Keep an eye out on this one
Toronto. Traditional lens elements (before aspheric surfaces became economical) were all slices of a sphere making curvature of field common. Some added elements resolved this aberration to give a flat field at the film/sensor plane.
Some cameras use a curved film plane instead (like the inexpensive Baby Brownie by Kodak and the much pricier Minox sub-miniature cameras, where both cameras and enlarger curve the film) to simplify lens design.
The human eye uses a convex sensor – the retina – to maintain resolution (sort of) across the inner eye. There are lots of articles on the internet about the human eye such as Owlcation where we borrowed the cross section.
Fellow member Russ Forfar offers an article from Science Daily on June 28th of this year called, “Using the ancient art of Kirigami to make an eyeball-like camera” that reports experiments down in Houston that might replace flat sensors in some cases. Food for thought regarding the future smart phone cameras. Note: Kirigami got you flummoxed too? Read more about kirigami on this website.
