Well, wonder no more, folks–I found this great video on YouTube that’ll explain EVERYTHING.

If you, like me, believe that the Discovery Channel is one of the only reasons to actually have cable any more, then you’ll be familiar with one of their great shows, How It’s Made.  On How It’s Made, they actually show you various products being built, assembled, or otherwise manufactured.

And today, not surprisingly, we’ve got a clip from How It’s Made (at least I’m pretty sure that’s the show in question) about camera lenses.

Frankly, I doubt you’ll believe how much work goes into these things, unless of course you’ve done this kind of thing before.   But it’s truly amazing to watch this clip and see how many different steps there are, and how much work goes into making a lens a lens.  They start out with huge blocks of optical glass and go from there into a series of complex operations.

Making a camera lens is an arduous and time consuming process, and once you see how it happens, you’ll likely appreciate that little device all the more.

Related posts:

1. The iPhone 3G Gets a Magnetic Zoom and Fish-Eye Lenses
2. Tamron Offers Mini Tripod with SP AF Lenses
3. SIGMA introduces 17-70mm F2.8-4.5 DC Macro HSM, 18-50mm F2.8 EX DC Macro Digital Camera Lenses
4. Fantasea Line Announces New BigEye Wide Angle Lenses
5. Schneider Optics Offers Instant Rebates for Camera Lenses with Copal/Electronic Shutters