Thanks for the visual confirmation, Tom! Looking at the image in the original Canon information, I guessed (hoped?) that the white inner ring just around the black innermost ring meant the extending portion of the barrel was white. Not that looks matter that much, but a black extension would have looked a little silly, IMO. More importantly, since the extending portion looks to be metal like the outer barrel, that speaks highly for the durability of the lens (also explains some of the weight).


Doing a little digging turned up another couple of images of a pre-production lens, one showing the extended zoom, another confirming the existence of a zoom lock. I wonder if it locks only in the retracted position like the black 70-300mm lenses, or if it can lock at any point in the zoom range...