TaoTeJared said:
Sorry Iris this type of designs are not cheap at all. It would have to be massed produced well above lenses today for it to be remotely viable for consumer.

Seems like more scientific and industrial than consumer photography. Medical applications could be really interesting. I doubt we will see this in consumer stuff in the next 15 years.

TTJ, Varioptic has already mass produced the nifty little thing. Price? $20 :)

http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/25/varioptic-liquid-lenses-now-shipping-in-snakecam-webcam/

IndyGeoff said:
At 8.35 lbs per gallon of water I wonder how light the lens would be (realizing it would not need a gallon in the lens) Even at 1 pint that is ~ 1 lb of weight for the lens.

Indy, to be more specific, it's actually and aqueous solution. It's probably not going to have much difference in regards to weight since most aqueous solutions have densities similar to water anyway but I just thought I'd mention it. However, I don't think the liquid lens will use a lot of water. Actually, since the lens needs to be concave to focus, I think the amount of water is going to be minimal. Also, I think the idea is to replace all or most of the individual lens elements in a conventional camera lens with a single or a couple of liquid lens/es so we would end up with a much thinner (shorter) lenses than what we have now which should also result in lighter lenses.

At 8.35 lbs per gallon of water I wonder how light the lens would be (realizing it would not need a gallon in the lens) Even at 1 pint that is ~ 1 lb of weight for the lens.

It is an interesting technology. We use this in industrial code readers since a few years as a third party accessory. We use it as an add on to an existing lens (similar to a close up lens). So the lens does the image formation and the liquid lens does the focusing without changing the focal length.

I did not notice any decrease in image quality, but we are using rather small, inexpensive lenses anyways.

The nice part is that no moving parts are involved, so no wear and no noise (not really important in our case).

From what I was told this technology is already used in consumer products (e.g. mobile phone cameras), but I don't know what brand or model actually uses them. A lot of the stuff used in industrial applications is actually driven by consumer products because they tend to have higher volumes than industrial applications.

This idea (and various trials) has been running around for at least 17years. I had an engineering friend in college (12+ yrs ago) who was working with designs then.

Sorry Iris this type of designs are not cheap at all. It would have to be massed produced well above lenses today for it to be remotely viable for consumer.

Seems like more scientific and industrial than consumer photography. Medical applications could be really interesting. I doubt we will see this in consumer stuff in the next 15 years.

Interesting stuff.

From http://www.smartalix.com:
Transmissive liquid lenses use two immiscible fluids, each with a different refractive index, to create variable-focus lenses of high optical quality as small as 10 µm (microns). The two fluids, one an electrically conducting aqueous solution and one a nonconducting oil, are contained in a short tube with transparent end caps. The interior of the tube and one of the caps is coated with a hydrophobic material, which causes the aqueous solution to form a hemispherical lens-shaped mass at the opposite end of the tube. The shape of the lens is adjusted by applying a dc voltage across the coating to decrease its water repellency in a process called electrowetting. Electrowetting adjusts the liquid's surface tension, changing the radius of curvature in the meniscus and thereby the focal length of the lens. Only 0.1 microjoules (µJ) are needed for each change of focus. Extremely shock and vibration resistant, such a lens is capable of seamless transition from convex (convergent) to concave (divergent) lens shapes with switching times measured in milliseconds. In addition, the boundary between the two fluids forms an extremely smooth and regular surface, making liquid lenses of a quality suitable for endoscopic medical imaging and other space-constrained high-resolution applications like microcameras and fiber-optic telecommmunications systems.

Interesting stuff. I think if this technology can be successfully implemented in consumer (as opposed to industrial and scientific) camera lenses then it would render the the current lens system obsolete. If I understand it correctly the lens would be lighter, shorter, faster and much less expensive all while increasing resolving power.

This is a link for a liquid lens manufactured by varioptic which also develop liquid lenses:

http://www.varioptic.com/en/products/arctic-314-af.html

It seems that temperature variations are not a big problem since the lens can operate between -20 to 60˚C although I'm not sure if quality will still be the same at all temperatures.

Mmm Sounds problematic in area's with low temperatures.. btw also High temps are not beneficial for a "Liquid system"involving water because water expands under 4 degress Celsius as wel as above 4 degress celsius, and theds to freeze in colder environments...

I happen to come across a few tech sites talking designs being filed for a liquid lens. I guess the science behind it is; that water and oil, of the same density, are contained within a flexible lens. One part of the fluid can be manipulated with power. When the power is sent into this fluid, the oil moves. This movement in effect changes the focal length of the lens.If you want to see more on it, just google liquid lens camera.

I have to think, that this type of lens will be out in a few years. I'm unsure exactly how sharp,this type of lens will be. But just think about what you could do as a wildlife photographer.