OpenCV 3 Blueprints

Shopping for glass

There is nothing quite like a well-crafted piece of glass that has survived many years and continued to sparkle because someone cared for it. On the mantle at home, my parents have a few keepsakes like this. One of them—a little, colorful glass flower—comes from a Parisian shopping mall where my brother and I ate many cheap but good meals during our first trip away from home and family. Other pieces go back earlier than I remember.

Some of the secondhand lenses that I use are 30 or 40 years old; their country of manufacture no longer exists; yet their glass and coatings are in perfect condition. I like to think that these lenses earned such good care by taking many fine pictures for previous owners and that they might still be ...