Aspheric Optics

[wontonny]

This may seem stupid....I've looked all around and I cant seem to figure out what the advantage of aspheric optics is... I wikipedia'd it and it didnt really give me a straightfoward understandable answer. What do they do...:bang:

 

[sejanus]

If you do a google search for 'aspheric lens element' and select the link to [SIZE=-1]www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/opinion/html/aspherical.htm you'll find a pretty good explanation. Basically, it's a good way to save money and weight while, possibly, giving improved performance.
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[Mazurka]

Short answer: when correcting optical abberations, one aspherical surface can do the job for two spherical surfaces. Modern manufacturing techniques have cheapened the cost substantially and aspherics are now very common even in cheap zooms with less than 10 elements.

http://medfmt.8k.com/mf/elements.html