Spherical aberration

Spherical aberration is the imaging error found when a lens is focusing an axial bundle
of monochromatic light. In the presence of spherical aberration, each zone or annulus of
the lens aperture has a slightly different focal length.

Figure 1. Spherical aberration in a planoconvex lens.

The result can be seen in Figure 1. The enlarged view shows the actual intersection of
focused rays with the image surface. At the paraxial focus A, all rays close to the axis of
the lens are focused accurately. The rays from zones farther from the axis are focused
short of the paraxial focus. The farther the rays are from the axis, the greater is this
error in focus. This lack of a common focus for all zones of the lens is spherical
aberration.

Figure 2. Point spread functions for the lens in Figure 1 at the paraxial focus (a) and
focus for minimum spot size (b).

In Figure 1, there is a point, B, just short of the paraxial focus where the blur circle, or
 spot size caused by spherical aberration, is minimized. Figure 2 shows the intensity
spread function for the paraxial and minimum spot size focus positions. Analysis of
these spread functions reveals that at the paraxial focus there is a bright spot about
0.02 mm in diameter, surrounded by a circle of flare about 0.08 mm in diameter.

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In the case of focus for minimum spot size, the central spot is slightly greater, about
0.025 mm in diameter, while the visible flare diameter has been reduced to less than
0.04 mm. In almost all applications where spherical aberration is present, the overall
image quality is best when the lens is focused close to the point of minimum spot size.

Coma

Coma is an aberration that afflicts off-axis light bundles in a manner quite similar to the
way in which spherical aberration affects axial bundles. As shown in Figure 3, when an
off-axis bundle is incident on a lens afflicted with coma, each annulus focuses onto the
image plane at a slightly different height and with a different spot size. The result is an
overall spot that is comatic in shape, having a bright central core with a triangular flare
extending toward the optical axis of the lens.

Figure 3. Illustration of the off-axis aberration, coma.

For a pair of simple lenses arranged symmetrically as in a relay lens system, or a
complex lens that has some degree of symmetry, a significant reduction in the amount
of coma is found. This important characteristic is used in the design of many lenses and
instruments such as borescopes and submarine periscopes. The residual coma in a
lens system is usually combined with other off-axis aberrations, making its individual
contribution to final image quality difficult to evaluate.

Field curvature

In most optical systems, the final image must be formed on a plane or flat surface.
Unfortunately, most optical systems tend to form that image on a curved surface. The
nominal curvature (1/radius) of that surface is referred to as the Petzval, or field
curvature of the lens. For simple lenses this curvature is equal to approximately 2/3 of
the lens power. When the lens is free of other off-axis aberrations, the image is formed
on the Petzval surface. When astigmatism is present (which is most often the case) the
Petzval surface has no real significance as far as actual imaging of the lens system is
concerned.

Figure 4. Illustration of astigmatism.

Astigmatism

When astigmatism is present in a lens system, fans of rays of differing orientations at

the lens aperture tend to focus on differing curved surfaces. Figure 4 shows two fans of
rays passing through a simple lens and indicates how they are focused. The spot
diagram in Figure 4 shows that the presence of astigmatism causes the ideal circular
point image to be blurred into an elliptical patch.

The field curves shown in Figure 5 represent another method of illustrating the
aberrations of field curvature and astigmatism. These curves represent a cross section
of half the image surface from the optical axis out to the edge of the field. Figure 5a
shows a set of field curves for a lens afflicted with both field curvature and astigmatism.
If we think of the image as a spoked wheel centered on the optical axis, the rim of the
wheel is in focus at the tangential image surface, while the spokes are in focus at the
sagittal surface.

Figure 5a. Illustration of field curvature and astigmatism in a simple lens.

Astigmatism is, by definition, the difference between the tangential and sagittal field
curves. If the tangential and sagittal surfaces are coincident, then the lens is said to be
free of astigmatism. In this case, the image is formed on the Petzval surface. When
astigmatism is present, the tangential field departure from the Petzval surface is three
times the departure of the sagittal field (Figure 5a). In most cases it is not possible to
correct field curvature and astigmatism to zero, but satisfactory image quality usually
can be achieved by balancing residual astigmatism with inherent field curvature as
illustrated in Figure 5b.
Figure 5b. Illustration of the introduction of negative astigmatism to balance field
curvature.

Distortion

Distortion is a unique aberration in that it does not affect the quality of the image in
terms of sharpness or focus. Rather, distortion affects the shape of the image, causing it
to depart from a true scaled duplicate of the object. Figure 6b represents a lens system
free of distortion that produces a true reproduction of the checkerboard object. If the
system suffers from positive distortion, then the off-axis points are imaged at distances
greater than nominal, creating the pincushion effect seen in 6a. On the other hand, if the
system exhibits negative distortion, the resulting image assumes a barrel shape as seen
in Figure 6c. With the exception of certain metrological systems, where critical
measurements are taken from the image, distortion errors in the 5 to 10 percent region
usually are deemed acceptable.

Figure 6. Illustration of distortion: (a) approximately 15 percent positive (pincushion)

distortion; (b) zero distortion; and (c) approximately 10 percent negative (barrel)
distortion.

The five aberrations presented to this point have been monochromatic aberrations,
generally computed at the central wavelength for the lens system. If the lens is to be
used over an extended spectral bandwidth, the following two chromatic aberrations
must also be considered.

Axial color

For all optical glasses, the index of refraction varies as a function of wavelength; the
index is greater for shorter (blue) wavelengths. Also, the rate at which the index
changes is greater at the shorter wavelengths. In a simple lens this causes each
wavelength to focus at a different point along the optical axis. This chromatic spreading
of the light is known as dispersion.
Figure 7. Axial color in a simple lens (a) and in an achromat (b) of identical focal length
and speed (f/#).

Figure 7a illustrates a simple lens focusing a bundle of white light covering the spectral
band from 450 to 650 nm. If the focus is set for the middle of the band, as shown, the
blur circle consists of a green central core with a halo of purple (red and blue)
surrounding it. Except in very unusual cases, such as laser systems or nearly
monochromatic systems, axial color is an aberration that must be dealt with in order to
achieve usable image quality. This can be accomplished by converting the simple lens
into an achromatic doublet as shown in Figure 7b. The two glass types selected correct
the primary axial color by bringing the two extreme wavelengths to a common focus. In
the lens illustrated, a reduction of 30 times in blur-circle size has been realized by the
achromatization of this simple lens.
Figure 8. A simple lens with little chief ray refraction (a) has little lateral color. An
eyepiece design (b) where substantial nonsymmetrical refraction of the chief ray exists
will be afflicted with lateral color.

Lateral color

The second chromatic aberration (and the last of the seven primary lens aberrations) is
lateral color. For on-axis light bundles, the optical axis of the lens coincides with the
central ray in that bundle. For off-axis bundles, the corresponding central ray is called
the chief ray, or principal ray. The height of the chief ray at the image plane defines
image size. If lateral color exists in the lens system, this chief ray is dispersed, causing
the differing wavelengths to be imaged at different heights on the image plane. The
result is a chromatic, radial blur for off-axis image points.

In the case of a simple lens with the chief ray passing through its center, there is little
refraction of that ray and, therefore, little lateral color. A system that is symmetrical
about the point where the chief ray crosses the optical axis (the aperture stop) has little
or no lateral color because the aberration tends to cancel itself as the chief ray
traverses the symmetrical halves of the system.
 The eyepiece is a classic
example of a lens form that produces large amounts of chief ray refraction that is not
symmetrical about the aperture stop. As a result, in most eyepiece designs lateral color
is a major contributor to degradation of off-axis image quality. Figure 8 illustrates the
chief ray path through a simple lens 8a and an eyepiece 8b. The presence or lack of
lateral color is shown in each case.

1. Introduction to Aberration Theory

Whenever the topic of lens characteristics is brought up, the word “aberrations” is
never far behind. “This is an amazing lens with practically all aberrations removed.”
You’re quite likely to encounter a statement like that in a variety of lens reviews and
discussions. Somewhat rarer you might also run into someone saying, “That’s a
wonderful lens; its residual aberrations are well defined and result in an image with
incredible plasticity and beauty.”

So why the difference in opinion? I’ll try to answer that question while touching on why
this particular phenomenon is good or bad for lenses and various genres of
photography in general. To start off though, let’s figure out what exactly photographic
lens aberrations are. We’ll begin with the theory behind them and a number of basic
definitions.

In the general sense, the term aberration (from Latin “aberrare” meaning “to
wonder”) is defined as a deviation from the norm, an error, a certain divergence from
normal performance.
A lens aberration is an optical design image error. It’s caused by the fact that in
practice the lens medium can cause substantial deviation of light rays from the direction
they are intended to travel in the lens’ theoretical, ideal optical design.

The end result is that aberrations harm the generally accepted quality of photos with
afflictions such as lack of sharpness in the center, loss of contrast in general, strong
lack of sharpness along the sides, warped geometry and displayed space, color
aureoles, etc.

The primary photographic lens aberration types are as follows:

1. Spherical Aberration

2. Comatic Aberration

3. Chromatic Aberration

4. Distortion of the Image

5. Astigmatism

6. Curvature of the Field of the Image

Before taking a closer look at each, let’s think back to the Spherical Lens Types article
and recall how light is supposed to pass through a lens in an ideal optical design:
Pic. 1. Passage of light in an ideal optical design.

As we can see from the illustration, all the light rays gather in a singular point F, the
primary focus. However, in practice, everything plays out in a far more complicated
manner. The essence of optical aberrations lies in the fact that while light rays fall onto
a lens from a single light source point, they don’t all gather at one point afterwards.
Let’s take a look at the kind of deviations that occur in an optical design given various
aberrations.

It’s also worth noting that both simple and complex lenses suffer from all the further
depicted aberrations at the same time.

2. Spherical Aberration

Spherical aberration occurs when light rays that fall onto the edges of a lens gather
closer to the lens than the rays that fall onto its center. This results in the surface point
appearing as a blurry circle or disk.

Pic. 2. Spherical Aberration.

Spherical aberration manifests on photos in the form of a softened image. This effect is
especially noticeable on open apertures. Lenses with high lens speeds are particularly
prone to suffering from this type of aberration. However, assuming that outline contrast
remains under these conditions, this sort of soft effect can be quite useful for certain
kinds of photo shoots, i.e. portrait photos.

Pic. 3. Soft effect achieved via an open aperture with spherical aberration.

It’s practically impossible to remove this type of aberrations from a lens consisting
entirely of spherical lenses. When it comes to super speed lenses, the only effective
way to substantially compensate this type of aberration is by using aspherical elements
in the optical design.

3. Comatic Aberration, aka Coma

The coma is a type of spherical aberration that affects off-axis rays. It causes rays that
hit the lens at an angle to the optical axis to not gather in a single point. This results in
a point of light at the edge of the image that looks like the tail of a flying comet rather
than a simple spot. The coma effect can also lead to overexposure for parts of the
image that lack sharpness.

Pic. 4. Coma.
Pic. 5. Coma as seen on an actual photo.

4. Chromatic Aberration

Chromatic aberration is a direct consequence of dispersed light. In essence, it occurs

when a ray of white light passes through a lens and disperses into its color component
rays. Shortwave rays (blue, violet) suffer stronger refraction and unite closer to the
lens itself as compared to longwave rays (orange, red).
Pic. 6. Chromatic aberration. F1 being the focus of the violet rays, F2 being the focus of
the red rays.

In this case, just as in the case of spherical aberration, the glowing surface spot on the
resulting image appears in the form of a blurred circle/disk.

Chromatic aberration manifests on photos in the form of foreign shades and color
outlines around various objects in the shot. The effects of aberration are especially
noticeable in photos with contrasted subjects. Today it’s simple enough to fix up XA in
RAW converters so long as the original shooting was done in RAW format.

Pic. 7. Example of chromatic aberration.

5. Distortion of the Image

Distortion manifests in the warping and distortion of photo geometry. In other words,
the image’s scale changes moving from the center of the field to the edges, leading to
straight lines curving either towards the center or towards the edges.

The two primary types of distortion are barrel distortion (mostly characteristic of wide
angles) and pincushion distortion (most often manifesting on a long focus).

Pic. 8. Pincushion and barrel distortion types.

Distortion is usually substantially stronger for lenses with dynamic focal range (zoom
lenses) as opposed to fixed focal length lenses. Some lenses, fish eye lenses for
example, intentionally retain distortion effects or even accent them.
Pic. 9. Strong barrel distortion achieved via a Zenitar 16mm FishEye lens.

Modern lenses, especially dynamic focal distance lenses, allow for relatively efficient
distortion correction by means of implementing an aspherical lens (or several) into the
lens’ optical design.

6. Astigmatism

Astigmatism (from Greek “Stigma”) manifests in the absence of a glowing spot at the
edges of the field, either in the form of a spot or even in the form of a disk.
Furthermore, a glowing spot located on the primary optical axis is actually transferred
as a spot, yet if the spot is off-axis, it ends up transferred as a darkened area, a group
of crossed lines, etc.

This effect is most often present along the edges of an image.

Pic. 10. Manifestation of astigmatism.

7. Curvature of the Field of the Image

Curvature of field is an aberration that results in an image of a flat object positioned

perpendicular to the lens’ optical axis lies upon a surface that is either concave or
convex relative to the lens. This aberration causes uneven image field sharpness. When
the central part of the image is sharply focused, its edges will lie out of focus and will
appear to lack sharpness. If the sharpness is set along the edges of the image, then its
center will end up lacking sharpness.
Pic. 11. Image field curvature.

Curvature of field manifests in the form of lowered resolution, lack of sharpness, and
image curvature or radial swirling.

Should the center of the image be in focus, then its edges are out of focus, and vice-
versa.

Field curvature cannot be removed by aperturing the lens. This type of aberration can
only be corrected by altering the forms of the separate elements within the lens, i.e.
altering their thickness and the distance between them, changing aperture position, and
implementing aspherical elements. Correcting this aberration generally requires the
lens to contain no less than two dispersal lenses.
Pic. 12. Example of strong field curvature achieved via an SLR Magic 35/1.7 lens.