New transparent mirror patent on photorumors.com

[funkboy]

here's the link

The idea is that an EF-s lens would really cram the rear element up inside this thing.  I don't fully understand the implications of the patent, but the mirror element may actually serve to shorten the registration distance slightly.  If that's the case then the design is a truly genius way of tackling the DSLR size problem while maintaining legacy compatibility.

Do notice that the silhouette of the camera body has no flash overhang as in traditional EOS DSLRs.  The mirror also seems to be a lot larger (proportional to the sensor) than in conventional cameras.

I'm going to gloat a bit & mention that a week ago I said that they'd do it this way :-)  Well, the fact that it'll have a mirror and look like a "bastard child of the Powershot G and modern EOS cameras" anyway...  The older "mount adapter" patent certainly led me to believe that they'd create a new mount with a shorter registration distance (& it may have been a design at some point) in order to design a camera system from scratch around an APS-C sized sensor.  A lot of patents are just design lab exercises & never even make it to the prototype stage...

It's also worth mentioning that this isn't the first transparent mirror patent they've filed recently...

[Mt Spokane Photography]

It has nothing to do with a new mirror.  It is software they are patenting.  Two of the problems with pellix mirrors are

Abberation from light passing thru a very thin piece of glass which can warp easily

ghosting, where reflections from both the front and rear surface of the mirror result in a faint double image.  Sonys mirrorless cameras had this issue, but it is better corrected in the newest model.

Its all done in software.

Here is a better translation of the problem.

However, since the thin film mirror or the glass mirror of 0.2 mm or less which is a delicate optic is used in the patent documents 1, handling is difficult. The thin film mirror itself is expensive, and if it is going to constitute the mechanism in which a thin film mirror or a glass mirror of 0.2 mm or less is held, maintaining profile irregularity, it is difficult to provide a small and inexpensive camera.
[0006]
Then, this invention provides a small and inexpensive imaging device, controlling image degradation generated by the internal reflection of a half mirror.

[funkboy]

Thanks for the better translation, it makes a lot more sense now.

Do you think that the mirrors in the patent illustrations are significantly larger than in existing APS-C DSLRs, or am I just reading too much into this?

[Mt Spokane Photography]

You can read the patent itself, which is translated into english by a much better translator than the google translator.



Go to this link  http://www4.ipdl.inpit.go.jp/Tokujitu/tjsogodbenk.ipdl

Enter Code A and Document number 2011-239063

The text explaining how it works is far too long to post in this blog and by far exceeds the allowable amount of text.

To answer your question, nothing in the drawing has any sort of scale.  Its drawn to make it easy to see the parts under discussion.

The description of how the invention works as shown in the example drawings is very long and complex.  What they are actually patenting is a method of eliminating abberations and ghosts by calculating a "Transfer Function" which will be incorporated in the image processing software, presumably in the camera.

They keep refering to a low cost mirrorless camera, lets hope that low cost to them does not mean $10,000 or less