Patent: A new optical design for Tilt-Shift lenses | Canon Rumors

Northlight Images has found a US patent showcasing a new way to design tilt-shift lenses.

Says Northlight Images:

When you tilt a lens there is often some unwanted shift introduced, by dint of the lens design and where the physical axis of tilt runs with respect to it.

It’s why I modified my original TS-E90mm) – the new version, as with the 17/24mm, has the ability to change the shift/tilt axis relationship. However, Canon has looked at correcting.

In the patent, the unwanted shift from tilt is referred to as composition shift (a useful term – I may be using it in future 😉  )

The tilt function of the new lens designs is given by offsetting a lens element in front of the stop – the shift is offset by an opposite movement on the rear (camera) side of the stop.

We have had RF mount tilt-shift lenses on our roadmap for quite some time, and the rumors say these new TS-R lenses will have autofocus. This patent doesn’t touch on that, but could give us an idea of what Canon is thinking with the new RF mount tilt-shift lenses.