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Patent Application: Lens Auto-Aperture Control
Is this for the upcoming RF Retro Camera or a future VCM lens?
This patent application (2025-040653) seems to further refine the Canon EOS VCM lenses, especially since a new one is due out tomorrow, March 26th.
Like the diagrams, it also has an aperture dual with an "A" for auto aperture. Of course, another possibility, but perhaps more clickbait, is that this is for Canon's upcoming retro camera. But considering that Canon already has lenses with the aperture dial and "A" control on the lens, this seems less likely.
If you look at this wonderful Canon 50mm F1.2L FD lens, you can see that the aperture is controlled on the lens and has an "A" for auto aperture. If Canon were to come out with a retro camera, it would make sense if some of the lenses supported aperture on the lens instead to mimic how the cameras used to operate before the digital and EOS era.
In either case, Canon isn't settling on how this works now (or in the past), which is why it has filed this patent application. In this patent application, Canon explores a better method of setting the aperture to "auto."
Canon explains this as;
Thus, the lens side aperture value control is performed in the lens side control area 312, while the body side aperture value control is performed in the camera side control area 311.
Ring 209 in the diagram is focus adjustment. The image on the left represents how FD and the current VCM lenses operate. You move the dial to the "A" position to set the aperture to automatic (or controlled by the camera).
Canon discusses this as a patent surrounding an integrated lens, but in the embodiments, it discusses cameras and lenses independent of each other. I think this is a translation issue because Canon states,
An object of the present invention is to provide an imaging device, a control method and a program therefor, which reduce the trouble required to set imaging setting values such as aperture value setting that occurs when switching the control source with an integrated lens.
In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides an imaging device comprising a lens and a body section to which the lens can be attached, comprising a first control section for controlling changes to imaging setting values on the lens side, a second control section for controlling changes to imaging setting values on the body section side ..
Yes, it's in patent speak, but Canon discusses this as a separate lens. Canon is attempting to improve the FD and VCM arrangement, where the user has to either fully open or close the aperture to turn the camera/lens combination to fully auto aperture.
For example, if this is an action that you want to take while recording a video, it's just not going to work out well for the user.
So, Canon thinks that using the switch on the lens shown on the right is a better solution. That switch would flip the camera from manual aperture control to fully automatic control by the camera; in that way, Canon has to communicate the aperture from the lens to the camera when the button is switched.
This is a patent application only
As with all patent applications, this one involves Canon's research and may never result in an actual product.