There are times I see a cool patent, and look at it and can’t for the life of me explain what it does. I still may have gotten this one wrong, but I don’t think so. I actually sat on this patent all weekend and even forced Craig into an Irish triple expresso before finally writing it up.
In this patent Canon is describing the Canon RF dual fisheye lens, but with a twist. They want to be able to control the 3D effect and also change the distance the two lenses are apart when the aperture changes.
However, you can’t just slide the lenses closer or further apart along the camera axis, as it would change the length of the optical path internally in the lens. So to accomplish this and still be able to vary the distance between the two lenses, Canon has implemented a rotating geared assembly that would rotate both lenses thus changing the distance between the two fisheye lenses, but internally the light path would remain the same length.
Would Canon make a Mark II of the unique Canon RF 5.2mm F2.8L Fisheye? It’s hard to say that there’s one in the look given the fact that the current one is only a few years old, but Canon is always looking ahead to interesting things that make us go “Why on earth did they think that was a good idea?”, so here we are.
As with all patent applications that I drag in here, they are simply the applications, they may not be a future product or even a real patent. It does, however, give us some ideas about things that Canon is studying and possibly working on for future projects.
Source: Japan Patent Office: 2023-133340
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