why Canon's L lenses below 70 mm aren't white?

[kelly_flanigan1]

The ancient 1000 and 2000mm Nikkors were lite grey/white, Canon copied them. Nikon copied Exakta, with their light colored mirror super telephotos of the 1950's. Exakta copied the 1930's amatuer telescoper makers, who copied the pros lite colored telescope tubes

[chrisjb]

Hi, I`ve used a couple of black 500mm lenses for events like cricket & surf carnivals, after 3~4 hrs on a 40deg C day, they are almost untouchable. How hot do these big whites get, surely besides marketing the white must have some practability?

[yann_r.]

Yes... I can't believe that's at the origin only marketing, looks so *simple*!

[ben_hutcherson]

I believe that the first white was the FD 300mm 2.8L. This lens used a fluorite element. The characteristics of fluorite can change with heat, so they painted it white to prevent it from being affected so much.

 

Most of the white FD teles also focused past infinity for this same reason.

 

Nikon used ED glass in place of fluorite, which does not have the same problem, and therefore there's no reason for their lenses to painted white.

 

I have to agree that it now is probably just as much marketing as anything else, although there are a handful of EF lenses that still have fluorite elements.

[yakim_peled1]

Not all white lenses have fluorite elements e.g. 100-400 IS. It's a marketing gimmick, and a very good one. BTW, the colour issue is not mentioned in EF lens work III (I have the 2005 edition). I wonder why.

 

Happy shooting,

Yakim.