Does chromatic aberration increase or decrease as the power of the lens increases?

• A. Increases
• B. Decreases
• C. Remains constant
• D. Varies with Abbe value

Answer: (A)

Chromatic aberration grows with how strongly a lens bends light. Dispersion makes blue light focus at a different point than red light, and the amount of bending (the lens’s power) amplifies that difference. When you increase power, the focal shift between wavelengths becomes larger, so the chromatic aberration increases. Materials do matter—higher Abbe values mean less dispersion for a given wavelength separation—but the direct relationship the question is asking about is that increasing power leads to more chromatic aberration.