hi- I was wondering if anyone knows of any good books on optics?

Can you be more specific?

well, I'd love to be, but I dont really know where to start. I am building an agus35 and someone remarked it is important to have a good understanding of optics to do that project. I figure I need the Information anyways, and would like a book concerning the basics and how to apply it to photography.
-thanks, and sorry for the vagueness....

Edmunds Scientific is probably a good place to start.

"Applied photographic optics; third edition" by sigmund ray will explain anything and everything you ever wanted to know on camera lenses. The book is very very thorough to the point that it costs ~150$. So this thing is no children's book-> 680 pages, published in 2002. You said that you just wanted to learn the basics, so this might be a little overkill for you...but i did a paper while back on lenses and found that there aren't too many books that say much of anything about lenses.

Hi Mike. Do you by chance have a link to "Applied Photographics Optics..."? I googled and didn't exactly get anything.
Thanks!

S.

Oop, never mind about the link. Got it. Focal Press, I could have guessed.

S.