A single red line running down the lens barrel — This is the hallmark of an L-series lens, a promise of professional quality in image reproduction performance, operability and reliability.
The “L” stands for “Luxury”, and it is only bestowed on lenses that employ extremely high-quality optical materials, including fluorite and high-performance aspheric lenses. Canon introduced the first lens in the “L” category in 1978. Since then, the advances introduced with this lens have been passed on to the EF series and now the RF series of lenses.
In this section we will discuss the characteristics of L-series lenses, including the history of their development, and the various aspects of the technological development and production of the RF L lens lineup.