where there’s smoke there’s fire

Nikon filed a bunch of patents at the end of 2008 – here is the patent search result of Nikon + lens. Please note that most of those are just patent applications and may or may not lead to a final production model.

• The first interesting patent appears to be for a 24mm f/1.4 (application 20090185293) – look for this: f = 24.70 FNO = 1.44 2.omega. = 82.34, the 2.omega is field of view, which calculates to an FX circle (thanks for the clarification b). Here is another pattent (20090086340) for a wide angle lens.

• Here is another patent (20090154915) that will cover the lens mount while the lens is removed (Note that the camera on the figure below is mirrorless!):

“Heretofore, lens-interchangeable type cameras provided with a barrier that, in a state in which an interchangeable lens is not attached, closes off an aperture that is provided in a casing for allowing the passage of object light has been known.”

• Patent 20090167927 – Image sensor, focus detection device, focus adjustment device and image-capturing apparatus:

“It’s a patent for having auto focus pixels on a sensor. They have suggested that we can have some rows on the sensor of a camera dedicated to auto-focus. The pixel rows on either side of the auto focus pixels will have slightly different sensitivities to make up for the ‘lost’ row of data.”