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Pinhole lenses have a few severe limitations: As shown, a pinhole "lens" is simply a small aperture that blocks most rays of light, ideally selecting one ray to the object for each point on the image sensor. Typical rectilinear lenses can be thought of as "improved" pinhole "lenses". It is the job of the lens designer to balance these and produce a design that is suitable for photographic use and possibly mass production. Some aberrations will be present in any lens system. While in principle a simple convex lens will suffice, in practice a compound lens made up of a number of optical lens elements is required to correct (as much as possible) the many optical aberrations that arise. A lens might be permanently fixed to a camera, or it might be interchangeable with lenses of different focal lengths, apertures, and other properties. There is no major difference in principle between a lens used for a still camera, a video camera, a telescope, a microscope, or other apparatus, but the details of design and construction are different.
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Different kinds of camera lenses, including wide angle, telephoto and specialityĪ camera lens (also known as photographic lens or photographic objective) is an optical lens or assembly of lenses used in conjunction with a camera body and mechanism to make images of objects either on photographic film or on other media capable of storing an image chemically or electronically.
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