Canon is at it again with this form factor and finding more ways to combat the most obscure heat problems you can imagine. Why heat is an issue, is aptly described in this part of the patent application. When a user takes a picture while holding a digital camera, image blur may occur in the photographed image due to camera shake or the like. One known method for reducing such image shake is to oscillate (translate or rotate) a unit that supports the image sensor within a plane approximately perpendicular to the imaging optical axis depending on the amount of shake…
Author: Richard
Part of me was thinking to myself that Canon’s lens releases have been very sluggish, or at least they just “felt” that way. So I decided to take a look at just how Canon did in their history from the EF mount onwards. So armed with Excel and Canon Camera Museum (honestly, if you haven’t spent a few hours there yet, you really need to do so), I went to work. Having grabbed all the data I plotted out just how many lenses Canon has developed over the years (232 so far), and wanted to see if the rate looked…
Today, two more patent applications discussing quad-pixel auto-focus sensors have been published by the Japan Patent Office. The first patent application 2023-167634 deals with the fact that scan times will vary between row and column scanning, which could lead to inaccurate auto-focus performance. Many conventional image sensors give priority to reading out signals in either the row direction or the column direction, and then move on to reading out the next row or column. For example, when reading out row by row and sequentially shifting the rows to be read out, the pixels in each row are read out at the…
A patent application (2023-166831) from Canon has just been released for improved cooling for a small form factor camera, that also includes IBIS. The form factor that Canon describes seems to be quite similar to that of the Canon R5C, but smaller. Originally I was going to suggest this was for a cinema camera, but nowhere in the application does Canon specifically mention video. It’s safe to assume though, that this amount of cooling would atypically only be necessary for shooting video – so you can draw your own conclusions. From the patent application, Canon specifically mentions IBIS as being…
In this patent application (JP2023-166867) Canon looks to improve the performance and accuracy of a Quad Pixel autofocus capable sensor. If you have not been following sensor developments, Canon right now splits the pixel in half and uses the difference in the signal from the one half and the other half to determine how far away the focus is. Using this information Canon can calculate the distance the lens has to move to focus on the target at that pixel. However, this method is prone to be very inaccurate if the lines of contrast that you are focusing on, are…
Gordon from CameraLabs has done a great review of the Voigtlander 50mm F1.0 Nokton RF. Yes, that’s an F-One-Point-Zero. Of course, the only reason it’s allowed on our precious RF mount legally is that it’s manual focus, so, at F1.0, that’s going to provide some challenges. But if you grew up with manual focus lenses or want to jump into that world for the first time, perhaps this smaller lens is right for you. How much smaller? Quite a bit actually. The Voigtlander is a little smaller than the Canon EF 50mm F1.2L, so shown below is a comparison just…
Do you remember those two patent applications here and here that we talked about Canon looking at doing motorized tilt and shift with the possibility of fine AF control as well? Well, those patent applications were based on a different kind of tilt-shift lens, which involved moving elements instead of shifting and swinging the entire lens. Finally we see a patent application (Japan 2023-162714) detailing one of these tilt-shift lenses. In this patent application, we have a full spread of TS-R lenses. Enough to even make Craig happy. They all seem to be in the telephoto range, so I wouldn’t…
Gordon from CameraLabs has always been one of my favorite content creators and reviewers throughout the years and I love the fact that he circles back and reviews the older gear to remind us of just how far we’ve come. I remember when the D30 came out, I was still rocking my EOS-3 at the time and thinking I’d never go to digital. Film for life. Basically, I was this guy, with a little more hair at the time. Ultimately, I gave in. But the D30 wasn’t my first digital camera (the Canon 20D was my first) as I gave…
In a move that should surprise literally no one, Canon Japan has added the Canon RF 24-105 F2.8L IS USM Z and the Canon RF 200-800mm f/6.3-9 IS USM to the short supply list. Canon Japan states for both of these lenses that they plan on shipping the items in sequence, and delivery may take longer than usual. Odds are if Canon Japan is facing a preorder crunch this quickly other regions will be quick to follow. We strongly urge you to get on the preorder list if you have an urgent need for either one of these lenses. Preorder…
On December 13th, Canon will have a presentation at IEDM (International Electron Devices Meeting) on a new sensor that they have developed. Image-sensors-world first discovered this snippet; Canon will introduce a new twisted photodiode CIS structure – 6 µm pixel pitch – enabling all-directional autofocus for high speed and accuracy and 95 dB DR. Twisted photodiodes seemed to be photodiodes with a bilayer graphene/silicon hybrid waveguide. The idea is that it makes the photodiodes more efficient and also it has an insanely fast response time. It seems a lot of work around these is for fiber optic communications, but Canon…