Egami, the Japanese Photography Blog has discovered an interesting patent filed by Canon. When mounting a lens on a camera body, and holding the lens, the rotating focus or zoom ring can make the operation more difficult. Imagine you have to switch lenses fast, the rotating elements of the lens can slow down the mounting of the lens. The Canon patent is for a new lens mount type that blocks all rotating elements of a lens when the lens is not mounted on a body, hence making mounting the lens easier (and faster). This is achieved by pins on the lens mount that block the rotating members inside the lens barrel. The new mount type is compatible with existing EOS mounts. That means lenses that will feature this new kind of mount can be used with existing EOS bodies. You can read the original article in Japanese here.
Frankly, I think this is a solution in search of a problem. As I have pointed out in my earlier posts, often times many patents never turn into marketable products. They are used to deny Canon's competitors from exploiting the same or similar technology in their products.
Patent description (translated from Japanese)
Patent Publication No. 2013-37090
- 2013.2.21 Release Date
- 2011.8.5 filing date
Rotatable operation unit: a rotating member
- Ring, other zoom ring, focus ring, aperture
Canon patent
- If you remove the lens from the camera, the rotation is restricted
- Pins are provided on the surface of the lens mount
- The boss is attached to (inside the lens barrel) end of the pin
- Inside the lens barrel, the boss is brought into contact with the rotating member
- Because of the boss, the rotating member is rotated never
When mounted on the camera lens, rotatable
- Pin is provided on the mounting side of the body
- Etc. F or mount EOS mount, mount a lot of this method
- Body side pin, and push the pin on the lens, the position of boss will move
- To the rotating member does not contact the boss, can be rotated
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