[popo]

If this lens were made just of BK7 you could make all of the optics for $200 or so.

Stating that this lens' elements don't cost more than $200 is silly

 

This lens costs more than $200 to make because it is not all BK7 -there are probably 4 maybe even 5 or 6 different materials

I think that sums it up.

In older days of my day job, I used to get indirectly involved with the manufacturing side of consumer electronic devices. One figure of interest is the Bill Of Material (BOM) cost, which is as implied the total cost of the parts used. We're not talking raw material here, but ready to use parts, so if it were an optical system it would be equivalent to prepared elements, not raw glass. The BOM cost of products always surprised me as to how low it was. For lower end, mass consumer units, the BOM cost was in the ball park 10x less than what street price may be. For premium products, it can be a lot higher. So assuming similar applied to consumer optical products, I can find it entirely believable that the element costs could be less than you think, assuming they're not using too exotic materials and have enough volume going through manufacture.

On that note, a question for Scythels. Canon has in the past talked up their use of Fluorite, and I saw it used in some astronomical optics I had considered previously. CoastalOptics also used a load of it in their infamous UV-VIS-IR 60mm design. Just how bad is its relative cost as a material?