Dissecting Projector Lens and their 2 Types

Welcome to the world viewed via a lens. This is how most of us live our lives now. Stuck to our phones, laptops, desktops, or tablets. Owing to this, it should come as no surprise that projectors are a part of an everyday object. So what kind do projector lens fall under?

Starting from our homes where we use projectors for large screen viewing, schools to showcase the content, college lectures to office presentations, projectors exist everywhere.

Now, rewinding back to our high school physics classes, what sort of lens do they use in a projector?

The answer is a convex lens.

More on Convex Lens

The Latin name for lentils, the little beans that have been a vital component of Mediterranean cuisine since antiquity, is where the word “lens” got its start. Lentils’ convex shape inspired the Latin name for a type of glass with a similar shape.

Lenses are used to focus or scatter light due to the way they refract light that strikes them. According to factors including the lens’s composition, size, thickness, curvature, and combination, light entering a lens can be adjusted in numerous ways. Lenses of numerous varieties are produced for use in equipment, including cameras, telescopes, microscopes, and eyeglasses.

Other more recent gadgets that take advantage of lenses’ ability to diffuse or condense light include copy machines, image scanners, optical fiber transponders, and state-of-the-art semiconductor fabrication machinery.

Projector Lens

A lens that can magnify the target item and produce true images is required in order to project an image on a screen using a projector. The projection of a real image onto a screen is possible, but it is not possible to display a virtual image.

A projector is an optical tool that can enlarge images and display them in that enlarged form on a screen. We need a lens that can both magnify the objects and provide accurate images that can be obtained on a screen in order to achieve these properties.

Converging light rays that strike a convex lens is one of its properties. Both actual and virtual images can be created with a convex lens.

On a screen, real images can be seen, but virtual images are not visible. Therefore, we can set up a convex lens so that genuine images can be projected through it using a projector.

We also require the magnification of a convex lens, which can be accomplished by advancing the item past the lens’s focus. 

This image is created on a screen in a projector for movies or digital data. In order for the projected image to be upright, the film must be fed into the projector upside down.

The following justifies why a concave lens is not used in a projector:

A concave lens always creates a virtual picture. On a screen, one cannot get a virtual image.

Positive magnification, or the size of the image being smaller than the object, is how a concave lens creates images.

Eyeglasses with Convex and Concave Lenses

Convex and concave lenses can be split roughly into two categories. Convex lenses have a center that is thicker than their edges, whereas concave lenses have a center that is thicker than the edges. A convex lens concentrates a light beam traveling through it on the spot on the opposite side of the lens. The focus point is where attention is drawn.

The reasons listed below explain why a projector does not employ a concave lens:

A concave lens will always produce a virtual image. One cannot obtain a virtual image on a screen.

A concave lens produces images by positive magnification or when the size of the image is smaller than the object.