Canon Patent Application: Autofocus while Tilting

We have seen a lot of patents on this technology from Canon and in this patent application (2024-148923) it appears as if they are working still on the goal of providing us with completely electronic tilt-shift lenses with autofocus. We have discussed quite a few patent applications about this in the past including;

The patent summary is a bit of a mess when run through the Japanese machine translation but here goes nothing;

there is a limit to the angle at which the object plane can be tilted depending on the imaging device used for shooting, and in order to obtain a desired focusing range, it is necessary to adjust the aperture value in addition to the tilt angle of the object plane. Furthermore, since Patent Document 2 controls with a priority on setting a small aperture value, it is not possible to reflect the photographer’s intention in the aperture value setting, and the range of photographic expression is narrowed. 

What I’m going to assume this is all about is reliably autofocusing a tilt shift lens when the aperture is stopped down, as the plane of focus become much better than when it’s wide open.

The gist of what they hope to accomplish is a little grandiose, but we’re here for it when they pull it off;

it is possible to provide a lens device which makes it possible to easily adjust the focus range during tilt photography.

You can see in this diagram as figure (a) identifies the lens when it’s wide open, and the depth of focus is relatively narrow, when the lens is stopped down, as in figure (b) the depth of focus increases.

This can be used for several different means. For instance, Canon does mention that you could set point A and point B, and the lens determines the correct tilt and also the correct aperture necessary to get items A and B in focus at the same time.

This is a real boon to tilt photography, as that stuff is pretty complicated.

Also don’t forget, that one of the design goals of this is also to do it all .. handheld.

As with all patent applications, this is a look into Canon’s ongoing research. We don’t know if Canon is going to create these tilt-shift lenses as they are very complex and require a ton of firmware to pull it all off.

Japan Patent Application 2024-148923