Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Colour of Lenses.

This is topic Colour of Lenses. in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 12-14-2015, 04:47 PM:

Lenses used to be silver, for a long time most have been gold, but a few are either red or blue. Is there any significance in these colours?

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 12-14-2015, 08:19 PM:

I'm going to go out on a limb here, Stephen, since I'm not a lens expert,
but I believe the different colors are simply to differentiate between
manufacturers, or between different models of lenses by the same manufacturer.

That's my best guess. I don't think there's any "technical" reason.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 12-15-2015, 06:12 AM:

There is zero technical reason...they are that way for esthetics and identification. Schneider went to "golden" lenses pretty much when they went to multi-coated lenses and stayed that way up until the VERY last generation when they went back to a black scheme (with a grey ID ring). I was told the change was actually a cost thing...it was cheaper to produce the black versions than to maintain the exact golden color.

ISCO (now owned by Schneider, again), did use red to signify their Ultra-Star Plus lenses that are inherently more light efficient than their golden predecessors the Ultra, Ultra-Star. On the anamorphic side, they used blue for their "Blue-Star" lens to signify it was their best (6-element versus 5 on the Ultra Star or the 4 element of the Ultra/Kiptar).