Canon's new Blue Goo

[[email protected]]

I'm curious about the stuff that Canon used in the new 35mm II that it calls "BR" and is - depending on whom you ask - some sort of solid element placed between to others in a group; or instead some sort of goo that sits between them.

The answer won't affect my lust for this lens, but I'm curious if - now that the lens is out in the wild - someone has determined what the heck the stuff is. I would have thought that there would be a patent on it that would be pretty specific about how it works. And, importantly, I am hoping to coin the "Blue Goo" term and spread its usage to help the Canon marketing people lighten up.

Perhaps Roger C. can drill into one of the hopelessly broken lenses he'll inevitably find coming through his rental desk. Suggestion: when you do, film it like "alien autopsy." Your blog editor will love you for that.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I'm not sure why you think its blue goo? Its a optical element that refracts blue light btter than regular optical glass. It is a organic material (which I believe is a form of plastic resin that is molded and polished).

http://www.canon.com/news/2015/aug27e.html

 

[[email protected]]

I ask out of a few different elements of curiosity. One element interesting me is where this fits in relative to lens research. There has been patented research on fluid optics, allowing for lens shape to be controlled and dynamically. This isn't that, but I was curious to see if this was indeed a fluid element within a group, which it could be - despite the raw material being shown as a powder. I think Roger Cicala referred to the phase of the material being unknown in his initial blog post, and my brain keyed off of that.

The implications for a small element - fluid or otherwise - that eliminates color aberrations is that lenses can be made both better and SMALLER. Lots of elements go into correcting this stuff. When you see the new great lenses we've had coming out between Canon, Tamron, Sigma and Zeiss, the sizes and weights have been increasing at a rapid clip.

Whether this is a technology that is generally applicable is the biggest question I have in my mind. And how that is applied will have implications on the need for many design compromises that have been generally accepted to date. When lens designers needn't worry about the different spectra of light hitting different places, I'd imagine there are lots of other issues that they can be freed to focus on. Interestingly, the new Canon 35 II didn't really show any weight savings versus its competition.

I have the idea that knowing more about the Blue Goo would allow me to get excited about what those other improvements will be over time.