What the heck does FD stand for in Canon FD and What does FL stand for in Canon FL ?

Please help me ut all you photo lovers out there because this question has really got me

thinking hit me up with a response A.S.A.P thanks

This has been discused a WHOLE bunch on the canon Fd group on yahoo and the best anyone ever came up with but with no confirmation from Canon is.

 

FD = Full Diaphram meaning the diaphram is fully open during focusing and metering.

 

If you read a bunch of Canons camera manauls and see the way that Japanese is translated sometimes into english or just the way a phrase is put together you can see why when coming from FL they got to FD.

 

Now what FL stands for I haven't a clue LOL

I always thought it stood for Flourite lens. The coating that canon put on the lenses to help with flare.

Uhhhh,

 

Fluorite is a crystal, not a coating. It's what the lens element is made of. Canon's advertising in the late 60s claimed that they had developed a way to make fluorite crystals grow artificially, making it suitable for forming lens elements.

I stand corrected ,I still believe that is what FL stands for.

I've done a little looking into this. In some near ancient Canon marketing literature, it was stated that FL (the older lens line) was selected to emphasize that these lenses were for a reFLex camera.

 

As for the newer FD line, I have no idea. I could find no reference.

 

-Lance

Messrs. White and Ging are both partly correct. "Fluorite" is the common name for calcium fluoride, and it has at least two uses in optics. One is to make high-quality lens elements, often for microscope objectives. The other is as a lens coating: many different compounds can be sublimated onto a lens surface to provide antireflective coating, and they include calcium fluoride and magnesium fluoride.

 

Whether "FL" could refer to the lens coating is an interesting idea. However, the FL lenses came out in the 1960s, and presumably Canon was coating their lenses for a decade before that.

 

I'm pretty sure the run-of-the-mill FL lenses never had fluorite elements. These were however incorporated in some of the expensive long lenses of the 70s that were (I think) precursors to the L series lenses. I'm sure one of the gear freaks can enlighten us on the details.

According to the Canon ads from the period, the first use of artificial fluorite for camera lenses was with the FL-F series. There were two 300mm lenses and a 500mm lens. 300mm f:5.6 FL-F, 300mm f:2.8 FL-F, and the 500mmm f:5.6 FL-F. They were all introduced before the F-1 and the FD series lenses. They had stop down metering, like the other FL series lenses.

On second thought, I think the 300mm f:2.8 didn't appear as an FL lens but as an FD. The FL-F lenses were both f:5.6, a 300mm and a 500mm. They were kept in production for a year or two after the FD series was introduced.

 

FL lenses existed for several years before the FL-F lenses. Weren't they introduced around about 1963, replacing the R series of the Canonflex. The FL-F 300 and 500 lenses came out around 1969. FL has nothing to do with fluorite.

There was a FL 300/2.8 fluorite lens (although it may not have been labelled FL-F, and possibly labelling varied on other fluorite lenses) and if I remember correctly it came with a matched x2 teleconverter, and the combination was used to take the famous photograph from a balcony over Henry Kissinger's shoulder of a secret document, which was perfectly readable. It was FL-F that stood for fluorite, not FL on its own.

 

Fluorite lenses were way beyond my budget in my Canon Pellix and FTQL days, but I did put an FL-F 500/5.6 on one of my cameras briefly at J. J. Silber, then the UK Canon distributor. It was pretty heavy, but handled quite nicely, and I have always thought it a pity that this specification never reappeared in the Canon lens line-up. An EF version with IS would be a treat (oops, sorry, wrong forum!).

FD stands for Film is Dead.

 

:(

 

Webster

Robin,

 

Ah, yes, I found it. It wasn't called FL-F. It was introduced a few years later. FL300mm f/2.8 S.S.C. Florite. It's shown on the Canon Museum site.

 

http://www.canon.com/camera-museum/camera/lens/f_lens.html

 

It's odd that it was made for stop down metering, since it came out three years after FD lenses were introduced.

while we are dealing with canon mysteries, they refer to fd lenses, brechlock lenses and bayonet lenses,

what is the difference? how do all fit and work on canon slr.

which bodies take which lenses?

disregarding the newer eos models , of course.

i put my foot in my mouth on www.canonfd.com asking what ef lenses were.

thought it might be related to "flash" not "focus"

oh well...

The interface between the camera body and lenses is such that the pins and levers need to move straight onto the body, not be rotating. Canon's first SLR lens mount used a locking ring at the base of the lens, called the "breechlock". The ring was the only thing that moved when installing the lens, so any wear occured in the ring, and the back side of the mount. Canon claimed that this was better since the lens to film distance would never change due to wear. Of course it was true. But it was a straw man argument, since other mounts were not susceptible to wear.

 

At any rate, that's how they did it. And in order to maintain some semblance of compatibility that's the way it remained for many years. The problem was that mounting the "breechlock" lenses was slow. Other mounts from Nikon and Leitz were faster. You just pushed the lens against the body and gave it a twist, rather than try to turn the little ring. It was especially slow wearing gloves.

 

So they changed the mount to one that simulated a bayonet, like what Nikon and most others had and have. But they needed to have the little connecting parts not rotate. They wanted the outer part of the lens to rotate, not the innards. So sometime around 1981 they introduced the New FD mount, along with the New F-1. It's a complicated mechanism, and a lot of people thought it would become a major reliability problem. Well, it hasn't. And all original FD breechlock lenses and all NEW FD bayonet lenses are fully compatible with all FD and FL Canon bodies, with the exception of the original 19mm FL and anything with a pellicle mirror.

Nobody has ever been able to definitively state what "FL" and "FD" stand for. Until now.<P>

After exhaustive research and analysis of data, I have finally discovered the original, true and only meaning of those terms.<P>

<B><U>FL</U></B> stands for "<b>F</b>irst in <b>L</B>ine," which is of course where Canon was back in those halcyon days just as they are now.<P>

<B><U>FD</U></B> is a bit more complicated. Turns out, when our mates down under got hold of an early prototype, they were nearly speechless. With superlatives escaping them, they could only blurt out, "<B>F</B>air <B>D</B>inkum!"<P>

I'm just glad to be able to help.

I have the 300 5.6 FL-F and 500/5.6 FL-F lenses. Both are superb. The lack of FD function in these lenses is insignificant as they are used almost always wide open and work well in stopped-down AE on an A-1 or T90.

The original brochures for the Canon F-1 in 1971 showed both FD and FL lenses. Canon just didn't have all of the FD lenses ready by the time the F-1 came out. The people at Canon must have known that Nikon's F2 was not far off and wanted at least a short time for the F-1 to be seen as an improvement over the original Nikon F.

 

Most of the original FD lenses had chrome fronts and were not marked S.C. or S.S.C. I have seven of the chrome front lenses and only the 24mm lens is marked FD S.S.C. By 1973 Canon had standardized on the black front breech lock lenses and had filled in the FD line so that FL lenses either weren't being made any longer or were out of stock. Even though the early FD lenses lacked the S.C. or S.S.C. markings, they look to me to have the same coatings as the later breech lock lenses with these markings.

 

The FL lenses started in about 1964 when the Canon FX and FP models were introduced. I have an FX and this model has an external meter cell. The FP is meterless but accepted an accessory clip on meter. I have 15 FL lenses but no FL-F models. The FL lenses are quite good if they are in decent condition. I would say that the 28mm f/3.5 and 35mm f/2.5 models should be closed down a few stops for best performance. The 50mm f/1.8 models, 50mm f/1.4 II, 50mm f/3.5 macro, 100mm f/3.5, 135mm f/2.5 and 200mm f/3.5 are all excellent. I usually use them on an FT QL but they are also nice on an F-1.

Fine Damn System.

Some history.

 

Most of the original reflex lenses for the Canonflex were derived from the rangefinder line. This was repeated with the introduction of the FL family. The vast majority of FL lenses were originally fron the Canomatic family and only the internal mechanisms were changed. I have a 400/4.5-2 that uses a bellows R to focus. This was also originally for the RF line. Changing the lensmount at the rear made it suitable for the Canonflex series and it was continued into the FL years as were the 600, 800, and 1000 mm lenses. They can of cuorse also be used on FD mount cameras as well.

 

Ok, why were they called Super Canomatic R? I suspect it had to do with the fact that most were derived from the RF series. Anyone else have any ideas?

Uh, how about 'reflex'?