Richard CanonNews / Friday, December 18, 2020 / Categories: Canon Patents This post may contain affiliate links(s). An affiliate link means I may earn advertising/referral fees if you make a purchase through my link, without any additional cost to you. It helps to keep this site afloat. Thank you in advance for your support. If you like what we do here, maybe buy me a coffee. Canon Patent Application: Replacing the shutter button This is an interesting patent. In this case, Canon is looking at exchanging the shutter button with a more context-sensitive touch area that will allow for multiple actions depending on where you are in the camera or menu. Look at area 61. Where's the shutter? While initially, I was horrified by the thought of replacing the shutter button, I can imagine the usefulness of this. Imagine your eye up to the viewfinder and being able to navigate and change menu items without moving your finger from the shutter button, or in this case, moving the AF position without moving your finger from the shutter area. You could literally do everything without moving your eye or your index finger from the shutter area. The sensor area acts as a strain gauge which would detect a "press" versus a "swipe". I would assume then it could detect different force levels to determine a half press - but that would be nearly impossible to do in practice without a physical switch. We're all VERY particular about how our shutter button feels, this would have zero feeling, and just be an area you press on. It would take a long time to get used of after decades with a physical shutter button. If we thought the war between EVF and OVF was bad, this would be I think even worse. Of course, we then have how do you use this with glove,etc. One benefit not mentioned is waterproofing, as this would be highly waterproof, and one of the major ingress points on a camera is the shutter button. I think if this was perfected and still maintained some feel of a switch, this would be VERY useful. Japan Patent Application 2020-201756 Richard CanonNewsRichard CanonNews Richard has been using Canon cameras since the 1990s, with his first being the now legendary EOS-3. Since then, Richard has continued to use Canon cameras and now focuses mostly on infrared photography. Richard is the founder and editor of CanonNews since 2017, and has worked as a writer on CanonRumors and other websites in the past. Other posts by Richard CanonNews Contact author Facebook page Previous Article Canon Patent Application: 1.0x to 2.0x Zoomable Teleconvertor Next Article Canon Patent Application: Handheld Vlogging ILC Print Tags: Canon Patent Application Please login or register to post comments.