturing an image.
Plus the design and engineering of it for all the aforementioned elements as mentioned above.

There are website out there that give a number based on the ending light to the sensor.
But they check on DLSR lenses. Hard to check a cheap P&S with a fixed lens.
The other questions, as mentioned is how good is color rendition, or any distortions and other anomalies that increase as you get cheaper and cheaper.

 

[fmw]

Since the elements in a lens are designed to produce a flat image as free of aberrations as possible, the right number of lenses for the particular design is critical. As an example zoom lenses have more elements that single focal length lenses because they are more complex. Fast lenses require more elements than slow ones because the aberrations to correct are more severe. They improve the image as mentioned above. I will say that a great number of elements can reduce the contrast of an image they render but, as you might guess, this can be corrected in the post process. By now you know that the number elements is of concern to the lens designer but not the photographer.

 

[Bluester]

It's just common sense. Businesses do what they have to for the results they need to stay in business and try to grow. They don't do extra that costs more to get the same results.

So in a nutshell, every industry (including the camera industry) manufacture their products with the least amount of cost and sell them at prices that reflect their manufacturing cost. Take the Nikon D3200 for example. It has 11 elements in its lens assembly (that should be an excuse to say they are spending so much to manufacture their products), but if you look at this camera and the lens assembly in its entirety their housings are made of plastic (including its built-in flash unit). And the camera with its lens do not come cheap either: This camera's body with its lens costs $449 before taxes and they are made in countries where labor is cheap. I don't think this price really justifies the actual cost of making this camera.

 

[Ysarex87 81]

It's just common sense. Businesses do what they have to for the results they need to stay in business and try to grow. They don't do extra that costs more to get the same results.

So in a nutshell, every industry (including the camera industry) manufacture their products with the least amount of cost and sell them at prices that reflect their manufacturing cost.

No -- nonsense.

Take the Nikon D3200 for example. It has 11 elements in its lens assembly

Which lens? DSLR Lenses | Shop All NIKKOR Lenses for DSLR Cameras| Nikon

(that should be an excuse to say they are spending so much to manufacture their products),

excuse?

but if you look at this camera and the lens assembly in its entirety their housings are made of plastic (including its built-in flash unit). And the camera with its lens do not come cheap either: This camera's body with its lens costs $449 before taxes and they are made in countries where labor is cheap. I don't think this price really justifies the actual cost of making this camera.

So, please tell us (I'd like to know) what is the actual cost of manufacturing a D3200?

Joe

 

[astroNikon]

It's just common sense. Businesses do what they have to for the results they need to stay in business and try to grow. They don't do extra that costs more to get the same results.

So in a nutshell, every industry (including the camera industry) manufacture their products with the least amount of cost and sell them at prices that reflect their manufacturing cost. Take the Nikon D3200 for example. It has 11 elements in its lens assembly (that should be an excuse to say they are spending so much to manufacture their products), but if you look at this camera and the lens assembly in its entirety their housings are made of plastic (including its built-in flash unit). And the camera with its lens do not come cheap either: This camera's body with its lens costs $449 before taxes and they are made in countries where labor is cheap. I don't think this price really justifies the actual cost of making this camera.

You're right. $449 doesn't justify the actual cost of base "manufacturing" of the camera.

Lest not forget,
The train/truck driver driving the truck full of cameras to the shipping yard and fuel/vehicle depreciation/usage costs,
The BIG Boat carrying container full of cameras to the various markets .. the cost of shipping and the cost of manpower for the shipping.
The cost of manpower to get the product from the receiving distribution location to the truck/train.
The vehicle cost to get from a local distributor to the end retail store.
The cost of manpower of the retailer to stock the camera (and their livelihood).
The profit for each organization in that supply chain.
The Profit needed by the manufacturer to continue to invest in Research & Development, new tooling, new designs, testing and the people that work there.
The cost of each component in the aforementioened supply chain for the companies and people involved.

Base manufacturing excluding all of the above, I'm going to wildly guess, would be around $125. But should I include the labor costs of the assembly line in this, electrical costs of running the plant ?? What do you define as a "base manufacturing cost" ??
But then, how would you get it from the manufacturer to your door ?

And how would the manufacturer keep the distributions channels open if they did not sell it at the plant for the same retail price? When mailorder became prevalent and then the manufacturers started selling at their own website for discount there was a backlash from retailers who were then competing on price against the manufacturer. I recall that happening against multiple industries years ago. It wasn't pretty. Retailers STOPPED selling the product because they couldn't price compete against the manufacturer ... they stopped selling for discounts unless the retailers were also allowed to and provided a supply chain discount too.

But the $449 price does justify the entire development/ supply chain of the camera, plus competitor price points.

Think of it this way ... how do you support your hourly wage valuation analysis?

 

[astroNikon]

And I forgot each and everyone that own stock in the company whilst owners, workers, stock holders, etc that demand that their investment be profitable to increase the valuation of the company and their investment/retirement. They want a piece of each camera sold (minus all the expenses) too ...


If you want to trim off some of those costs then you buy used or refurbished.

 

[Derrel]

Camera costs include research and development costs, expected number of units to be sold, and so on. They also reflect the relative strengths or weakness of different currencies, as well as taxes and tariff/import duties,etc.,etc.. As astroNikon mentioned, the entire supply chain has a bunch of costs that are probably not apparent to the average consumer.

Speaking of prices and costs: I would say that a D3300 at $449 with lens includes around $75,000 worth of "film and processing" in its price...I payed $2,499 for a Fuji S2 Pro d-slr some years ago, and shot a calculated $75,000-plus worth of photos with it before I switched cameras.

 

[Designer]

Therefore, a point-and-shoot camera having one or two lens elements would have better image-capturing ability than a DSLR camera and this is one of the reasons a bigger and more capable flash unit is used with a DSLR camera. Would you not agree?

You're mixing two different levels of technology. Most point & shoot cameras do not have a high-quality lens system, so you should not try to compare them to a lens system designed for a DSLR.

 

[Frank F.]

If you want to avoid the effect of lens elements, bore a perfect hole with a laser into a thin metal plate of Aluminium or Titan and shoot pinhole style.

How to Take Pinhole Photos with a Digital Camera

 

[john.margetts]

So in a nutshell, every industry (including the camera industry) manufacture their products with the least amount of cost and sell them at prices that reflect their manufacturing cost.

They don't, you know. Businesses certainly keep costs down but the price charged has no relationship with those costs. The price is entirely determined by what the market will bear. That is why different countries have different prices for the same item. And why London prices are higher in general than Lincoln prices.

 

[Bluester]

So in a nutshell, every industry (including the camera industry) manufacture their products with the least amount of cost and sell them at prices that reflect their manufacturing cost.

They don't, you know. Businesses certainly keep costs down but the price charged has no relationship with those costs. The price is entirely determined by what the market will bear. That is why different countries have different prices for the same item. And why London prices are higher in general than Lincoln prices.

I would say you're partly right and what you said here makes more sense than what the others are saying. Again, remember that THESE EQUIPMENTS ARE MADE IN COUNTRIES WHERE LABOR IS CHEAP and if these items could be designed and manufactured economically and sold at a high-enough price the profits are great (which is what every industry is doing), more than enough to offset residual expenses like astroNikon is discussing about. And contrary to what he is saying, overexpenditure is the company's problem; they (the company) should find a way to make their expenses leaner in order to get prices down like eliminating third party, fourth party, etc., participation in the manufacture and distribution of their products. By the way, $449 for that camera is not the price through an nth party to be purchased online and DELIVERED to your door, that is the purchase price (before taxes) at a retail store you go to personally.