Aspherical Lens. f4.5 Plain English

A friend of mine gave me a whole camera kit, it has one lens only an f4.5 Aspherical Lens, i looked up the lens on the web and could not understand what the lens is or used for, is it only used to take certain type of photos.
Could you help me out and put it in plain english for me to understand better and the workings of that lens for what type of photos to take.

Thanks papisa.

Papisa:

We will need a bit more information to help you. Can you give us more information about the name of the lens, what it is mounted on, what it looks like, etc?

Aspherical means that one or more elements have surfaces that are not spherical in shape, but instead aspherical (most likely parabolic).

An aspherical surface reduces or eliminates spherical abberations.

Many years ago, when I was young(er) :rolleyes: , it was very difficult to prepare aspherical lens elements. Modern advances in computers, and computer controlled lens grinding equipment, has made them much more common. They can also be relatively easily made from plastic.

Matt

Sorry Matt, not thinking, the camera name is Olympia=DL 2000, reads prefocused 35mm motor camera, standard 35mm film, 24x36mm.
F4.5 aspherical lens,Aperture settings are F4.5, f6.3,f8, f15 and f16, Shutter speed = 1/125 seconds, lens for reflex view, symbols window, Aperture ring, flash and a Hot Shoe and view finder, that is all of the important stuff Matt, right from the book, where the lens cover goes on it is made out of plastic, like the second ring out side from the inside lens, hope it helps you out.

Mike.

Here's a picture of one:
http://cgi.ebay.com/OLYMPIA-DELUXE-...Z7619198026QQcategoryZ626QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
which also give you an idea of value!
As Matt King states, "aspherical" simply means that the lens has surfaces which do not form part of a sphere. Aspherical lens design is used to create perfect high-end lenses, but also so that a cheapo lens can be made out of plastic with fewer elements (pieces of glass) than usual and still produce a vaguely passable image.

As you already have an Olympia, do take some pictures with it, the quality will not be "good" in the conventional sense but might well be interesting.

Regards,

David

just an FYI these are plastic imitation cameras designed to fool the unwary buyer. They are sold under many names that are similar to major brands. They may actually take pictures but you will probably get better results from a one-time-use camera.

Matt, David and Darinwc, Gentlemen, thank You very much for this information, mine is a little different from the one on ebay, the box is different and so is the retail price on the box, $ 385.00, it was a freebe. When i found the Olympus XA in a box in the basement also, i wonder what # 3 might be.
Went down to our lake front the other night here in Chicago and took some photos of the moon thur some tree branches with the XA and wow did they come out super nice, what a way i guess you can say, 2 free cameras to start to learn how to take pictures in this wonderful world of photograpy that every one on this site seems to enjoy so much and i no i will to.

Thanks to all of you out there for helping this newbe out, i remember a long time ago i went up to my dad and said to him, dad i have this stupid question to ask you and he looked me right in the eye and said, son, there is no question that is stupid when you ask it because if you new the answer why ask the question?

Mike.