Hello all, longtime optical designer here.

[koraks]

I understand. But sometimes, there are other protective measures in place (not necessarily planned) that stand in the way of reverse engineering. There can for instance be specific assets (tangible or intangible) involved in relation to the complexity of the device or solution that make it difficult or even impossible to replicate the solution. But we digress.

 

[jonesmi]

We will,most likely , have thousands of questions for a guy with your experience. Here is my first: the Nikon 105mm f/2.5 comes as a Sonnar and as a Gauss version. Is there any objective reason why one would be better than the other?

Not having the actual designs in hand, all I can say with credibility is that a change to a cheaper glass, or one that hadn't been discontinued, may be the driver. Changing from a costly fluorocrown to a newer one, or a discontinued abnormal crown glass (KzFSN2, for example), are possibilities. Weight reduction, shift in center of gravity, or simply a better design are possible reasons. Sorry to be less informative than we both want me to be.

 

[Jarno]

Regarding Ralphs question, and without being an optical designer (but a mechanical engineer), how do you define "better"?
Engineering is about tradeoffs, like indeed weight reduction, material choices, sharpness, corrections, maximum aperture, cost, what is important to you might be irrelevant for another user.

 

[jonesmi]

It turned out that anyone with enough money can purchase your device and reverse engineer it. of course with a patent paper in hand, that gets even easier, or the patent paper raised the awareness in the first place. Patents can be counterproductive.

I have 15 different patents. I have been infringed on two of them, but since I patented my creations as an employee and the employer paid for the claims and filing, it was their property. That also meant that I would not see rewards from any patents, just a paycheck. They chose to not fight the infringements. So as someone here said, I simply showed industry how to do something and steal it.

 

[4season]

Hi Mike,

Like others here, it'd be fun to hear opinions of lenses you consider amazingly good, but not just costly and exotic ones, but also (if you know of any) cheap and common ones which made you shake your head in disbelief at how the designer achieved so much with so little.

 

[Jarno]

I have 15 different patents. I have been infringed on two of them, but since I patented my creations as an employee and the employer paid for the claims and filing, it was their property. That also meant that I would not see rewards from any patents, just a paycheck. They chose to not fight the infringements. So as someone here said, I simply showed industry how to do something and steal it.

Not even a financial incentive? Sheesh, I think I got something like 1500 euros for my two patents as the company I worked for had a programme to reward registration of IP.

 

[Individual One]

It turned out that anyone with enough money can purchase your device and reverse engineer it. of course with a patent paper in hand, that gets even easier, or the patent paper raised the awareness in the first place. Patents can be counterproductive.

In the situation that I was referring to, the details in the patent application were so complete and accurate that it seemed to some of us very likely that the (gigantic and well funded) customer had suborned an employee/employees with detailed knowledge of our product to assist in their efforts, apart from having the resources to purchase a device to examine.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Not even a financial incentive? Sheesh, I think I got something like 1500 euros for my two patents as the company I worked for had a programme to reward registration of IP.

It's not uncomon. the general justification is: you are employed and paid to have good ideas and whatever you dream up on company time is automatically company property. After all the company pays for all patent fees and upkeep. Incentives are a generous option but not a must.

 

[Eishwaneeren]

Interesting. FWIW, I've been using such lenses for decades and still don't know how to recognize aberrations in my photographs.

That sounds amazing in a concerning sense.

 

[Eishwaneeren]

Put stars in the center, sides and all four corners of the field. This will directly show you your point spread functions (PSFs) across the FOV, and even show focal plane tilt on large format cameras. I can post up some representative PSFs of astigmatism, coma, lateral color and so forth so you can compare them to what you image.

Have you ever treated that as a standardised test? Also, which hill station should I go to for that?

There's something about pictures that have defects, unfocused areas, and other antique parameters that make them aesthetically attractive, yet technically they're awful

Are they technically awful when they invoke the imagination of what can be corrected?