page_title: Camera lens
section_title: Lens designs
hierarchical_section_title: Camera lens / Lens designs
caption_attribution_description: English: A regular Leica III lens.
context_page_description: A camera lens 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.
  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. A lens might be permanently fixed to a camera, or it might be interchangeable with lenses of different focal lengths, apertures, and other properties.
  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 the many optical aberrations that arise. Some aberrations will be present in any lens system. 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.
context_section_description: Some notable photographic optical lens designs are:
  Angenieux retrofocus
  Cooke triplet
  Double-Gauss
  Goerz Dagor
  Leitz Elmar
  Rapid Rectilinear
  Zeiss Sonnar
  Zeiss Planar
  Zeiss Tessar
caption: Collapsible Leica rangefinder lens
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