Rico said:I always recommend Paul van Walree's Optics Pages. These are oriented to photographers, but the section on CA is fully applicable to binoculars.
Quite understandable is
What is so special about the Zeiss Superachromat lenses?
This is from an issue of the newsletter Camera Lens News on the Zeiss web site. From a different issue, a more involved article is
Achromat, Apochromat, Superachromat - What is the Difference?
Happy reading!
It is a colored halo usually around a high-contrast object. It may be purplish or yellow/green and if it is evident it definitely makes the image "not perfectly clear".marcus said:Color Fringing? Please, can someone finally tell me, what that means? Does that just mean, 'not perfectly clear'?
marcus
iporali said:It is a colored halo usually around a high-contrast object. It may be purplish or yellow/green and if it is evident it definitely makes the image "not perfectly clear".
If the "fringe" can be seen everywhere in the image and changes from purple to green during focusing, it is so called "longitudinal CA" and derives from the objective. It means that different colors are not focused at the same plane.
More often the fringes are mainly visible at the edges of the field of view and when the eye is not perfectly aligned with the eyepiece. In this case the fringing comes from the eyepiece and is called "transverse CA" "lateral color" or "chromatic difference of magnification". This means that all colors are nicely focused at the same plane but they form images which don't overlap perfectly.
Examples of purple color fringing are shown in this digital camera review http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonydscf828/page16.asp .
Ilkka
Alan,AlanFrench said:Longitudinal chromatic aberration is a variation of focus on-axis with color. Lenses are generally designed so that they bring blue and red to a common focus, and the region around green focuses close to the lens. At the low powers used in binoculars, longitudinal CA is not an issue.
The color fringing seen along the edges of high contrast objects is lateral color - a variation of magnification with wavelength, and the culpert is generally the eyepiece. (A lens has to handle a view angle of 7 degrees or so, while an eyepiece has to handle a view angle of 50 to 70 degrees or so.)
AlanFrench said:How do you know that the Zeiss FLs have no lateral color? In spite of a few reports to the contrary, I be very surprised - pleasantly surprised - to find they show no lateral color. I have not used an eyepiece that did not show some near the field stop.
At any rate, the objective can have lateral color too, although the eyepiece usually has more and that is the main issue. You've got me curious. When I get a chance, I'll design a 40mm f/5 achromat and a 40mm f/5 doublet using fluorite. We'll see if the lateral color of the lens improves with the use of fluorite.
iporali said:It is a colored halo usually around a high-contrast object. It may be purplish or yellow/green and if it is evident it definitely makes the image "not perfectly clear".
If the "fringe" can be seen everywhere in the image and changes from purple to green during focusing, it is so called "longitudinal CA" and derives from the objective. It means that different colors are not focused at the same plane.
More often the fringes are mainly visible at the edges of the field of view and when the eye is not perfectly aligned with the eyepiece. In this case the fringing comes from the eyepiece and is called "transverse CA" "lateral color" or "chromatic difference of magnification". This means that all colors are nicely focused at the same plane but they form images which don't overlap perfectly.
Examples of purple color fringing are shown in this digital camera review http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonydscf828/page16.asp .
Ilkka
henry link said:I would have agreed with Alan about longitudinal CA not being a problem at binocular magnification until I started using the 8X42 FL. It's a case of noticing how much of a problem something is only after you have seen it's absence. The color fringe from longitudinal CA in other 8X bins isn't that wide, but I now think it has a noticeable effect on image quality by lowering contrast and reducing sharpness.
There is lateral color in the FL. It's really not much different in that regard from other good binoculars with the same AFOV. The surprise is how much "cleaner" the center of the field appears in the 8X42 FL without the slight longitudinal CA visible in other 8X bins.
Alan, FWIW you'll need to design a very fast triplet objective (my guess is around f/3.3-f/3.5) using what Zeiss calls "fluoride glass".
Leif said:It strikes me as odd that a roof prism binocular usually (but not always) shows more CA than a porro prism one. What's more the CA seems to my eyes to be mostly lateral CA in that it consists of a purple halo originating from a slightly magnified secondary image. Curiously the Zeiss 8x30 BGAT showed very little CA of any kind showing that CA can be reduced to levels that I consider acceptable. I have heard that the Zeiss 8x30 BGAT achieved focus by moving the prisms rather than by moving an internal lens that sits between the objective and the prism. Maybe this is not relevant!
Hermann said:The Zeiss 8x30 BGAT focusses by moving the objective lenses, just like the old 10x40 BGAT did. Zeiss is certainly no stranger to making binoculars with reduced CA. In the 10x50 porros of the early 1960's Zeiss used high index glass to reduce CA. I don't have the literature at hand at the moment, but I seem to remember Zeiss claimed to have halved CA compared to conventional binoculars in the promotional literature at the time.
Hermann
Leif,Leif said:I did not notice the outer objective element moving so I assume it was simply a planar element?
Leif said:Alan: As you know I do not agree that binoculars do not exhibit longitudinal CA. (I would be interested to know why you think Zeiss employ triplet objectives with a low dispersion element. You seem to suggest that it is a marketing stunt and yet many people including myself see reduced CA.)
As you well know longitudinal CA from an objective increases with objective size and decreases with F ratio (focal length divided by objective diameter). Binocular objectives have a fast F ratio (~F4 or less) which must give rise to a trace of long. CA. Long. CA is consistent with seeing different coloured fringes either side of an object.
Compact binoculars such as the Zeiss 8x20 roof prism show almost no CA to my eyes. This is consistent with the small objectives and the long optical assemblies that suggest objectives with large F ratios.
It seems to me that roof prism binoculars usually show significantly more CA than porro prism ones, and that the CA is consistent with lateral CA in that it consists of a purple halo. I was very disturbed by one well respected 8x32 roof prism binocular. The image seemed to be constructed from a 'true' image, superimposed on a concentric but slightly larger purple image. This was most disturbing when panning the image and I cannot understand how others manage.
It strikes me as odd that a roof prism binocular usually (but not always) shows more CA than a porro prism one. What's more the CA seems to my eyes to be mostly lateral CA in that it consists of a purple halo originating from a slightly magnified secondary image. Curiously the Zeiss 8x30 BGAT showed very little CA of any kind showing that CA can be reduced to levels that I consider acceptable. I have heard that the Zeiss 8x30 BGAT achieved focus by moving the prisms rather than by moving an internal lens that sits between the objective and the prism. Maybe this is not relevant!
AlanFrench said:I had two telescopes here for a couple of months several years ago - a TV Pronto and a UO 80 (an 80mm f/6.4 or so achromat). Used at low powers the images, on axis and for much of the field, were sharp and color free. At high powers subjects showed color fringing, and the views were far inferior to those through a lens using an ED element.
One optical designer once told me the big old battleship binoculars were designed as a unit, and that the lenses by themselves would not work as well as a standard telescope achromat.