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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80 Comments
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!