[HN Gopher] I made a bad camera lens from some old glasses [video]
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I made a bad camera lens from some old glasses [video]
Author : i2pi
Score : 146 points
Date : 2024-03-04 12:10 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| i2pi wrote:
| I was challenged to make a lens for a friend without buying any
| new optical elements. I have a pile of glass that I've salvaged
| from old camera lenses that I've modified. I wanted to make a
| cooke triplet but didn't have any negative elements on hand where
| I precisely knew their characteristics. I then realized that my
| eye glasses are relatively well characterized negative lenses, so
| I had an optometrist cut them into a disc shape and I built the
| lens around that. It performed very well in my simulations, but
| not so well in real life. But it was a fun project and my friend
| ended up with a unique lens for her camera.
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| Amazing project, dreamy images.
|
| _" Fingerprint coated"_ haha !
| Zobat wrote:
| The "fingerprint coated" cracked me up as well and that text
| was already seriously funny.
|
| "...this lens fails to deliver persuasive arguments in nearly
| all situations..."
|
| LOL
| Rygian wrote:
| You weren't wearing your glasses in real life. That might
| explain the (apparent) bad performance of the lens compared to
| simulations? /jk
| hef19898 wrote:
| My dad is giving photography lessons, and one of the
| constants are people realizing during session one that they,
| in fact, do need glasses when the autofocus does not agree
| with their eyes.
|
| When I borrow my dads camera for the odd shot at times, I
| totally relly on AF, if I went by the view finder I am almost
| blind... Same thing the other way round!
| fallinditch wrote:
| Sounds like you need to adjust the viewfinder diopter.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Yeah, we did! Using the other person's viewfinder on the
| other hand... Well, I trust AF in those cases!
| llm_trw wrote:
| I swear the only thing that the Bolte Bridge attracts more of
| than seagulls is photographers.
|
| Also the desktop I have now for ML work is powerful enough to
| do a full 3d simulation of a lens using the full Maxwell
| equations from first principles. I remember doing the back of
| the envelope calculations that I'd need the Bluegene/L back in
| my undergrad days to do it for real, well:
| https://bnnbreaking.com/arts/video-gaming/nvidia-geforce-rtx...
|
| What a time to be alive.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Why would you use ML to develop well understood formulas from
| first principle, if you can also have a properly developed
| program for the same purpose?
| jstanley wrote:
| I think the ML that the desktop is for, and the optical
| calculations, are 2 unrelated projects.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Which would actually make a lot of sense, now that I
| think about it...
| llm_trw wrote:
| Yes, OP was doing linear ray tracing to see how the lens
| would perform on the video. I remember doing the same in
| a computational physics class way back in the day and
| talking to the lecturer about what you'd need to simulate
| real optics without approximations in the equations.
|
| The answer was the worlds fastest super computer at the
| time. I was a bit shocked that he claimed that was the
| state of the art for lens manufacture in industry too -
| no idea how true that was. But figured that if you needed
| that much computation it made sense.
|
| Well I have 2x that under my desk now and I use it to do
| local development before I push to cloud machines with
| 100x the power where the actual work happens.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| You could develop novel lens shapes, for one.
| metadat wrote:
| _> I swear the only thing that the Bolte Bridge attracts more
| of than seagulls is photographers._
|
| Thanks for encouraging me to search about it, and quickly
| realize Bolte Bridge is a natural target due to _relative
| level_ of architectural sophistication as well as being
| easily accessible.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolte_Bridge#/media/File%3ABol.
| ..
| metadat wrote:
| Are you able to share any demonstration pics using your custom
| lens? Certainly a creative fun project.
| atoav wrote:
| All it takes these days is a piece of aluminum foil and a
| needle. Tape the foil in front of your sensor (without light
| leaks), poke a small hole into the center of the resulting spot
| with the needle.
|
| Takes high ISO settings to get something out of that, but it
| works and is dead simple.
| i2pi wrote:
| Given that this is HN, I should add that I used the wonderful
| ray-optics Python package for doing the optical design:
| https://ray-optics.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
| ddalex wrote:
| "...If you're a fan of vintage photography, with all its charming
| imperfections, the SUPERCHROMAT lens might be your jam. Embrace
| the softness, the chromatic aberration, the unpredictable
| vignetting. This lens isn't about precision; it's about
| character. And at a price only the absurdly wealthy could afford,
| it'll definitely make a statement. "
|
| The so bad it's actually good :) Lovely song, too
| hef19898 wrote:
| Thing is so, _good_ vintage lenses, and I mean lenses from the
| 70s, are actually incredibly sharp, and perform great
| optically. To this very day, if you get a good sample.
|
| Improvements are mainly in terms of coating (reflections,
| ghosts and such) as well as zoom ranges and auto focus systems.
| That vintage lenses are not sharp is simply not true, having a
| lot less of glass in a lense is actually an advantage.
|
| If you talk about lab test numbers, especially around the
| corners of the frame, modern lenses sure beat vintage ones. Not
| that you would realize any of that in real life (art
| replication, detailed macro work and other specialized stuff
| nonwithstanding).
| kuschku wrote:
| If you'd like to e.g. crop a vertical frame out of a
| horizontally framed picture, the sharpness limitations of old
| lenses also become immediately obvious. Even many newer
| lenses immediately fail.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Really? Never had the problem, and I print up to A3, even
| have a A1 sized print from a D70 and a old 18-85 (?) kit
| Nikkor, which is sharp enough, with enough resolution, at
| the edges and corners.
|
| If you take a 100% crop from a corner so, well, that is
| different. I'd argue so, that in this case, you should have
| composed your shot differently in the field. And again, you
| have to print _huge_ to actually see the difference.
| dist-epoch wrote:
| I'm not convinced.
|
| I have a very acclaimed old design 50/1.5 lens (but was
| bought new), but it just sucks compared with a modern much
| cheaper 50-70/3.5. The colors in particular, they are just
| bad. I'm not sure what test would pick that, a color accuracy
| kind of test. Modern coatings truly do wonders.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Depends on the lenses, of course. There are still enough
| crappy new lenses on the market so.
|
| Color rendition is also impacted by the sensor, assuming
| digital cameras.
|
| Since I don't know which lenses you talk about, hard to
| tell. I do have some really old ones, 80-200 f 4.5 from the
| late 70s and an equally old 300 f4.5. Both render color
| just fine, no difference between those and new Nikkor
| lenses. Sharpness wise, those old ones are easily as sharp
| as any new one, lab test confirm that. And the limited
| amount of glass gives them, a totally subjective, clarity
| new lenses don't have. Bot that I would d be able to tell
| just from looking at a printed or processed picture.
| jetrink wrote:
| > Color rendition is also impacted by the sensor,
| assuming digital cameras.
|
| Particularly since the old lens was designed for film,
| perhaps even black and white film. The choice of film has
| a much larger impact on color rendition than the lens
| would have. Also, unlike sharpness, color rendition is
| highly subjective and easily corrected. If you're
| shooting to JPG and you don't like how the camera is
| interpreting the colors from a lens, most cameras allow
| you to customize the white balance.
| eschneider wrote:
| Some lenses definitely have more chromatic aberration
| than others, completely independent of film or sensor.
| jetrink wrote:
| Chromatic aberration is a type of optical distortion and
| is a separate issue to color rendition. Color rendition
| refers to the lens's ability to transmit light equally
| across the color spectrum. If the lens is more
| transparent to red wavelengths than blue, images will
| look warmer, for example. Chromatic aberration, on the
| other hand, is a type of distortion in which a lens fails
| to focus all colors to the same convergence point. It
| will negatively affect image quality even if you use the
| lens to take black and white photos, since the result is
| a blurrier image.
| blagie wrote:
| Sort of.
|
| My universe broke when Sigma introduced an 18-35mm f/1.8
| zoom. An f/1.8 zoom. Wow. And it was optically brilliant.
|
| Seventies lenses are super-sharp, but that's because they're
| mostly slow primes. Any modern prime stepped down to f/5.6 --
| even cheap consumerific ones -- will be super-sharp.
|
| There's nothing in seventies technology which allows lenses
| to have the aperture, zoom range, and aberrations of modern
| ones.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Appertures, well, those f2.8 Nikkor telephotos from that
| period still demand high prices for a reason. And f4.5
| isn't that slow, even compared to modern zooms. Or those
| old 50/1.4 (agreed, the 1.8 versions seem to be tad better)
| and other 1.8 primes. Still great glass. Or those
| unaffordable NOCT lenses... Not sure what I would need one
| for so.
|
| What those old lenses have so, is build quality. They are
| machnical master pieces, as oppossed to modern day
| plastics. I like that. Also, close to no electronics that
| can fail.
|
| Those wide zoom ranges, and large appertures, do have other
| downsides so. Everything is a trade off, and some things
| are sacrificed to achieve a 18-35/1.8 lense. Still
| impressive. Or the latest Canon (?) patent on a tilt-shift-
| macro-zoom...
| ddalex wrote:
| > it was optically brilliant
|
| Of course, if it's a F/1.8
| ggambetta wrote:
| Can confirm. I just finished a short film where I used a
| Minolta Rokkor 45mm f/2.0 for the close ups, on a GH5, and I
| loved the look. Beautiful colors, very nice bokeh, pretty
| sharp even when fully open (I guess the crop from 35mm to
| M4/3 helps).
| __s wrote:
| Song is _Hello Hammerheads_ by Caribou:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2N_VvfPX1Bc
| Retr0id wrote:
| What's the name of the song?
|
| Edit: CARIBOU - Hello Hammerheads
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2N_VvfPX1Bc
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Don't forget to make it radioactive!
| mauvehaus wrote:
| This is a thing in vintage lenses:
|
| https://camerapedia.fandom.com/wiki/Radioactive_lenses
|
| I own a Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 50mm f/1.4 and can confirm
| that the glass browns with age. UV exposure (sunlight) does
| clear it some.
| dheera wrote:
| Yep, I have a couple thoriated lenses, it sucks that people
| downvote an actually relevant comment without understanding.
| zabzonk wrote:
| i remember making my own camera in the mid 1970s. the lens was
| one of those crappy macro things you could screw onto a proper
| slr lens, and the film was actually photographic printing paper.
| the body was cardboard and tape, and the shutter a bit of cloth.
|
| after you had taken a pic, you had to rush into the darkroom,
| develop the paper and then reverse print it (cannot remember how,
| or even if i did).
|
| all a bit weird, but it kept me amused back then. i haven't been
| involved in photography for nearly 40 years.
| MarkusWandel wrote:
| Much has been lost (of course far more has been gained - such
| as my kids using worthless hand-me-down Android tablets as
| cameras quite creatively) since photography went digital. And
| combining both photography paper-as-film and eyeglass lens
| optics and ... what do you mean, darkroom?
|
| https://www.timhunkin.com/a198_goodbye-cibachrome.htm
|
| Sadly, this marvellous paper - direct positive colour and easy
| to develop - is no more.
|
| Direct link to the video since (for me, right now) the embed in
| the above doesn't work.
| https://youtu.be/5AOlPuTQt-M?si=q7RibENicPH0Be9m
| zabzonk wrote:
| i don't think i've ever known anything as magical as
| developing my first wet-photography print.
| MarkusWandel wrote:
| It was magical, wasn't it? A couple of film photo
| adventures on my old cobwebsite...
|
| https://wandel.ca/homepage/yashicamat.html
|
| https://wandel.ca/homepage/wetcamera.html
|
| TLDR: The first one is about using a 20-year-past-expiry
| film in a format I didn't otherwise use; the second is
| about developing a drenched E6 slide film in b&w chemistry
| and trying to get prints.
| dekhn wrote:
| I have done darkroom work some 35 years ago and I can only
| say how relieved I am that we've moved into a world of
| digital sensors.
| MarkusWandel wrote:
| No argument! But it was fun to have experienced it; in my
| case starting photography as a hobby and going digital
| were just over a decade apart. Favourite part was being
| able to extract the coiled film from the tank in full
| light and peer at the negatives for the first time and
| then making a contact print sheet. Making enlarged prints
| was relative drudgery.
| JonathonW wrote:
| First project in my high school photography class (before we
| even touched anything having to do with a film camera) was to
| make and use a pinhole camera-- body made of cardboard and
| tape, "lens" a piece of foil with a hole in it, and "film" a
| 4x5 bit of photo paper.
|
| It's a great way both to explain the whole premise behind
| photography (your fancy camera and lens is just an elaborate
| way to project an image onto a bit of light-sensitive stuff
| that you otherwise keep in the dark) and to give students some
| early hands-on experience developing prints without all the
| intervening steps involved in making a print from film.
| Solvency wrote:
| I totally love this from a DIY creative perspective. You could
| probably sell this to Zack Snyder for $5m.
|
| Because that's basically what happened in his last 2 abominable
| movies. He found some really unsuitable thrift lenses and thought
| it was a master stroke of genius to use them in a professional
| movie. That's why virtually every single frame is horribly
| blurred except at the exact center.
| gen3 wrote:
| Once you keep your eyes out for the look, the usage of vintage
| lenses in modern movies can be pretty apparent, for example a
| Helios 44-2 was used in "The Batman" for the car chase scene
| with the penguin. There must be a few floating around the
| Hollywood rental shops, the Helios has a pretty distinctive
| bokeh pattern. You'll see it shot wide open looking directly at
| the subject for dramatic affect
|
| Luckily these lenses are pretty cheap (The USSR made many of
| them), I purchased two in late 2022 that shipped from Ukraine
|
| A video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYvWpavSXeE
| CPLX wrote:
| If you want to get this effect quickly without spending any money
| at all, and you have a pro-type camera with a removable lens, you
| can get it by just holding the lens against the opening, and
| rocking it side to side a little.
|
| It's a pretty common trick photographers and videographers use to
| get a sort of dream-sequence effect.
| munificent wrote:
| If you want to spend some money and have something a little
| more stable and usable (and less likely to get dust on your
| sensor), the Lensbaby Edge 80 and Sweet 80 lenses produce a
| similar effect and are tons of fun.
|
| I did learn that they must be used judiciously. After shooting
| most of a personal music video with a Sweet 80 wide open, my
| wife described it as "like watching an ocular migraine".
| nickcw wrote:
| From the YouTube video description :-)
|
| ...
|
| With mere hours of experience in the art and science of optical
| design, the team at SUPERCHROMAT remain novices in the field. As
| such, this prime lens, with 6 elements over 4 groups, provides
| inferior optical performance at a price affordable to few.
|
| Regardless of whether it's a matter of selective focus in the
| close-up range, high-contrast available light applications or
| landscape shots with immense depth of field, this lens fails to
| deliver persuasive arguments in nearly all situations unless
| stopped down to f/22.
|
| 2X 200mm biconvex lenses BK7. Uncoated.
|
| -700 / 075 X 3 used eyeglass lens 1.67 / Vd 42. Fingerprint
| coated
|
| +30mm aspheric achromatic triplet LAK14/SF57/Aspheric polymer.
| VIS 0o coated
| jollyllama wrote:
| At 02:29:50 you can see the shape of a skull form in the plants
| in the upper portion of the screen.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Maybe if you run ML on it, it will find Ryan Gosling?
| araes wrote:
| Feel like I'm missing a meme ref. However, may have found an
| interesting rabbit hole anyways. Apparently a popular
| DeepFake choice. Aug, 2023 paper notably.
|
| YT, voice copying demo:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNwuAjeDOVE
|
| arXiv, voice cloning detection:
| https://arxiv.org/pdf/2308.12734.pdf
|
| kaggle, Deep-Voice (support files):
| https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/birdy654/deep-voice-
| deepfake...
|
| Has voice cloning using Retrieval-based Voice Conversion and
| then detection for: Ryan Gosling, Joe Biden, Elon Musk,
| Barack Obama, Margot Robbie, Linus Sebastian, Taylor Swift,
| and Donald Trump.
|
| Apparently overly-optimistic detection results reported based
| on discussion, although they're still not bad at 86% after
| removing possible training data issues.
| dylan604 wrote:
| No, there was some image processing that was trying to
| recognize shapes and kept finding Ryan Gosling in images.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24196650
|
| So, maybe it wasn't "kept" but did it at least once, so now
| it's ingrained as a thing to poke fun.
| ginkgotree wrote:
| This is wild, I photograph with a Leica M7. If he sold these
| lenses, I'd buy one.
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