Here is a weird Canon patent application for three pancake with rather slow aperture.
Canon patent application 2024172505 (Japan, published 12/12/2024) discusses optical formulas for three pancake lenses:
21mm F5.6
24mm F8
26mm F3.5
Summary of the patent:
This patent proposes an optical system that offers compactness while promising exceptional optical performance from the center of the screen to its periphery.
In optical systems employed in imaging devices utilizing solid-state imaging elements, such as digital still cameras and video cameras, there is a growing demand for lenses that combine compactness with good optical performance across the entire screen.
However, when the refractive power of each positive lens is increased to further minimize the optical system’s size, as outlined in the patent application, it becomes challenging to effectively correct the curvature of the field. Consequently, there is a risk that sufficient optical performance may not be achieved at the periphery of the screen.
Therefore, the primary objective of this invention is to provide an optical system that maintains compactness while delivering exceptional optical performance from the center of the image plane to its periphery.
Canon Cropping Guide will be available December 9th. For additional information about the software, a list of compatible cameras and how to access the Cropping Guide, please visit here.
Canon press release:
Canon Launches New Cropping Guide for Select EOS Cameras, Empowering Customers to Capture Beautifully Optimized Photos
MELVILLE, NY, December 9, 2024 – Canon Inc., the parent company of Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging solutions, announced today a new Cropping Guide feature that will be available via a firmware update for the Canon EOS R50, EOS R10 and EOS R7 camera models that allows users to more easily frame their subjects through the use of four tailored on-screen guides. The new feature will be available December 9th from Canon USA for the price of $120 USD. For customers who have previously purchased one of the camera models compatible with the feature, they can send their device to a Canon Service Center and it will be returned with the Cropping Guide feature installed. For those new customers interested in the above mentioned models, the option to purchase them pre-loaded with the feature (for an additional cost) will be available via Canon Direct and other dealers starting December 9th.
The new Cropping Guide feature provides on-screen guidelines that help shooters position subjects with precision, helping to ensure consistent and professional results while saving time on editing. It allows for Canon users to position the frame at the time of capture so that post-production and editing can be kept at a minimum. Lastly, the Cropping Guides can be applied to horizontal or vertical framing scenarios, allowing for a wide range of shooting situations.
Canon will showcase its new offering to visitors to the School Photographers Association of California (SPAC) trade show from January 21-25 in Las Vegas, NV at the South Point Hotel and Casino at Booth #715. This new feature is specifically designed for school photography, sports events, or any scenario in which subjects need to maintain a consistent position.
A new version of Excire Foto has been released. I am using this AI-augmented software for my photos and are happy to feature it. Here is Excire Foto 2025 with lots of new features, as the team behind Excire continues to expand the boundaries of AI-assisted image management by offering powerful, intuitive, time-saving solutions to common photography problems.
Excire Foto 2025 is available for both Windows and macOS; the program can be downloaded directly from the Excire website. The software’s sells for $199, but a limited-time launch discount reduces the price to $169. Additionally, existing Excire Foto 2024 users can upgrade to Excire Foto 2025 for $69. A 14-day trial version is also available for download. To learn more about Excire Foto 2025’s groundbreaking new features, head over to their website.
Press release:
The Next Level of Smart Photo Management: Excire Launches Foto 2025 With AI Culling, Video Support, and More
PRC’s Latest Image Organizer Offers Time-Saving Search and Organization Tools for Photo & Video Creators
Lübeck, Germany – December 4th, 2024 – PRC, the AI company behind the award-winning Excire software, has today launched the latest iteration of its innovative photo-management program: Excire Foto 2025. In addition to an array of AI-powered search functions—including natural-language (prompt) search, similarity search, face & people search, GPS search, and duplicate search—Excire Foto 2025 boasts powerful new features for sorting, culling, and organizing image and video files. As a result, photographers and content creators can accelerate (or even bypass) tedious image-management tasks and save more time than ever before. “Excire provides a powerful toolbox designed to give photographers better access to their photos and help them get organized,” said Erhardt Barth, CEO of PRC and a machine learning expert at the University of Lübeck. “While Excire is AI-powered, the focus will always remain on the photographer. We designed Excire software so that the AI assists, rather than replaces, the user. For example, the prompt-search tool isn’t used to generate new photos; instead, it’s used by the photographer to search for existing photos in their collection.”
Smart Photo and Video Organization Reaches New Heights
For photographers seeking a faster, more effective approach to image search and organization, Excire Foto 2025 is an essential program. But with the new release, PRC continues to expand the boundaries of AI-assisted image management by offering powerful, intuitive solutions to common photography problems.
Highlights of Excire Foto 2025 include:
● Unparalleled smart culling. Excire Foto 2025’s brand-new culling module allows photographers to rapidly group and sort files by visual similarity, sharpness, burst sequences, subject type, and more. AI functions can be implemented as a flexible, highly configurable culling assistant—though users can also configure Excire’s AI to automatically identify and select the best photos based on a wide array of adjustable criteria, including aesthetics, overall sharpness, and even eye sharpness.
● A new workflow for people search and face-tagging. Excire’s people-search features make it easy to search for people based on faces and even specific facial characteristics (age, gender, eyes open/closed, etc.). Excire Foto 2025 now includes an intuitive tagging workflow, so photographers can tag faces and create automatic “people” collections. To aid in tagging, the user can zoom in on faces, even when viewing thumbnails; Excire even adds sharpness markers to each preview, so photographers know at a glance which faces are in focus and which are blurry.
● Full video support. Photo and video content creators, as well as photographers who capture video files on occasion, can now manage their photo and video collections side by side. Not only does the new Excire Foto 2025 offer full support for video files, including high-quality video playback, but the software also analyzes a representative frame from each video file and automatically applies keywords for easy search, organization, and retrieval.
● State-of-the-art image search. Excire leverages cutting-edge AI to provide photographers with an unbeatable toolkit for photo retrieval. Thanks to prompt search, similarity search, people & face search, GPS search, duplicate search, and more, users can instantly find any image, no matter how deep it’s hidden in their photo collection.
● Automatic AI keywording. Excire automatically analyzes each photo on import and applies relevant keywords to aid in search and categorization. Thanks to X-tags AI’s unique capabilities, users can skip the tedium of manual keywording and can instead let Excire do the heavy lifting, making it easier than ever to categorize and retrieve images based on their content.
● AI aesthetics evaluation. Trained using hundreds of thousands of photos as well as extensive input from expert photographers, Excire’s X-tetics AI engine independently evaluates each image uploaded to a user’s catalog, then outputs a unique Aesthetics Score for each file. Aesthetics ratings can then be used to swiftly identify the most shareable – and most deletable – images during culling, as well as to uncover hidden gems from deep within an image database. Additional features of Excire Foto 2025 include:
● Automatic rendering of 1:1 previews
● Ultra-fast database navigation
● New options to filter by file type, aspect ratio, and more
● An improved interface
● A brand-new comparison view
● Excire Analytics, a module for analyzing users’ photos and providing unique insight
● Duplicate search, a tool for cleaning up duplicate and near-duplicate images in users’ catalogs
● Slideshows for easy collection
● Color labels, stars, and flags
● Keyword hierarchies
● Metadata filters and advanced metadata editing Also note that Excire Foto 2025 runs locally on the user’s computer. Therefore, the user’s photos are not accessed by a third party, nor are images exported for analysis in the cloud; instead, privacy is maintained and the user remains in control of their data.
Canon released firmware update 1.0.2 for the Canon EOS R5 Mark II. Please note: I’ve linked Canon Japan because they are the first to make the update available.
EOS R5 Mark II Firmware Version 1.0.2 (download) includes the following fixes
When using LP-E6NH/LP-E6N, frame rates of 23.98fps/24.00fps are now supported.
The Wi-Fi communication status can now be identified by the color of the [FTP transfer icon].
It is now possible to set “Rating” and “Protect” during FTP transfer.
You can now change the custom shooting mode even when the camera is busy writing images to the media during shooting.
Fixed an issue that could cause the camera to become unresponsive when repeatedly shooting while using HDMI output with a lens that did not communicate with the camera.
Fixed an issue that could cause the camera to become unresponsive when cropping an image while it was being transferred to an FTP server.
Fixed an issue that could cause Err70 to occur when the load on the smartphone increases while using application software such as Camera Connect.
Fixed an issue that could cause image stabilization to become unstable in movie mode when panning diagonally while using a monopod.
Fixed an issue where, when copying multiple images using the camera’s image copy function, not all images were copied.
Fixed an issue where third-party flashes would fire during pre-continuous shooting.
Fixed an issue that sometimes caused the screen to take a long time to turn off when pressing the button assigned to turn off the monitor immediately after shooting.
Fixed an issue where the Look File setting was sometimes applied to multiple custom picture files.
Fixed an issue where the AF frame would not move smoothly when using the multi-controller with many shooting information items displayed.
Fixed saving camera settings to include custom pictures.
Improved operational stability during network communication.
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