Canon Patent Application: Improved EVF Technology

This is a patent application (2025-070554) that describes another similar optical design, similar to the one we seen in the insanely fast and esoteric lenses we talked about before.  While it doesn't appear as if the technology is exactly the same, it's similar enough to lead me to think that all these applications and Canon's research is all connected.

Canon mentions using these elements for EVF's and Head Mounted Displays.   This is basically Canon finding more uses for this rather cool optical technology.  This may be the "next big thing" that we haven't seen since the days diffractive optics first came into being in our lenses but it's practical uses may be for far more than simply optical lenses.  Making the EVF optics smaller allows the camera themselves to be much smaller, without having such a pronouced "bump" that we currently have on our cameras.

The present invention relates to an optical element, an optical system, a display device, and a method for manufacturing an optical element. In recent years, a technology has been proposed for using an optical element having a polarized light selective transmission and reflection function on a curved surface in a display device such as a head mounted display (HMD) or an electronic viewfinder (EVF). By using an optical element having a polarized light selective transmission and reflection function on a curved surface, it is possible to reduce the size of the optical system and improve the design freedom. 

So will we see these elements used in lenses or EVF's? It's really difficult to say, we usually don't see optical patent applications before as release.  But we do see patent applications that involve camera technology before we see the cameras.  Don't ask me why this occurs, I suspect that Canon is a little more protective of it's optical designs then it's camera technology.

• Japan Patent 2025-070554