We just went into a long discussion over why reducing heat from IBIS units is a good and absolutely necessary thing for Canon to be looking at, so I think if you need some background, have a go with this patent application here. Briefly, a good overall point when it comes to image sensors is .. heat is bad. There’s a reason why Astro cameras are directly cooled, and that’s because the colder the sensor is, the less noise. Therefore it’s safe to assume that as the sensor operates, it becomes hotter and image quality degrades. So Canon (and others)…
Author: Richard
As sensors get more complicated, faster, and also more stacked there is more heat generated from the sensor itself. As fabrication design rules get smaller, for normal chips that reduces the size of the chip which reduces the resistance to electric current, and usually heat – which is why as design rules get smaller, chips tend to get faster because designers have more heat headroom to play around with. But for a sensor, the size of the chip doesn’t change and sensors are very sensitive to heat. As the more heat, the more noise the sensor output has. So as…
This was originally part of the article on the EOS-M discontinued, but then it grew to the point it made sense to unpack it into its own article. You can read about the EOS-M being quietly discontinued here. Be warned, there is not a lot said in this article that is pro-Canon, but I’ll do my best to be objective. Personally, I had almost every single EOS-M camera (don’t get me started on the complete disaster the M3 was). The only ones I never had were the M50 and M50 Mark II, amusingly, the most successful EOS-M cameras. I took…
Canon dipped its toe into the mirrorless world with the EOS-M back in July 2012, over 11 years ago. Today quietly, Canon Japan has all the EOS-M cameras as being discontinued, a sign from the world’s largest camera manufacturer that the system is no longer available. We all knew that Canon would stop developing the EOS-M system once the RF-S was made available and that sooner or later the cameras would be all discontinued. That day is here now. If we look at Canon Japan’s website, we see that all the EOS-M camera bodies are now discontinued, including the popular…
In this Canon Patent Application (2023-153460) Canon discusses both the need and the method of changing focusing during shift or tilt operations. As with the other patent applications in this series, I should first mention that the tilting and shifting discussed seem to be internal and done by moving optical elements. That question has been asked or commented on a few times – so it’s not your traditional tilt-shift lens. This patent discusses changing the AF point via the touch panel that will change focus along the focal plane, even if it’s tilted which can be really handy. We have…
10 years ago Canon announced they had purchased Austin Texas’s Molecular Imprints Inc, and this was a purchase that I who is always looking at the tech side of Canon was excited about. I was very interested in seeing if Canon could make something with this technology. It had an insane amount of promise at the time. First, we should do a brief outline of the difference between nanoimprint lithography (NIL) and regular photolithography machines. A normal photolithography machine can be simplistically explained as it beams light through a large pattern that is reduced in size by optics onto the…
This patent application (2023-149130)shows some interesting and fairly simplistic optics for 70, 75, and 85mm primes. The 85mm primes are unlikely since we already have the Canon RF 85mm F2.0 IS STM. It should be noted that the element designs in this patent application are far simpler than the 85mm F2.0. Most likely because of the lack of a macro capability and quite possibly optical quality as well. But with the Canon RF 85mm F2.0 only $599.00, you’d have to think that’s as low as Canon would go. I don’t see the utility then of this patent application, outside of…
Yesterday when the news broke about the Canon RF 10-20mm, I immediately did our comparison of the Canon RF 10-20mm and the Canon EF 11-24mm. Let’s just say the preliminary look of this lens makes it look like a home run for Canon if you shoot super-ultra-wide frequently. As I mentioned in that article, if you are into the super-ultra-wide (hey, it’s not for everyone), this is the lens to get. This is *the* super ultra wide statement lens from Canon. You can get on that pre-order list here. While I was doing all that, many sites started to preview…
One of the issues with a totally silent camera is the fact that we have very little in the way of feedback when an operation occurs. If you don’t want that incessant beep and are using an electronic shutter, it’s easy to miss that an image has been taken, or that another operation has occurred. This may be even more problematic if the R1 according to some rumors has a completely electronic shutter or global shutter with no mechanical shutter assembly. Canon has explored haptic vibration feedback for its cameras in prior patent applications, but this patent application (2023-147064) seems…
Before you read what I’m writing here, I’ll just say one thing. If you love going really wide and even wider and have been waiting for your dream lens on the RF mount, then don’t waste time finishing reading this article before you preorder. Simply. Do. It. Now. I remember a time when Canon’s ultra-wide lenses were their weakness as a matter of fact it was downright embarrassing, it was so bad we were adapting Nikon ultra wides onto our EF cameras. Now it seems Canon creates amazing super ultra wide lenses with bravado..Because only we can. I am critical…