Thin lens positive if the surface is concave, and negative if it is convex. This is an arbitrary sign convention; some authors choose different signs for the radii, which changes the equation for the focal length. Certain rays follow simple rules when passing through a thin lens, in the paraxial ray approximation: By tracing these rays, the relationship between the object distance "s" and the image distance "s′" can be shown to be which is known as the thin lens equation. In scalar wave optics a lens is a part which shifts the phase of the wave-front. Mathematically this can be understood
Telecentric lens Telecentric lens A telecentric lens is a compound lens that has its entrance or exit pupil at infinity; in the prior case, this produces an orthographic view of the subject. This means that the chief rays (oblique rays that pass through the center of the aperture stop) are parallel to the optical axis in front of or behind the system, respectively. The simplest way to make a lens telecentric is to put the aperture stop at one of the lens's focal points. An entrance pupil at infinity makes the lens object-space telecentric. Such lenses are used in machine vision systems