Wafer lenses for phones...Could tech be used for ILC too?

[YuengLinger]

Read this and wondered if someday such tech would be used in mirrorless lenses, maybe to make them smaller and lighter. Maybe to someday make, for example, a sharp, light 60-600mm f/4 that could actually fit in a mini-van console?

A new lens technology is primed to jumpstart phone cameras

Smartphone optics have been pretty much the same for more than a decade.

arstechnica.com

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

The idea was developed years ago, there were different forms of the basic idea, lots and lots of tiny lenses. The meta lens is a variant and announced by Columbia University 3 years ago. Apparently, its ready or actually now being produced in quantity. Its said to be almost as good as a normal smart camera lens. It requires a very very good lens to focus light sharply on the tiny sensor in a cell phone which has such tiny photo sites. I'd expect the technology if scaled up, to do a much better job on large sensors. The issue may be cost. How much larger would the lens be to replace a FF lens, and what is the yield to the process? I'm certain that all the lens makers are watching, but we all know how easy it is for the world to unexpectedly change over night and traditional beliefs be replaced by a newcomer.

Just look at film makers and cameras who were totally left behind when digital cameras caught on so quickly.

Lets hope it works out, but expect under performing lenses at first. We are, after all, still waiting for Black Silicone to replace conventional silicone in sensors.

 

[Bdbtoys]

That was an interesting read... essentially, they modified the sensor to do the work of reducing aberrations/distortion... thereby reducing the lens stack total element count. That should make for some smaller lenses for sure.