镜头垫片和焦距扩展.docxVIP

Lens Spacers and Focal Length Extenders Most fixed focal length lenses have integrated mechanics to allow focusing at different working distances. The fixed focal length nature of the design means that the elements move throughout a defined range, which dictates the working distances where it is possible to focus. This predefined range is chosen based on the design of the lens, as lenses will perform the best in the range they were designed for. However, it is often advantageous to stretch a lens beyond its limits in order to fit a particular application when smaller fields of view or shorter working distances are required. By augmenting the system with a spacer in between the camera and lens, the range of working distances over which the lens optimally performs changes. This augmentation comes with a variety of deviations from the way that the lens normally works that need to be considered carefully before implementation into any system. LENS SPACERS Generally, the main purpose of adding a spacer is to incre ase the vision system ’s magnification or shorten the working distance; these two changes occur in tandem and are explained by the Gaussian imaging equations. Equation 1 shows the relationship between image distance (I), object distance (O) and the focal length of the lens (f). Note that the object distance is a negative number. By increasing the image distance, the object distance (working distance of the lens) must decrease. Whenthe working distance and image distance change, so must the magnification (PMAG), based on Equation 2 (more information on magnification can be found in the application note, Lens Magnification ). Figure 1 shows this effect visually. Imaging lenses are more complex systems and the calculations for spacer usage are more complicated. More details on how to do this can be found on our website. (1) (2) Figure 1: An Illustration of the relationship between image and object distance (I and O respectively) and lens focal length (f).