Talk:Fresnel lens

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Just a quick word. This whole page is talking about compressed optical lenses. I'm pretty sure that these are not Fresnel Lenses. The ones mentioned here are mistakenly called Freznel lenses because they are essentially flat like a Fresnel Lens. [[zone plate|Fresnel zone plates}} are the actual Fresnel Lenses. --WB-Frontier 11:12, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

What's the highest resolution for one? lysdexia 11:50, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

These aren't that great. And wouldn't be used anywhere were resolution is important. But they work quite well for things like overhead projectors. --WB-Frontier 11:12, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Canon makes two lenses that use Diffractive Optics, the EF 400mm f/4 DO IS USM and the EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM http://www.canon.com/camera-museum/tech/report/200106/report.html http://www.canon.com.au/products/cameras_lenses_accessories/super_telephoto_lenses/ef400mmf4isusm.html http://www.canon.com.au/products/cameras_lenses_accessories/telephoto_zoom_lenses/ef70-300mmf4.5-5.6doidusm.html http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EF-400mm-f-4.0-DO-IS-USM-Lens-Review.aspx http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/lenses/400-do.shtml http://www.dpreview.com/news/0009/00090604canon_400do.asp

I was surprised by this engineering prof claiming Fresnel had nothing to do with it. This page implies David Brewster claimed the honor. AZ State Engineering and (according to the snippet in the Google search) Encyclopædia Britannica, credit Buffon. (As does Beavertail Lighthouse Museum, which I found interesting because lighthouse fans seem prone to putting up silly "parrot the answer I want to hear" quizzes. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]) Fresneltech (pg 2) claims that the famous Condorcet was in on it besides Buffon and Brewster. My read is that the crucial idea of the segmented lens was not Fresnel's, not even as an independent reïnvention; his contribution seems to have been flattening. Kwantus 18:50, 2005 Jan 27 (UTC)

I searched a number of sources, including Encyclopedia Britannica and biographical reference sources available to me through the University of North Carolina Greensboro library. Using what I discovered that way, I added a paragraph about the development of the Fresnel lens. Well, actually, I guess it is about the various people who were involved in its development. I'm not an optics expert, by any means, but I used what I could find from reliable sources. -- Kam Tonnes 20:09, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

My recent change also added a little more on the prismatic elements found in lighthouse Fresnels. This might want to move out of the "Uses" section, and could use a diagram of the light paths.

If there's standard terminology to describe the planar Fresnel (made by flattening a planoconvex lens) we usually think of versus the full-on constellation including these catadioptric elements, I don't know it.

Eub 07:21, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Removing text "A related optical device is the Fresnel zone plate." because I don't see how they're related, beyond the inventor's name. If you do, please re-add this text with explanation. Eub 05:40, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Traffic light implementation

The traffic light article states that some new lights use Fresnel lenses to limit the visibility of the light to cars in specific lanes. While I have seen such sytems in some intersections, I don't know enough about the subject to definitively link traffic lights and Fresnel lenses. Could someone more knowledgable than me add a section on this form of implementation, if these lenses are in fact used in traffic lights? — EagleOne\^Talk 18:02, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request

Would be great if someone could create a diagram showing the path of the light rays.

There is a nice web page describing a Fresnel lens that does this. However, I have a different comment about this page http://www.lanternroom.com/misc/freslens.htm If you look at the bottom of the page, the author states that the material is copyrighted (that's fine), but then the author states that people should not hot link to his Fresnel lens site. I doubt that any form of copyright could properly forbid people from hot linking to a site. If my assumption is true, you should be able to link to his site, and accomplish two things--first, see the path of the light, and second, refer users to another place where a good description of a Fresnel lens is located. Possibly if some WP editor sees this comment, he can tell us if forbidding hot links to a web page is enforceable. I suppose the author could always remove the link from the WP article, but would that be vandalism? Thermbal 00:07, 24 December 2006 (UTC)