Canon News has uncovered a patent that shows a touch panel on the barrel of a lens. The touch panel in this patent would take over for the focus control ring on the lens for autofocus.
It is possible that such a technology could also be expanded to allowing you to choose focus points with your thumb on the lens barrel. This is an interesting ergonomic development.
From patent 2021-043294
A technique described in Patent Document 1 is known as a technique in which a user-operable touch panel is provided on an interchangeable lens (lens device) that can be attached to a camera body. The interchangeable lens described in Patent Document 1 is provided with one or two rectangular touch panels extending in the circumferential direction, and focusing or the like is performed by the user operating the touch panels.
Some LIDAR sensor would be fine to but my tests with a simple one gave me a jitter of +/- 1.5 mm (while the average was very reliable) so maybe not so easy.
Just an idea: Why not make the camera body front and maybe the handgrips inner part (which is oriented to the lens) touchy and give us lots of options how it behaves?
I am really looking forward to a 14-35 to 16-35 f4 IS lens, and I really want to fully move to RF (avoiding spending 2800€ for the 2.8)
I can’t wait for Sigma and the others to also get in the game
For one, it would make the lenes (I use the plural because if it is so great you would want it on most lenses) much more expensive.
Second, I only move the focus point around when I am shooting stationary subjects in single point. The R5/R6 tracking is so good, it is easier to use the center point as the start for tracking any subject, then recompose with the camera tracking the subject around the frame.
Third, I can't see this working well if it gets wet.
I also think it might allow for making a lens more compact but that's just a feeling. Since it could be linear or rotational in function, it could fit into a tighter space.
Inventions like this which save manufacturing costs usually end up in consumer end lenses first.
I don't understand why they don't have that.