The Making of a Canon 500mm f/4L Lens

I didn't see this posted yet (apologies if it has been).

http://www.petapixel.c​om …f-a-canon-500mm-f4l-lens/

I've seen this before and I'm always amazed at the amount of human labor that is involved.

wow...that was incredible to watch...thanks for posting this. Geeesh...this was posted a year ago and only one response?

It was probably posted by others in the past, as I 've seen it somewhere before.

That pretty much explains why they cost what they do.

That was indeed a pretty cool video. It appears to be a fairly old video (early 1990's maybe?), as evidenced by the cheesy quality and the old-school computer monitors One wonders how much the process/equipment has changed since then.

It does beg some additional questions. How do the processes differ for their non-L lenses? Are the differences between various lenses a question of different processes, or different materials (or both)? And, they talk about how putting the lenses together requires "a great deal of technical skill." This, combined with the fact it's done by hand, suggests to me that it's quite possible to have a "good copy" of a lens or a "bad copy" of a lens, depending on how well the assembler does his/her job. Obviously if you're making hundreds of lenses by hand, you're not going to be equally attentive/skilled/mist​ake-free on every single one.

Pretty interesting - I got a kick out of the narrator saying "Canon 500mm f/4 IS USM lens" over and over.

canadave wrote in post #14327184
That was indeed a pretty cool video. It appears to be a fairly old video (early 1990's maybe?), as evidenced by the cheesy quality and the old-school computer monitors One wonders how much the process/equipment has changed since then.

It does beg some additional questions. How do the processes differ for their non-L lenses? Are the differences between various lenses a question of different processes, or different materials (or both)? And, they talk about how putting the lenses together requires "a great deal of technical skill." This, combined with the fact it's done by hand, suggests to me that it's quite possible to have a "good copy" of a lens or a "bad copy" of a lens, depending on how well the assembler does his/her job. Obviously if you're making hundreds of lenses by hand, you're not going to be equally attentive/skilled/mist​ake-free on every single one.

Each one is tested to ensure it meets the set standards...if it doesn't I'm sure they rework it, not pack it and ship it.

VERY impressive.
Wonder how far down the lens lineup do they start making them all by machine rather than by "skilled technicians"

Numenorean wrote in post #14327602
Each one is tested to ensure it meets the set standards...if it doesn't I'm sure they rework it, not pack it and ship it.

I know what you mean, but what I'm getting at is, there will be some variance, regardless. Some lenses may "meet the standard", and some may barely meet the standard, and some may far exceed the standard, and some may fall juuuuust short of the standard and be shipped anyway because it's sooo close and it's easier to ship it rather than junk everything.

I'm not sure how much they can "rework" something like that, given the construction processes they outlined. Maybe I'm wrong though.

Regardless of how old the video is, my hat is off to the technicians and the inventor of this process. Can you imagine the original flow chart to set this up?