Photographer captures the insides of lenses and cameras — via X-ray
posted Monday, November 25, 2013 at 3:34 PM EDT
Normally, to get a good look at the insides of a lens, you either have to be willing to take the thing apart (not recommended), or be able to track down one of those impressive lens cross sections that companies occasionally make. But one Israeli photographer is giving us a glimpse into the inner workings of camera gear in a different way: by X-ray.
Guy Viner is a photographer in Karmiel in Israel, who also works as an x-ray technician at a local hospital. Which means he has access to all manner of gear that the rest of us would have no idea what to do with. So he took a whole host of lenses (and even some cameras), and put them through the x-ray machine, giving an incredible look at their internals. You can see lens elements, focusing mechanisms, and a number of other features — even the grooves in the plastic.
Talking to us over email, Viner explained that the objects are loaded into the x-ray machine, and recorded as dicom format raw x-ray files. From there, their saved to TIFF, and then a bit of brightness/clarity/contrast adjusting in Lightroom.
Short of going at your own gear with tools, this is the deepest look you're likely to get into a camera and lenses. And it's pretty fantastic.
Meanwhile, there's also a lens of unknown provenance in the mix. If you have any idea what the mystery glass is, let us know in the comments!
(via DIYPhotography)
