Patent: A new mirrorless camera body design with integrated grip with pass-through

[Skyscraperfan]

What I always enjoy about the square format discussions is that so many people think you can get a larger image out of the lens circle with a square crop. I barely passed geometry but I at least know that the total area won't change if you draw a square or a rectangle within the circle.

That is not true. Just think of the extreme: A rectangle that is only 1 pixel tall and the length of the rectangle is the diameter of the circle. If you increase the height, the width gets smaller and smaller until the width is only one pixel, while the height is the diameter of the circle. Those rectangles have the smallest area possible (if you do not count an area of zero) and the area grows if you go aways from those extemes. The maximum area is when height and with are the same. That is a square. If the circle has a radius of 1, the square has exactly the area of 2, while the area of a rectangle with the ratio is only 24/13, which is less than 2. A 4:3 rectangle would have the area of 48/25, which is less than 2, but more than 24/13.

The general area of a rectangle with an ratio of A:B with corners on a circle with radius 1 is (4xAxB)/(A^2+B^2). If the radius of the circle in R instead of 1, you just have to mutiply the area by R^2.

 

[amorse]

Rear scroll wheel appears to be replaced with dual scroll wheels 111a & 111b mounted on the inside of the handle

Good catch! I didn't notice that

 

[martin_p_a]

Instagram started with the square format, now not so much, fewer and fewer posts are square. But as you say yourself, most posts are direct from phones so how relevant is the ‘proper‘ camera in that? Even a square cropped 4/3 sensor gives much higher image quality than a phone, so where’s the benefit in forcing the proper camera user into shooting square full time, then they’d need to crop for the other formats Instagram supports!

Most music imagery for releases is tied into the video shoots or is a graphics image , square format is close to extinct in the commercial world.

I mean camera companies can do nothing and maybe continue losing market shares to cell phones, or can try to attract new demographics… just because now most images posted on Instagram are from cell phone doesn’t mean that it’s impossible or futile trying to have a bigger proportion of images from dedicated cameras, but then they need to address friction points people have with cameras they don’t have with cell phones.

As for forcing people to crop in post, if the orientation is handled in metadata, then that’s a non issue. It would act the same way it does now if you were to go crop a picture that already has a crop; it would display in portrait or landscape (however you set it when shooting) then if you opened the crop tool, it would show you the additional pixels captured. Unless you shot jpeg, the orientation crop, just like the color, wouldn’t be baked in.

We probably listen to very different music then, cause most of what I listen to has photography-based cover art that isn’t derived from a music video.

 

[martin_p_a]

That’s just what a new high-end, square ‘fuller frame’ sensor camera needs – a dedicated Instagram button. Great idea!

Of course, Canon tried something like that once, and never again.

View attachment 199556

But I’m sure it would succeed on a much more expensive model, with an Instagram button instead of a Facebook button.


It was a tongue-in-cheek argument, but thanks for playing.

I don’t know why you feel the need to be this condescending…

I never said it needed to be a high-end model. Also, obviously, just putting a button to publish photos directly to social media is a half-assed proposition. Most people, I assume, want to, at minimum, put filters on their pictures before posting, or do more extensive edits, and write a caption. If the camera can’t handle that, than the phone is still a more seamless tool. Just because as photographers we are used to the UI as it is, and the limitations of the UX and the more involved workflow doesn’t mean it can’t be improved and be made more appealing and practical for newcomers. Complacency is what leads to irrelevancy. Sears (in Canada at least) used to be big with their catalogue, but missed all the important societal changes and barely tried to adapt, and it doesn’t exist anymore.

If you want your argument to come off as tongue-in-cheek then you should write it as such.

 

[privatebydesign]

I mean camera companies can do nothing and maybe continue losing market shares to cell phones, or can try to attract new demographics… just because now most images posted on Instagram are from cell phone doesn’t mean that it’s impossible or futile trying to have a bigger proportion of images from dedicated cameras, but then they need to address friction points people have with cameras they don’t have with cell phones.

As for forcing people to crop in post, if the orientation is handled in metadata, then that’s a non issue. It would act the same way it does now if you were to go crop a picture that already has a crop; it would display in portrait or landscape (however you set it when shooting) then if you opened the crop tool, it would show you the additional pixels captured. Unless you shot jpeg, the orientation crop, just like the color, wouldn’t be baked in.

We probably listen to very different music then, cause most of what I listen to has photography-based cover art that isn’t derived from a music video.

There will never be a camera to rival the phone camera market, unless it has phone functionality in it, ergo it becomes a phone with a camera in it! The small and poor IQ P&S market is long since dead, the camera manufacturers can’t compete with the R&D that the big tech companies have and for most people most of the time the images they get out of their phones is more than good enough. Heck there are a lot of you tubers with millions of followers that use phone footage most of the time.

The big three have all said they see the future of the ‘camera’ market (meaning their businesses) as fewer sales but much more expensive, and that is where they are all heading.

The cover art, where it has elements of photographic images in, wasn’t shot on a square format sensor. That was my point. In the past it was. There is practically zero commercial use for the square format, that was all I was trying to say, whereas in the past there were one or two niches based on it.

 

[TAF]

That’s just what a new high-end, square ‘fuller frame’ sensor camera needs – a dedicated Instagram button. Great idea!

Of course, Canon tried something like that once, and never again.

View attachment 199556

But I’m sure it would succeed on a much more expensive model, with an Instagram button instead of a Facebook button.


It was a tongue-in-cheek argument, but thanks for playing.

It could replace the "Rate" button.

Is there anyone who uses that button?

I sometimes wonder if it is even hooked up (rather like the street crossing buttons, that are not always real).

Still waiting for that one to be reprogrammable...unless, of course, its fake.

 

[Chig]

It would work with an APS-C sensor though. It could be 24x24 mm and there would be enough space for the pins. Of course that could mean that you would need to use a full frame lens on your APS-C body, as APS-C lenses might still have that rectangular cutout.

The 3:2 format wastes quite a lot of area of the image circle. For a given circle that largest rectangle with all corners on the circle is a square. 4:3 for example is closer to q square and therefore uses more of the image circle.

If wish Canon had found a way to place the pins outside the image circle. The could be in the mount for example. Than we could have any screen ratio we want. For Instagram for example I could use a 5:4 ratio that gives you the largest images there. At each ratio the corners would be at different points of the circle. So each ratio would catch some pixels that other ratios would not catch. So it would be better than just using 3:2 and then cropping to the required ratio. 4:3 for example may be less wide that 3:2, but at the same time the height grows a little.

If the technology for producing sensors is already there for years, I wonder if it would really be expensive to make them a little bigger.

A 27mm diameter circular sensor for an aps-c R7 body would be ideal and it would be mostly used with full frame lenses of course for wlidlife/sports.

You could select landscape , portrait or square and the camera could keep the selected aspect automatically level however you hold the camera (I find when I'm shooting the camera is often slightly tilted and I have to level up every image afterwards which is a nuisance). The raw data for the whole circle would be recorded too so you could change the aspect later in your computer.
Sometimes you may want to keep the whole circle for a print too.

 

[Chig]

It could replace the "Rate" button.

Is there anyone who uses that button?

I sometimes wonder if it is even hooked up (rather like the street crossing buttons, that are not always real).

Still waiting for that one to be reprogrammable...unless, of course, its fake.

The rate button is reprogrammable , you can change it to protect instead

 

[Emyr Evans]

The rate button is reprogrammable , you can change it to protect instead

I use it for voice memos and playback.

 

[martin_p_a]

The cover art, where it has elements of photographic images in, wasn’t shot on a square format sensor. That was my point. In the past it was. There is practically zero commercial use for the square format, that was all I was trying to say, whereas in the past there were one or two niches based on it.

Ah, ok. Of course, it’s being shot on whatever camera is available and popular right now. But if, say, the Canon Q5 with QF mount and square sensor was to be released in 2087, cover art could be shot on it, and landscapes and portrait could be shot then cropped; the same way today we shoot in portrait or landscape then crop to square when needed.

 

[usern4cr]

Hey - I just thought of a new way to "beat a dead horse"!

There is another crazy way that you could have a future RF body rotate the existing 3:2 sensor to take FF 3:2 portraits and be compatible with ALL RF (& EF lenses)! What crazy idea is that, you might ask? "All you have to do" (ha!) is to rotate the sensor IBIS module 90 degrees, AND rotate the entire R mount and shutter assembly on the body 90 degrees which would rotate the lens so that all the optics are absolutely the same. Crazy enough? Well, a determined engineer might be able to do this and make a body size somewhere inbetween an R5 and R3, and then there's no dual grip needed. If you want to avoid the rotating motor & preserve battery life, make the R mount / shutter / IBIS module a single rotating component that the user can press a release button and manually twist 90 degrees. You could leave the EVF alone, or rotate it too, or (better yet) make a square EVF. Probably leave the back LCD untouched since it's often not used when taking the photo anyway, or make it square, too. While they're at it, add a pair of Arca-Swiss grooves (or a new Canon set of tiny reinforced quick-release indentations ) on the bottom edges for quick release tripod mounting, and you'd never need a tripod quick release plate or an "L bracket" again! Woo-hoo!

Until then (AKA "never" ), I'll just rotate by hand my R5!

 

[Loswr]

Ah, ok. Of course, it’s being shot on whatever camera is available and popular right now. But if, say, the Canon Q5 with QF mount and square sensor was to be released in 2087, cover art could be shot on it, and landscapes and portrait could be shot then cropped; the same way today we shoot in portrait or landscape then crop to square when needed.

Yes, shoot the square picture and decide on the framing later. Sort of like shooting all focal planes at once then choosing the focal depth later. Yet another innovation yet that could help those complacent camera makers avoid the fate of Sears.

By the way, what ever happened to Lytro, anyway? Oh, that’s right.

 

[martin_p_a]

Yes, shoot the square picture and decide on the framing later. Sort of like shooting all focal planes at once then choosing the focal depth later. Yet another innovation yet that could help those complacent camera makers avoid the fate of Sears.

By the way, what ever happened to Lytro, anyway? Oh, that’s right.

By all means, let’s use the example of a startup with the implementation of an idea that wasn’t fully baked yet. If the technology was mature enough and the implementation made it useful, maybe it would’ve made its way to modern cameras. You’re just reusing the same "tongue-in-cheek" argument you used before. I’m sure many said the same thing when the first nascent implementation of eye AF was introduced and wasn’t working as well as it does today.

I had heard that photography forums have a certain reputation… I just asked a question. There is an intelligent way to explain why you think something is not the best solution, or that you think the downsides outweigh the benefits, and to have a conversation about it. But some choose to be pedantic or patronizing instead.

 

[Loswr]

By all means, let’s use the example of a startup with the implementation of an idea that wasn’t fully baked yet. If the technology was mature enough and the implementation made it useful, maybe it would’ve made its way to modern cameras. You’re just reusing the same "tongue-in-cheek" argument you used before. I’m sure many said the same thing when the first nascent implementation of eye AF was introduced and wasn’t working as well as it does today.

I had heard that photography forums have a certain reputation… I just asked a question. There is an intelligent way to explain why you think something is not the best solution, or that you think the downsides outweigh the benefits, and to have a conversation about it. But some choose to be pedantic or patronizing instead.

The idea of a square sensor has been discussed many, many times in the last decade-plus on this forum, and no doubt on others. But your analogies of autofocus, on-the-fly ISO changes, and OIS/IBIS, are not relevant, because they were new technologies. A square sensor is not a new idea, it existed when we called sensors film…and it was far from the most popular format then.

So your question pertains to an idea that is not novel on these forums, and more importantly not novel in the photography market – where it was not appreciably successful.

If the reputation of photography forums is one of low tolerance for inanity, then I’m guilty as charged.

 

[entoman]

I use it for voice memos and playback.

That's what I use it for too.

 

[unfocused]

It could replace the "Rate" button.

Is there anyone who uses that button?

I sometimes wonder if it is even hooked up (rather like the street crossing buttons, that are not always real).

Still waiting for that one to be reprogrammable...unless, of course, its fake.

I use it all the time. After a big play as I’m chimping to see if I got the shot I star the best one. During halftimes and after the game I run through the captures and star the best ones. Much faster than doing it on the computer later and saves me a ton of time not having to cull through 3000 frames waiting for the computer to render them.

I’ve even used ratings to ID players I need shots of. Five stars for #38, four for #7 etc. then I can filter for those players.

Even during other events I’ll often rate shots. It sounds like you’ve never shot on a deadline.

 

[Bonich]

Very good idea but I think you have to turn the lens with the sensor due to the contacts between lens and body! But just that might be possible.

Why not just turning the sensor?
Yes, lens bends have to be adopted ...

 

[mb66energy]

Why not just turning the sensor?
Yes, lens bends have to be adopted ...

The rectangular format of the sensor makes way to the contacts for camera-lens data communication. If you turn the sensor it will be partly screened by the lens contact array (at least in FF cameras) - so you have to turn the lens with the sensor and the contact array:

https://www.canonrumors.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/eosr5r6.png

It is maybe just some vignetting of the 1 or 2 mm but I think this might be annoying. Or we need a new lens mount RF2 with rearranged contacts ...

For APS-C or Super35 it will work (while not so important for Super35 video).

 

[DBounce]

I think this design makes a lot of sense. One of the biggest sources of heat in the Eos R5 is the memory cards. By isolating them in the handgrip it should greatly contribute to a cooler running camera.

The truth is, barring a totally new technology, like optical circuit boards, a radical redesign of the camera body would seem a necessary measure to allow for the high levels of performance that this cameras will no doubt be capable of providing.
In all honesty, this is the most interesting thing I’ve seen in the mirrorless market in years. If it brings with it killer specs… and I suspect it will, then I’m definitely adding one to my collection.

 

[Franklyok]

Are next generation R1 series going to be so big battery suckers , that it would be good idea to separate hot batteries (in the grips ) from motherboard.

2 batteries, 1 per grip?