Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
Canon has filed yet another interesting patent: a gadget of the past and the future at the same time. Yes, it’s a selfie stick – but on the next level.
While the selfie stick is so 2014, Canon’s new patent adds an interesting twist to the gadget I thought we all forgot. It comes with a built-in camera and it automatically controls the focal length, as well as the length and angle of the stick itself.
Canon has issued a slightly odd service notice. Well, it’s not that odd for Canon XF605 owners, as it relates to a problem specifically targeting that camera. What’s a little odd is that they’ve also included the Canon EOS C70 and Canon EOS R5c in the service notice, too. Canon says they’ve confirmed the “possibility” of them being prone to the same issue although there are no actual reports of it happening in the real world (yet).
Still, if you’re shooting an FX605, an EOS C70 or an EOS R5c, there are certain situations in which various settings and actions performed on your camera may cause it to lock up and become inoperable. There’s no word on whether or not simply powering the camera down and back up again (or pulling the battery) resets the function, but a new firmware is available already for the XF605 and they’re working on updates for the other two.
VR has become huge recently. At IBC 2022, DIYP got to take a look at the latest developments in this cutting edge technology. It’s not just used in the entertainment sphere either. Fully immersive VR has serious uses from the medical world to fighter pilot training. Basically, this technology can be used to speed up training and save lives.
Ram Sarup from Canon Europe showed us the RF 5.2mm f/2.8 dual fisheye lens for the Canon EOS R mirrorless system which lets you shoot 3D 180° VR video and photos.
As one of the giants of the camera manufacturing world, Canon needs little introduction. But having a major bite of the pie doesn’t stop them from being innovative. In the past couple of months, we have seen two brand new mirrorless cameras launched, plus at least four new lenses.
Canon introduced their two mirrorless APS-C mirrorless cameras in July 2022, and they haven’t disappointed. DIYP spoke to Justin Botha from Canon to discover more about the EOS R7 and EOS R10 cameras, and to see what the rest of 2022 has in store for Canon.
Canon has previously been very quiet on the topic of 3rd party RF lenses. Last year, all of Samyang’s autofocus RF mount lenses disappeared from the market and just a week ago, so did all of the autofocus RF mount lenses made by Viltrox. Samyang didn’t say a word about why theirs left the market but Viltrox has told customers that they’ve been ordered to stop selling RF mount products by Canon.
Now, a statement from Canon indeed confirms that they told Viltrox to quit selling autofocus RF mount lenses as they believe that they infringe on their patent and design rights. Canona specifically mentions RF lenses with respect to autofocus in the statement, which is something I previously speculated upon, so it appears that we may still be able to continue to see manual focus RF mount lenses from third parties.
If you wondered why major third party lens manufacturers like Sigma and Tamron hadn’t released any RF mount lenses yet, this might explain it. It seems that Canon is being a bit heavy-handed when it comes to those manufacturers that do. At least, that’s the case according to Viltrox who told a customer that Canon has told them specifically to stop selling “all RF mount products”.
The statement came from Viltrox in an Instagram conversation when a user enquired as to why he couldn’t download the firmware for Viltrox RF lenses from the Viltrox website. Viltrox said that Canon told them to stop selling RF products. A screenshot was posted to the DPReview forums by user EJ Fudd. This might also explain why Samyang’s RF mount autofocus lenses suddenly disappeared last year, too.
Well, this is a not unexpected patent filing, really. With all of the overheating issues surrounding the EOS R5 and EOS R6 bodies on release, it’s obvious Canon has heat issues. Even though firmware updates have improved it somewhat, their existing passive cooling isn’t really great. The EOS R5c solves the overheating issue with an active fan cooling system that makes the camera pretty chunky, but can Canon do better?
It looks like they want to, as a new patent application from Canon describes a liquid cooling system for mirrorless cameras. This one, though, shouldn’t make your camera all that much bigger. It’s a pretty interesting idea which uses a magnetic cooling fluid. This is pumped through the camera by magnetic fields. So, it’s not the typical sort of pump we’d find in other liquid-cooled devices, like desktop PCs.
Well, this is interesting. Canon patents new lens designed all the time, but these days, it’s typically in relation to RF mount lenses targeted specifically towards photography. In this case, though, it looks like Canon’s filed patents for several lenses that appear to actually be cinema lenses. The big giveaway is in the opening description, referring specifically to “Super 35 format” rather than APS-C.
The new lenses look pretty interesting, too, and may potentially upset the balance of common staples like the Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 and 50-100mm f/1.8 Art series lenses commonly used for video due to their wide aperture and focal length range. The patent actually mentions a number of different lens designs, with various focal ranges and maximum apertures of between f/1.5 and f/2.5.
Canon’s EF mount 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM lens has been one of the most respected macro lenses out there for years, for any camera system. Even amongst non-Canon photographers, it’s a lens that many of us have occasionally wished we could use. With Canon’s transition to mirrorless, though, EF is making way for RF, so Canon released an RF mount 100mm f/2.8L IS Macro, too.
It’s actually been out for a while now. It was announced last April, but this review from Gordon Lang looks at the more recent RF mount version side-by-side with the older EF mount version to see if the new one really lives up to its predecessor’s reputation and whether you should get the RF one for your Canon mirrorless camera or if you should stick with the EF mount lens and an adapter.
The threat from the Decepticons never seems to go away – at least, it won’t if Michael Bay gets his way. In what might seem an unlikely but very welcome pairing, Canon has teamed up with Takara Tomy – the company behind the Transformers toys) to produce Canon EOS R5 mirrorless cameras that are actually Transformers. At a quick glance, these EOS R5 cameras with lenses look quite convincing but up close, it’s easy to spot their secret.
There appear to be two models of the “camera”. One is an Autobot which, naturally, turns into Optimus Prime R5 while the other turns into Decepticon Reflector R5. Obviously, these aren’t real functional cameras and they’re 80% scale compared to the real thing. They’re also not too terribly expensive if you’re a collector of these sorts of things. They’re probably not the kinds of toys you’d buy for your young child, though.
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