Which is better a CCD or CMOS image sensor?
CCD vs CMOS CCD and CMOS are both image sensors. They can be found in any device that creates an image. Cameras, webcams, mobile phones. They are one of the most common consumer electronics in world. For many years there has been a debate about which image sensor: CCD or CMOS. Let’s just make clear […]
Types of Optical Designs used for Rifle Scopes
Autumn is almost here and with that, hunting season, which means you need to choose a good rifle scope. Hunting is so popular in my state that it is a non-official holiday where school is “canceled” and congress gets the day off. I’m not sure if that happens elsewhere but it is fair to say […]
Types of Optical Prisms
Introduction One of the most common images for any that has study optics is that of Sir Isaac Newton with a beam of white light going through a glass prism and a rainbow coming out on the other side. It is one of the most famous optical experiments, not only for its simplicity, but also […]
Surface texture requirement in optical drawings
In our previous article, we discussed how to read optical drawings while in this installment, we will focus on surface finish details. Optical lens performance can be heavily affected by the lens surface roughness. The surface texture symbols are used in optical drawings to define a lens’s necessary surface finish and roughness and will the […]
Cardinal Points
When I was a young undergrad engineering student, I always found optics to be a very confusing subject. It was not only the equations, but what it looked like hundreds of different definitions involved in even the simplest of optical systems. Some concepts, like radius of curvature, f-number, and focal point were easy to understand […]
5 Applications of Cylindrical Lenses
Introduction When thinking of a ‘lens’, most people have the image of a spherical lens in their mind, but there are different geometries for lenses, and one of the most common is the cylindrical lens. What’s the difference between spherical and geometrical lenses? And what applications require cylindrical lenses? In this article we will discuss […]