Canon Patent Application: Various lenses for ... Micro Four Thirds sensor size?

This is a strange lens patent application from Canon.

Atypically there are 5 or so different sensor sizes that Canon create lenses for. broadcast cameras, 2/3" compact, 1" powershot, APS-C and full frame.

Every now and then, you see strange ones, such as this one, where the image height is 10.75mm.  The only sensor that is close to a diagonal of 21.50 is Micro Four Thirds - which is 21.60.  For this lens to work on Micro Four thirds, slight corrections may be needed to correct for the slightly smaller image circle.

The only other application would be a new sensor of a size slightly smaller than micro four thirds.  Which may be the case, considering the backfocus, or focal plane distance in these patents are 6mm to 15mm - which is shorter than micro four thirds, with a 19.25mm focal plane distance.   However lenses can be inset into mount to be closer to the sensor, 13mm inset is a fairly long distance though.The lenses shown are;

• 12mm - 48mm 1.7-4.0
• 12mm - 47mm 1.7-2.8
• 12mm - 24mm 1.7-4.0

An example embodiment;

  focal length 12.16 23.45 47.44          
  F number 1.75 2.69 4.09           
  half field angle (degree) 41.48 24.63 12.77          
  image height 10.75 10.75 10.75          
  lens total length 129.97 129.97 129.97         
  BF (in air) 13.60 8.77 9.59  

Like alot of patents, it's an area of research, and Canon is attempting to patent the design.  This of course, may never make it into a product, but I thought it was certainly ... different.

Japan Patent Application 2019-120821

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