CanonNews / Thursday, October 31, 2019

Canon Patent Application: The world's first dirt devil lens

Ever find some dust on your sensor, only to think you blew it off, only to put a lens back on the camera and look again, to only see it right where it was. While you shake your fist at the sky, you determinedly start to blow the sensor again. At this time, did you ever wish for a better solution? Well, take heart, Canon has thought of you.

This is a strange but true patent application.

Canon has figured that at times, it's difficult to tell if you have blown all the dust off your sensor and that it takes multiple steps to determine if you got your sensor clean. So what did they do? Combine the best parts of your vacuum cleaner and a lens into one amazing device.

Essentially as this lens sucks the dust off your sensor and as it does you have the ability to watch it in real-time via liveview to determine if all the dust is removed from the sensor.

In machine-translated patent speak;

To provide a dust removal device capable of easily removing dust attached to an image sensor inside a camera body while checking an actual influence degree.
An outer casing having an engaging portion for engaging with a lens mount that detachably holds an imaging lens, an inner casing disposed inside the outer casing, and an electrical connection between the imaging apparatus A main body of the imaging device formed inside the first flow path penetrating into the main body of the imaging device formed between the communication unit to be connected, the outer housing, and the inner housing.

I doubt this will ever make it into production however it is an interesting way of solving a problem that we've all encountered at times.

Japan Patent Application 2019-191432