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Will we ever see a white Canon body?

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pipspeak

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Having read many threads speculating about new models, complete with joker posts that it'll come in pink, green, blue etc., and having followed the heat-related mirror box snafu of the 1D3, it got me thinking whether dSLR bodies might one day come in white as sensors get ever more, well, heat sensitive.

I never really have figured out if white lenses are white for heat absorption reasons or just for marketing. If it's heat, might pro bodies one day go the same way?
 
you know .. that would do alot of hot sunny days shooting high ISO .. internal body temperatures play a big part on noise sensitivity.

classic L styled body with red, off white and black . now that I think about it, personally I think it would look pretty bizzare though :)

however, it wouldn't be the first body not to be black silver done by canon.
 
Why, your hands will heat sink the body in hot weather.
 
pipspeak said:
I never really have figured out if white lenses are white for heat
absorption reasons or just for marketing. If it's heat, might pro
bodies one day go the same way?
Click to expand...
Canon lenses use a lot of fluorite glass. This is very temperature sensitive. The white lenses are an attempt to lower the thermal variations in hot bright weather.

Nikon used fluorite at one time however stopped this practice with their ED (extra low dispersion) glass This does not quite have the refractive power of fluorite however is harder and not as temperature sensitive. There are advantages to both glass types. From one of the web pages:
pipspeak said:
pipspeak said:
ED-series lenses are not sensitive to changes in temperature, so the problem of focus shift inherent in lenses employing calcium fluorite-crystal elements is avoided. Moreover, ED glass is hard and scratch resistant, permitting its use in exposed front and rear lens elements. Nikon's ED-series of lenses, ranging from 180mm to 1200mm, represents a major advance in photographic technology. They deliver stunning sharpness and contrast even at their large maximum apertures ED lenses are in fact so highly color-corrected that the traditional infrared focusing index is not engraved on some of them. Sharp focus extends even into the infrared wavelength range! And for the photographer used to lugging around heavy conventional telephotos ED lenses have the additional benefit of permitting the length of the lens to be reduced substantially.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
tony
http://www.tphoto.ca
 
I hope not.....it's all about fashion statement.....must have that contrast.
--
Peter

Can't put boots in the oven and call them cookies.
 
tony field said:
Canon lenses use a lot of fluorite glass. This is very temperature
sensitive. The white lenses are an attempt to lower the thermal
variations in hot bright weather.
Click to expand...
alot?

many of canon's whitish L lenses don't have a flourite element. the ones that do are atypically one element not many.

of course, since canon held the patent on growing flourite crystals, the comments from nikon seem like no surprise when you consider that. I haven't heard or seen one flourite element cracking in heat, or an L lens not working in extreme heat - all of which I've seen fear mongered about...

probably for the most part it's simply marketting, as keep in mind that canon's been growing their own crystals for 40 years now. whether or not the same issues occur now is unknown since it seems like they've managed to get the purity increased. They also assisted Takahashi in their development of high end telescope optics using flourite.

I do prefer to touch something that is whitish versus black in the blazing sunlight and also assists with AF control as canon doesn't use a looped AF. if even metal expansion occurs significantly that could throw off the AF calculations.
 
Mike_V said:
Most new motion picture cameras are now a grey colour instead of black.

It wouldn't surprise me if stills cameras follow this fashion.
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well, the T90 was dark brown .. so it's not as if they're color blind ;)
 
Dam* you beat me to it...

I was gonna say enough white dots... look all white...from a distance
 
pipspeak said:
Having read many threads speculating about new models, complete with
joker posts that it'll come in pink, green, blue etc., and having
followed the heat-related mirror box snafu of the 1D3, it got me
thinking whether dSLR bodies might one day come in white as sensors
get ever more, well, heat sensitive.
Click to expand...
I've always said that black is a stupid body and lens colour. It absorbs heat on sunny days. And when it's dark it's that much harder to find the buttons and get the dials to their right positions. Given the option of a silvery or matte white body, I'd take it in a second. I've always believed that form should follow function instead of limiting it.

However, someone, somewhere has been decided that black is the only acceptable DSLR body colour. I bet if anyone except some obscure manufacturer like Leica would try that every single review site would be moaning about the bad looks of the camera, and that would be that.

Fortunately P&S:s often come in colours that won't automatically kill them if left for a few minutes in mild sunlight.

Kind regards,
  • Henrik
--
And if a million more agree there ain't no great society
My obligatory gallery at http://www.iki.fi/leopold/Photo/Galleria/
 
Good point... many P&S cameras come in silver, although I'm not sure if that's more to do with the cool factor than anything heat related. They also come in pink, blue, green...
 
Henrik Herranen said:
I've always said that black is a stupid body and lens colour. It
absorbs heat on sunny days. And when it's dark it's that much harder
to find the buttons and get the dials to their right positions. Given
the option of a silvery or matte white body, I'd take it in a second.
I've always believed that form should follow function instead of
limiting it.

However, someone, somewhere has been decided that black is the only
acceptable DSLR body colour.
Click to expand...
In the old days (before 1990) chrome was the norm, and black was the (professionally looking) exception when it came to SLR colour. You had to pay a bit extra for the black version of those SLRs that came both in chrome and black.

David
 
Way back in 1990 Minolta introduced a white bodied 35mm camera. I remember seeing one in a local camera store. It looked damm sexy as I recall.
Follow this link.



I think they also had some white telephoto lens.
Ian
 
Thanks for the photo of the white Minolta, I had not seen that before. I agree it is much nicer looking than my black Canon unit.

Cheers,
James
--
'Curiouser and curiouser' said Alice
 
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