I’ve actually been looking for pictures like this for ages. I find SLRs and lenses very fascinating, but it wasn’t until I saw a lens cut open like this in the window of a shop in Paris that I understood just how complicated they are. You ask what you’re paying for when you buy a really good prime lens or a $1000 zoom; you’re looking at it.

The first picture is cool, as it shows how they’ve managed to create a hybrid in the DSLR; after all, the mechanical element needs to remain the same, but they have to fit a whole PCB, card mechanism and LCD in there as well. Love this stuff.

Photos by the linked article’s author, Charlie Sorrel