What is lateral chromatic aberration?
Light wavelengths differ depending upon color. Differences in the length of these wavelengths result in changes in image magnification and become visible at image peripheries. This is known as lateral chromatic aberration and is the cause of color fringing. Lateral chromatic aberration is reduced to some degree by combining lens elements with different refractive indexes, but optically speaking, it cannot be completely eliminated. In addition to red and its complementary color, cyan, color fringing and blue and its complementary color, yellow, color fringing, some lenses may exhibit complex color fringing that combines the two primary types. The two illustrations below show how chromatic aberration typically appears. The illustration on the left exhibits no chromatic aberration, while the image on the right shows what happens when chromatic aberration (red and cyan color fringing) occurs. When chromatic aberration occurs, color fringing becomes especially noticeable in portions of the
