Patent Fun
I must say reading Canon patents makes my brain feel good. What’s especially awesome about Canon and patents is they have about 50 a week!
Here’s one good enough for Ashton Kutcher.
Touchscreen DSLR!

Features (Snippet from Photography Bay)
Two simple and important adjustments that can be modified via the touchscreen are mentioned in the patent:
1. Sliding you finger across the panel in a vertical direction changes aperture values.
2. Sliding your finger across the panel in a horizontal direction changes shutter speed.
Other features contemplated by the patent that may be enabled by touch entry through the LCD include the following settings:
* Focus detection area
* Exposure correction value
* Flash adjustment correction value
* Photometry mode (i.e., metering mode)
* Drive mode
* ISO value
* Auto focus mode
* White balance mode
* Exposure correction value
Read More from Photography Bay: http://www.photographybay.com/….
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Hmmm, I wish they’d spend their money working on what counts, everything else.
You mean like spending money finding ways how to pack ever increasing amounts of pixels onto tiny sensors?
How does 36MP APS-C sound? LOL
Sounds good, can’t wait! lol
You can do it on an iPod, this was bound to happen…
Won’t work with gloves… Still good for consumer level cams.
There are ways to get touch screens to work with gloves on. You just need to sew some conductive thread in the finger tip.
they wouldn’t release this feature into their line up i hope… or at least not anytime soon. right?
Never will I use that. Touchscreens are not (yet) ready for this. You’re far more precise with a dial.
I don’t see a point excpet “OMG touch apple style I need it”-blah
I hope they won’t add it to the xxD or above camera line.
First I thought, ‘wow that’s a nice feature’.
Soon after that I thought, this sucks.
Your cheeck will constantly be in the way
You can’t change the aperture while looking through the viewfinder whereas you can easily do this with your fingers by turning the wheel.
Hope Canon will think twice if they will introduce this feature…
I wonder if this is to somehow start a patent infringement case with Red, they announced touch focus control on some of their screens and remotes a while ago…hope they were smart enough to patent it before announcing it to the world.
Urgh… I hate this gimmick that is slapped on every new consumer electronic now-a-days, please keep it off REAL electronics like our DSLRS, fiddly touch screen is the last thing a rushed/pressured photographer needs.
Put it in the powershots and leave the DSLR’s with the superior interface.
This is a dumb idea. I second the comment about not being able to adjust aperture while looking through the viewfinder. Keep working on ISO performance and autofocus, not gimmicks.
I suspect it’s a feature you could turn on or off, but you’re right, you wouldn’t want your cheek changing settings on you while looking through the viewfinder and shooting.
Nothing like schmutzing up a nice clean, viewable screen with finger oils and potato chip crumbs ;-)
I dont like the idea too, but we can be creative for entry level products.
be it with Miror or mirror-less new camera, and Live view AF is much better. Then You can tap on sth to focus, or zoom in to see 10x view.
I cant still imagine how would i work without dials….
I guess they got this idea after people complained to canon that their cheeks allows rubs against the LCD screen. So they thought that a touch LCD will make people learn not to rub their faces in the lcd or their settings would change!
Not necessarily… If they put a resistive touchscreen in the camera it will still work wit gloves :).
Most interesting is that you can do without a lot of buttons, if you can set most things on the screen.
ewww do not want!
Don’t they have that already on P&S camera. SD980. You can focus with the screen hehe.
http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=145&modelid=19023#ModelFeaturesAct
If they had a touchscreen over the led display on the top that could be programmable to control various features it *might* be useful. On the LCD for a dslr, no thank you.
Sliding your finger?
Sliding your nose!
It’s in the perfect position on a DSLR.
I hope it wont appear in any DSLR cause whatever appear in DSLR will eventually be saturated to the whole line -.-
well if Canon going touch, I expect lots of buttons will disappear =.=
I wonder if DSLR users will appreciate that cause our applications varies and different then the norm and DSLR style of usage is not like computers where simplification is good
yeah, I’m with you. I definitely agreed that touchscreen should only be left on PnS.
create a new camera category and dont call it a DSLR =.=
So now every time I wipe my sweat off the screen I am going to change some setting!?! What a stupid idea. I wish they would concentrate on the basics like getting the AF accurate and the ISO 100 files clean…
If Canon thinks that this will sell more cameras, then you’ll see it on something (probably an entry level DSLR or all of the P&S). While I agree with nearly all of the comments made here, I don’t feel that the people who post on this site represent a true cross section of the photography community (no offense to anyone).
If they do implement a touch screen into a DSLR, I would bet that majority of buttons lost would be associated with the menu functions and live view. Functions that you adjust when looking through the view finder would still have to have a physical control. It would make zero sense for Canon to make a buttonless DSLR, it would be an unusable product.
Another thing to think about is that big companies file patents for any technology they think they might ever use (or anything they want to keep out of the hands of competitors). Look at the auto industry. Electric car technology existed in the 80’s. Large companies saw that as a threat and they bought up all of the patents and shelved them. We may never see this in a professional camera, or maybe Canon is just holding onto this until it can be done right.
Yep, and diffraction limited at like f/2.0 heh
Nice, I’ve mentioned this idea previously as something on my wish-list, programmable soft-buttons is the way to go.
Direct Print capability using a touch screen would be awesome.
Personally I don’t think a touch screen even belongs on a P&S. Oh, I’ve always thought my cameras responded too fast and reliably! Slowing down my shooting is a great idea!
In the future, there will only be one button on all cameras. It changes every setting with a different morse code pattern…
Luv the way RED is pushing hot chillies in camera cartel a.k.a canon, pana, sony’s, a$$es
wen i first read this post i thot it would be a horrible idea but i dont think that canon would release something like this on their dlsr cameras which might make taking photos harder (my opinion) i think there are ways which this can be implemented which are not disastrous…the lg secret (cell phone) has a touch screen but that capability is only available wen using certain applications on the phone…in menu modes this could work…also in playback modes for zooming and panning the image….then deactivate the screen if in shooting mode…my two cents…dunno if it makes sense tho
Riiiiiiiight. And I love the way Red has only released one camera but countless renders and projected release dates. The big boys aren’t scared by Red at all.
If you promise to never mention Ashton Kutcher’s name on this website again I will continue reading it!
This would never work with underwater camera housings.
Yup
No, there won’t be any buttons – it’ll be voice-activated!
;-)
exactly.
They should start working on an electrode they could plant in my brain so I just have to think about the setting I want and the camera will do it.
….come to think of it I could then get some sorta camera harness so I don’t have to use my hand at all! Think of all the thing I could get done while taking pictures with my hands free!
oh ye of little faith…technology improves.
They put out cool pictures of vaporware though.
There’s a lot of settings you can change while shooting now via buttons and dials, and not take your eye away from the viewfinder. Having to stop shooting and look at a menu on a touchscreen would suck big time. Seems to be something only P&S DLSR shooters would use if they got rid of the buttons.
hey canon how about voice command, mp3 player, calculator, web browser, skype, and even embed photoshop while ur at it. just add a 3MP sensor to make it all fit in the pro body camera
I’d like a new 35mm prime (low priced)
All this faffing on about touch screens to change shutter and aperture – fat lot of good this would be for 500D (or replacement) in movie mode when they cannot even give it manual control from the outset never mind giving cameras fancy technology. What good is it – come on Canon! We don’t have touchscreen steering wheels and we still manage to drive around for over a century. Should concentrate on putting ideas where they matter to most – images, low light, signal noise, autofocus intelligence, etc. Hasselblad is just a box but produces great images.
You forgot M$ Office so that would take. more space so you would only be left with a 2.5MP sensor. Or it could be installed by apple so we would only be able to use the lenses they ‘allow’ us use and would hide the coding so no RAW format just some obscure .Apple PIC format but it would appeal to the nerds. So we would have to have jailbreak-my-canon.com website as our go to webpage for help on taking photos that are of any use.
Really? Haven’t you heard about one “super big boy” released couple of cameras in oct/nov? Oh yea, if you have missed it, its called “Sony”
renders and release dates? that is way better for a startup company.when a giant like canon can take full 2 years to design a d300 competitor, RED is doing a good job as for as product development cycle is concerned
hmmm…now the rumored 1ds square sensor would be logical…an improve leaf like interface?hehehe
you cant improve the defractive propertys of light
you can improve how they get handled
Stupid idea. I’ll take buttons that you can find by touch any day over a touchscreen.
I think this whole touch screen fad is a gimmick. God forbid they stop making traditional cell phones.
like those micro 4/3rd thingys… LOL
Make it 50+ MP. :P
A display sensor like in the Rebel series will prevent the nose from changing the settings.
for a pro this will be a gimmik nontheless cause you cant change values while looking through the lens.
but a nice addition for the consumer market.
Nikon Rumours often list reports about Nikon patent like it is about to happen anytime soon. Just that over here Canon patent are under reported.
I’m not sure whether this would be cheaper than a 2d gear: you could replace two of the turning knobs for aperture / shutter control with a touchscreen. This would also be pretty useful if they managed to get live view or EVIL to be reliable.
I do not like Touch Screen on my Slr..The more u use Energy.the Less the Battery Life..id Rather Articulating Screen..
Hasselblad make those 60mps already..
not on SLR`s
You can use your nose to change settings.
I Agree.
Hopefully generalized patent ideas like this will be rejected. I can already do exposure and auto focus mode setting by touch on my iPhone (and yes, Apple probably applied for a patent for that). This is way too obvious an application and I hope nobody gets the patent.
Touch screens are too imprecise for this type of use.
Hopefully this is a research idea that won’t made it into real cameras and will just end up being in their bag-o-tricks.
We had HP touch screen PC’s in 1983 in our office, the touch screen worked great, but the HP 150 was a dog.
After 26 years, they are now making their way into the mainstream.
progress comes pretty slowly.
many comments remind me to the introduction of video capability on DSLR – just the same blast of comments ” never on pro-dslr’s”, “I don’t like it”, “not accurate enough”, “please don’t change my old habits and retain the 25 buttons everywhere on my camera” – bla bla bla. Why not having a screen as big as backside of the camera and controls build in ?
Lets see what they can effectively develop here. I can easily imagine that this comes true. People might use the screen instead of viewfinder for picture composing in few years when liveview and touch screen ability is even better than today, so the argument of nose touching screen becomes irrelevant. Those who don’t like “change” and development as such can stay on old gear.
when you would have a bigger screen and less buttons you have a bigger screen to check your pictures on. And especially with Liveview and Movie features coming into the dslr market it is worth spending money on.
My only thought about it is that it may cut away the really good thumbweel witch has tactile feedback for exposure correction value etc…, when watching through the viewfinder this is important. They can’t cut that as it is a core value for a DSLR! Also I think there might come problems for photographers like me shooting in extreme cold conditions with sometimes some extreme cold fingers or gloves.
On the other side they could add some multitouch to have an easy way to input some text at the metadata or going though slideshow and menu’s.
I could also imagine some multitouch in liveview connected with AF or exposure control (similar like iphone camera).
Also for trimming a movieclip it could be great. But never touch the buttons of the core features to take great pictures or movieclips!
This sounds quite exciting! can’t wait too, but there are more important stuff to work on ;)
Bad idea. The dails on the top and back of the body give me valuable information when they click. 1 click is 1/3 of a stop. I don’t even have to look at the values to know where they are at.
– A touchscreen interface makes a lot of sense in Live View. Touch & gesture to focus on a specific area beats mashing the AF-ON button.
– In normal SLR shooting this will probably be turned off, otherwise it will be “slide nose on screen to change aperture”
– This makes sense for a little post-prod in the camera. Anything to reduce the number of non-core controls on the back of the camera is a good thing.
– I can see it being useful for other small things too, like Kelvin white balance, LCD brightness, scrolling around in menus, etc. Honestly, for a camera with a lot of AF points, a touchscreen would be a nice way to easily select the point or combination of points you want.
In general I’d say it’s about half marketing and about half useful stuff.
And don’t forget the Direct Print gesture!
here`s how the thing should look like maybe 5-6 inches screen size.
http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/3005/730580762wzbmsm.jpg
And touch your nose to the LCD to activate the shutter release…
and you`re going to do Nose gestures.
I would like the talking Selphy printer technology to migrate to the DSLRs, so you can talk to your cam to adjust its settings and it would answer back with: “Your pix are cr*p, buy a P&S you poser!!11”
Again, the big boys are in no way shape or form afraid of Red. Canon can take 2 years to work on a model, because in the meantime they’ve put out God only knows how many other models, and that’s just the still camera department. Same with Sony. Same with Nikon. Same with…
I’m a fan of Red, but they’re not “pushing hot chillies…” as you so eloquently stated. They made one game changing camera, and promises of many more. But they get away with it because the renders are really slick. When you’re motto is “Everything is subject to change. Count on it”, you have to take non released cameras with a grain of salt.
The only place I could see myself finding this useful is for reviewing shots; scrolling around using the joystick can be pain in the ass sometimes.
I wish that instead on wasting money on this stupid thing Canon invested their money to better their Quality Control… now cameras have to be like a friggin Iphone???’ are you kidding me??
I bet most of the people loving this are those that have a collection of gadgets and stuff… MEH Canon has lost touch with reality and it is listening to the wrong people.
the Canons would suck if they Listen to you.
i mean Canon
When it is cold outside, I can’t answer my phone unless I use my nose or take my gloves off.
Now I won’t be able to change the settings on my camera either. BUMMER!
Give me buttons! I love my phone, but give me buttons!