lumina·optics
A glass prism on a dark optical breadboard splitting one collimated beam into a spectrum

Refraction bench · WebGL

One beam,
bent honestly

No photograph on this screen is doing the work — the prism is being refracted right now, per frame, on your GPU. Drag it. Change the index. The spectrum you see is the same arithmetic lens designers use, minus the glasses.

Drag the prism to rotate · beam is collimated at 632.8 nm reference

Cutaway of a precision lens: a stack of glass elements in a metal barrel, edge-lit so each surface shows a refraction line
L-85 cutaway · 7 elements in 6 groups

Glass decides
before software does

A lens is a chain of refractions, and every surface answers before any firmware runs. Our L-85 uses two low-dispersion elements to keep the spectrum you just dragged from fanning out across the frame — dispersion corrected in glass, not in a profile.

The cutaway above is a physical section, milled for measurement. Element count and spacing are measured from it, not from the drawing.

MTF, not adjectives

“Tack sharp” is not a specification. Contrast transfer at given line pairs per millimetre is. These curves are measured on an optical bench at full aperture — sagittal and meridional, out to the corner.

  • 10 lp/mm · sagittal
  • 10 lp/mm · meridional
  • 30 lp/mm · sagittal
  • 30 lp/mm · meridional
1.0 0.75 0.5 0.25 center image field (mm) corner 21.6
L-85 · f/1.8 · infinity focus · bench-measured 2026-07

Specification

L-85 specification — item, value, condition
Item Value Condition
Focal length85 mmnominal · ±1.5% at infinity
Aperturef/1.8 – f/169-blade · near-circular
Elements7 in 62 LD · measured from cutaway
Close focus0.62 m1:7.2 magnification
FilterØ 62 mmbrass, front-threaded
Weight438 gwithout caps, with hood

Bench visits

We measure loaner samples for free and publish the curves — manufacturers welcome or not. Bench time and MTF requests:

bench@lumina.optics