Chapter 3. How Lenses Work

How Lenses Work

If your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough.

Robert Capa

Best wide-angle lens? Two steps backward. Look for the “ah-ha.”

Ernst Haas

It’s possible to make a camera that has no lens. It’s called a pinhole camera. You can make one in just a few minutes. All it takes is a box with a tight-fitting lid that won’t let light in. Punch a small hole—a pinhole, made with a straight pin or needle—in the center of one side of the box. You can even make a pinhole digital camera by putting a hole in the center of the body cap that that goes on a camera when its lens is removed. Because light enters the box or the pinhole ...

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