I’m surprised to see so many human hands making a Nikon camera lens. I thought machines do all the work. It’s nice to know something so cold and mechanical can still be handcrafted—handmade.
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Marc Garrett
on 28 Jan 13Great video. Leica’s got a nice one too. Always surprising to see which steps aren’t automated.
Nic
on 28 Jan 13Haven’t looked at the video, but generally speaking only cheaper grade lens elements are machine-polished. That’s why they’re cheap. Machine-polishing does not have enough randomness to achieve a top grade lens. Counter-intuitive, but it’s true. Manual polishing combined with the correct process gives the best results.
GeeIWonder
on 28 Jan 13Yes this does sound very counter-intuitive and would seem to require some substantiation. Certainly many machines work on high to true randomness applications, so there would seem to be nothing technically impossible here.
I’d be keen to know if there is though.
Navin Harish
on 29 Jan 13Very nice. This reminded me of the Leica lenses video as well.
Sarah Weeger
on 30 Jan 13My husband (wedding photographer) just showed me Leica’s video. It’s incredible. Either way, it IS refreshing to see the human touch on something so mechanical. Great share.
wkacspev
on 02 Feb 131
This discussion is closed.