None of my Canon lens booklets show a 300MM F/4 lens in the older "breech" FD mount. Yet a seller on ebay has listed a 300MM F/4 with S.S.C. on it. I thought only the older "breech" FD's had the S.S.C. coatings. The seller has not responded to my question, "Is this lens an older "breech" or newer bayonet(all black) FD mount." Any feedback would be helpful and appreciate any details as I am collecting "breech" lenses for my FTB-QL's.

-- kurt king (K2waaah2@texas.net), September 03, 1999

Answers

Yes there are old and new versions available. I have owned older FD 300/4 S.S.C. with BL mount and the newer FDN 300/4L with all black mount. My friend has the new mount FDN 300/4. I'm not 100% sure but I believe there was also an L version with the old mount.

As far as I know also the new versions had the S.S.C. coating but they just left the S.S.C. text out.

One additional difference was that the older version came with a hard case (at least here in Finland) while the new one came without. The reason might be that the tripod mount is so much larger in the new version that it does not fit in the case. On the other hand in the new version (FDN as they are called here) the tripod mount is much faster to remove. The new version was more expensive despite of the missing case.

I like the handling of this lens a lot. Also optically they were great but there is a clear difference between L and non-L versions especially with converters (my own opinion, based on my own simple tests).

regards VP

-- Vesa-Pekka (vesa-pekka.perakyla@sycon.fi), September 07, 1999.

The Canon Camera Museum page shows both a 300 f4 SSC and a 300 f4L in the breech mount.

All newFD lenses (all black mount) have the SSC coatings, so they left it out of the designation.

BTW the newFD mount is not really a bayonet mount. The lens mounting surface and the body mounting surface do not rotate against each other.

-- Terry Carraway (TCarraway@compuserve.com), September 07, 1999.

The 50/f 1.8 lens, and the 50/f2 lens in the "New FD Mount" are not SSC coated.

-- Joe Arnold (photoman@wfeca.net), December 11, 1999.

Joe,

Where do you get that info? Nothing I have or have seen says this.

-- Terry Carraway (TCarraway@compuserve.com), December 13, 1999.

Page 88, "How to select & use Canon SLR Cameras", by Carl Shipman, HP Books, ISBN:0-912656-56-5, copyright 1983, Fisher Publishing, Inc.

-- Joe Arnold (photoman@wfeca.net), December 13, 1999.