In the spirit of speculation: Sony high-end lenses

So, I know this is a vanity thing...but I have two questions:

A: Do you think Sony will keep the high-end lenses (particularly zoom) white?

B: Do you think Sony should keep the high-end lenses (particularly zoom) white.

I like white lenses. I have a picture of the 7D with battery grip and a white zoom (I believe the 70-200 ssm) and it's just freaking awesome looking! I've wanted a white lens ever since. And white stands out and looks professional because of Canon's zooms all over the place.

I won't really complain either way because I know it doesn't matter. But I thought it might make an interesting conversation.

--There is a benefit with the lenses being white, they are less susceptable

to thermal expansion, than black bodied lenses because white surfaces do not absorb infrared the way black surfaces do. With spacings between
highly curved ED elements and adjacent elements being critical for best

performance, the less the lens changes its "size" due to temperture changes the better. White surfaces also attract less condensation since they lose heat more slowly than black surfaces.

-Rich
E-1, 14-45mm, 40-150mm, OM 100-200mm, OM 50mm,
Meade 1000mm mirror-lens, Orion 500 f5.6.

Makes sense. I hadn't really thought about it in terms of functionality.

Wonder if Sony has.

Thanks.

Well, they have to market high end lenses first, lets focus on that first.

Yeah, I guess keep the white, I think it's best to have the option. White can be good and bad depending on what's going on.

I could actually go for something completely different. Maybe a dark grey crinkle finish.

I just hope they overall look good and have a nice consistent look to them, and overall design.

Also their is nothing wrong with talking about the look of our gear. Photography is all about how stuff looks, so why not want to have the gear look nice. Just reminds me of how I get mad at LCD makers, they make such ugly cases for their screens, yet when I mention this to others, people seam to not care. This amazes me. It's the part of the computer you stare at for hours, why would you not want it to look good.

I'm a mechanical engineer, I'm a very practical person, I don't buy junk, but I really take issue with how things look, nothing should look bad. When something is the best design, it inherently looks good, if it's ugly, it's a bad design.

This is the kind of reason why I still don't own a couch, and it took me 4 years to find a toaster.
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Will Sony and Nikon hurry up all ready and announce some stuff so Minolta users can
figure out if they Stay, Go or Curse the camera industry.

On the flip side, camera gear is typically black and mate colored to prevent glare and reflections, don't want to scare animals and such.

There are reasons to go both ways. I sorta doubt the first white lenses were white because of thermals, probably someone thought of that later. It would take a bit to see how much of a difference it really makes, there may be some but it's hard to say if it would be enough to matter. Also, the change in temperature would make a different. If it's cold, you might want a black lens to keep it warm and stop it from shrinking. But if you use room temp as the base line, the amount of temperature differences you could get would not relate to a lot of change. You have to look at some very big things going through really big temp changes to really see much, like a bridge. Still optics are sensitive, so they might see something, but if they are built for room temp, and you might go into cold or hot, one color or the other isn't going to shift things much over the other. Also the tolerance of the glass would have to be tighter then the change by thermals in the first place for it to really matter.

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Will Sony and Nikon hurry up all ready and announce some stuff so Minolta users can
figure out if they Stay, Go or Curse the camera industry.

Well, I'm not quite as bad as you, but I do like my stuff to look cool. I would go for functionality first. But if two things function about the same the look can sway me.

PhotoTraveler said:

I could actually go for something completely different. Maybe a
dark grey crinkle finish.

Click to expand...

I've thought about that too -- something to be totally distinctive. But beyond black and white it gets a bit wierd. Purple?

The KM 70-200 SSM is just beautiful lens. After I started this thread I searched around for pics of it online. Really pretty.

I hope Sony just rebadges the thing and drops the price by half.

Thanks,
C

cdnielson said:

I hope Sony just rebadges the thing and drops the price by half.

Click to expand...

lol

--
Bernard

AS rocks!
lens reviews and more on dyxum.com!

sony usually jet up the price instead.

Sony made quality optics and they don't sunbath boil oven hot under the midday Sun ..

--
Franka

Actually, the white lenses were indeed initially made for thermal reasons. Canon's early L series lenses were made from a type of glass that was not only quite soft, but very susceptible to bubbles in the glass when temperatures raised high enough. Most of the people using these lenses early on were professionals that would need them in very demanding environments like desert heat. The white barrels did indeed make a difference in the amount of heat the lens collected. Nikon also makes some of their lenses in a very light, pale grey. Nikon's glass didn't have quite the same issue with bubbling, but the barrels still get extremely hot to the touch in the same situations. Canon eventually made changes to the glass they were using and now it is more of an aesthetic reason rather than functional, and it is what they are known for. KM glass fit in there somewhere, probably more of an aesthetic reason as well.

Jonathan
--
Please visit my galleries at http://www.rocktheshot.com and http://www.katz1.com

cdnielson said:

cdnielson said:

I could actually go for something completely different. Maybe a
dark grey crinkle finish.

Click to expand...

I've thought about that too -- something to be totally distinctive.
But beyond black and white it gets a bit wierd. Purple?

Click to expand...

I used to think of color like that until I took a course on Graphical Design and learned about color theory. Almost any color per se is plausible, but every color does not have to be terribly bright. Our teacher demonstrated this by taking black, white and a few colors and mixing a single colors to various shades and various brighnesses of that color. Add more white to a color and it becomes less bright. Add more black and it becomes a darker shade.

And all sorts of tricks happened with the colors when you gradually change the brightness and shade. Blue for example has a tendency to turn slightly purple when you change its brighness, and there is no such thing as a yellow which isn't bright.

Further, we don't see colors in an absolute way. We always compare them with something else, and depending on what we compare them to they look different. We as photographers are of course familiar with this, but we can also use this effect for this here purpose.

Basically, what we wan't is a color which isn't bright and doesn't necessarily have to be a dark shade. A light shade might be preferable for mechanical purposes, but a darker shade is preferable for camo. And as we compare color with whatever is next to it, a dark and pale color might stand out clearly next to the black rubber grip, making such a color as a dark grey blue quite distinct as a trademark. Plus such a thing would absolutely REEK of professionalism. Wink-wink Hint-hint

Really? Interesting perspective - I would have thought the opposite - if it's not black or white, to me it would look targeted to the amateur/consumer market.

As far as pro colours go, I think black is still the new black.

Cellar Door said:

Plus such a thing would absolutely REEK of
professionalism. Wink-wink Hint-hint

Click to expand...

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Btw, the thing about thermal expansion is not really true anymore. Now they are making the inner chassis of lenses from materials which do not suffer from this enough to degrade picture quality.

The reason why most makers still keep their top telephotos in white finish is simply a tradition. Of course huge white lenses look pretty cool too

Indeed, expansion of material is not the problem. The main problem is the air inside the lens. There is always a circulation inside the lens. Air sections of different temperatures create "flickering", optical distortions. Homogenous temperature inside the lens is important if having huge amounts of air. That's the reason why only large lenses have this white colour.

Of course, white lenses are attractive and well-known for being professional too. Canon and Minolta uses white colour for large high-end lenses. Nikon uses a gray shade for its large lenses. It's some kind of tradition too.

Regards, Josef.

Well, but to stay competative with the other companies they would have to bring it down as it is priced higher. I expect that high end lenses from Sony will be cheaper than they were from KM because they will be more available and they should support a solid enough market to still make money. Dunno though. We'll see.

ctlai said:

sony usually jet up the price instead.

Click to expand...

you could easily sneak up on wildlife on african safaris

Well as a mathamatician who intrinsically likes solutions to be "elegant"
What toaster did you buy?
Tim

Camo might actually be cool. Oooh. You could by clip on covers for the lens in any animal print.

airdrum said:

you could easily sneak up on wildlife on african safaris

Click to expand...

Just go and get some M42 Zeiss glass if you want zebra finish! At least some versions of their 35/2.8 and 135/3.5 (probably other lenses too) have zebra stripes on their focusing barrels Does not look too nice though...

White stands out too much (which of course is what you like but..) and today with all these morons NOT letting you take pictures or thinking you're a damn pedofile, I think black is the way to go.

George