Patent: Large LCD equipped mirrorless camera

Canon Rumors Guy

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Canon News has uncovered a patent showing a mirrorless camera with an LCD display that nearly covers the entire rear of the camera.
This patent application shows how Canon could replace the rear wheel on the back of cameras. Ridges in the screen help with tactile feedback as you change settings on the rear of the camera.
I don’t see this as something we’re going to see any time soon, but it’s cool to see Canon trying new things in ergonomics.

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Is a big screen cheaper than physical buttons?
Big screens at high resolutions are cheap. Example: look at every cheap android pay-as-you-go phone that is less than 50 bucks. And it has less physical manufacturing costs for the rest of the body because of the simplicity of not having lots of buttons and controls to engineer and assemble. Un-intuitively, this also means it would probably be more weather resistant.
 
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Yes, a lot cheaper.

Big screens at high resolutions are cheap. Example: look at every cheap android pay-as-you-go phone that is less than 50 bucks. And it has less physical manufacturing costs for the rest of the body because of the simplicity of not having lots of buttons and controls to engineer and assemble. Un-intuitively, this also means it would probably be more weather resistant.

Thanks! I guess it's a function of my age, but I vaguely imagined they're more expensive.
 
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maves

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It's a amazing how many people are dismissing this. I hardly doubt they'll be targeting the 1Dx market... It's essentially like using your phone camera, and people seem to be using them pretty well without complaining about the lack of buttons or tactile feedback.

A big display and hopefully app connectivity, this could be a real winner for editing and sharing on the fly.

If anything I'm surprised it has a view finder.
 
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jolyonralph

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This is excellent and has so much potential.

It should be dual OS with Android and, ideally, 4G/5G connectivity at least as an option because Canon still can't get their act together with wifi/bluetooth sharing that works seamlessly - for example currently every time you turn off to change lens you have to manually reconnect again - meaning I usually just risk changing lenses with the camera turned on rather than go through all the pain of reconnecting with the Canon app.

It's the 2020s, seamless connectivity from a camera should be working by now.

And imagine a camera with built-in and seamless integration with Dropbox and other streaming services, which as soon as it detects a known wifi network will automatically connect and start syncing your files in the background.

Android is good for all these things, but NOT for basic shooting because it takes far too long to start up. You'd want the camera still to turn on and rapidly be able to take photos meaning the standard Canon OS would still be needed too.
 
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jolyonralph

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Maybe Canon should spend some time and resources to patent a way to remove such an absurd requirement...

You'd think... Still, in all the countless times I've changed lenses without turning off first I've never once had a problem beyond the very occasional error which needs me to disconnect/reconnect the lens.
 
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Something for a new rebel body to make them more familiar and appealing to people that have only used a smartphone. I can see this succeeding with some of my friends that just wouldn’t know how to take a picture without their phone now.
Canon needs to add a vertical grip to it for vertical video shooters.
 
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Thanks! I guess it's a function of my age, but I vaguely imagined they're more expensive.
LCD panels are ridiculously cheap these days. Heck, you can get a decent 4k 50 inch tv for less than 300 bucks. OLEDs and very high speed displays are more expensive, which is why the viewfinder on the M series is sort of choppy, even on the newest M6 which has the speed on sensor to keep up with a higher speed viewfinder. I expect the viewfinder on the new R cameras to be one of the more expensive components of it. Once they start making them in quantity though it'll be just another part and will most likely trickle down to other cheaper cameras. Larger versions of those same viewfinders will be driving the viewfinders in VR gaming systems, and we are just seeing those become more mainstream. (they will be much more mainstream when the next generation of playstation/xbox come out which will be able to drive them natively)
 
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