Digital Body For FD lenses

[eric friedemann]

"(Mount licensing) has been tried in court, probably in Japan, and Sigma won against one of the major SLR manufacturers."

 

 

If your vague assertion- which would fly in the face of every body of patent law on Earth- is true, you won't mind providing a legal citation or article referencing the decision.

[lazy_sod]

Eric, most camera manufacturers, and Canon in particular, simply don't license their mounts, unless their outsourcing production.

 

The Leica M is so old (1954?) that it might have had some patentable ideas. It's also quite possible that the German patent legislation was stricter than the Japanese.

 

As I wrote, this has been tried in court, probably in Japan, and Sigma won against one of the major SLR manufacturers.

 

Most of the common mechanical mounts share the same concepts, and any relevant patents probably have expired long time ago. Otherwise, the different mounts would simply violate each other's patents. Making changes to the diametre or lug dimensions, moving the aperture lever from the left to the right or to the bottom, or reversing its direction shouldn't be sufficient to prevent patent violation.

 

A patent don't prohibit anyone from making a compatible device, if it's done with a different method/solution.

[wigwam jones]

Eric,

 

I am not a lawyer, and I am not going to pretend to be on - in fact, I don't think this is a very important point, really. I realize you seem fixated on it, and I'm not trying to stir the pot.

 

But I did find this interesting article. It seems to support what I was asking earlier - if the various third-party manufacturers were indeed licensing their use of the Canon, Minolta, etc, lens mounts from those worthy companies, would they be left high and dry when Canon, et al, decided to make changes in functionality that left them behind the 8-ball with their customers? My guess would be 'no':

 

http://vsd.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=Articles&Subsection=Display&ARTICLE_ID=236708

 

To wit:

 

"?Unfortunately,? says Jim Strutz of PhotoNotes.org, a web site created by Tela Design, ?Canon is unwilling to license its protocols to third-party manufacturers.? Because of this, a number of lens, lens-controller, and camera manufacturers have reverse-engineered the standard and incorporated it into their own products. ?Sigma Corporation is known for its third-party lenses, which rely on reverse-engineering of Canon?s lens-mount protocols. Tamron and Tokina are two other manufacturers that sell third-party lenses, all likely reverse-engineered,? he says.

 

?But there is a drawback to reverse-engineering. Sigma may indeed figure out how its products can work flawlessly with Canon products, but Canon can alter its future products in such a fashion that older third-party items no longer function correctly,? says Strutz. ?This happened most recently with the introduction of the Canon EOS Elan 7/30/33/7, a camera body that does not work with certain older Sigma lenses.?

 

I don't think that Sigma, Tokina, Tamron, etc, pay fees to Canon, Minolta, Pentax, etc for the right to make lenses with their mounts. But I have no proof of that. Just my observation of how things appear to be working.

[eric friedemann]

"I don't think that Sigma, Tokina, Tamron, etc, pay fees to Canon, Minolta, Pentax, etc for the right to make lenses with their mounts."

 

 

They do, though a camera company may just license the mount itself, but not its mount-centric electronics. Several years back, Tamron was making Nikon AF mount lenses (this was before the patent on the Nikon F mount expired and companies like Cosina and Zeiss started making manual focus Nikon mount lenses). Then, our store started receiving Tamron lenses in an "AF-D" mount.

 

 

Our Nikon rep told me that Tamron licensed the mount (paid a small fee to Nikon for each Nikon mount lens it produced). However he said that the Tamron lenses were not "AF-D" lenses, as Nikon had not licensed its CPU technology to Tamron. He said that Tamron was reverse-engineering the "AF-D" technology.

 

 

Our Tamron rep told me that Nikon indeed licensed the AF-D technology to Tamron. This was, he said, part of a cooperative agreement under which Tamron made some of Nikon's lenses (think 70-300mm) and which allowed Nikon to to make its 24-120mm and 28-200mm lenses, which would not have been possible without Nikon's having leave to imitate aspheric element technology developed by Tamron.

 

 

Who was right? I don't know; but third-party lens makers cannot simply use proprietary, patented lens mounts without leave of a camera manufacturer.

[eric friedemann]

"I didn't bookmark the article when I read it, so I don't have any link."

 

 

Of course not, "Lazy Sod." Perhaps you just dreamed you read an article about a lawsuit "tried in court" in Japan or not, that may or may not have involved patents or copyrights, in which the one of the litigants may or may not have been Canon or Nikon, which may or may not have taken place in the 1970s. Did this mythical article also involve hobbits, trolls and magical spells?

 

 

Dear God, I love the posters with the silly, anonymous names. They entertain me so.

[lazy_sod]

Eric Friedemann wrote: "If your vague assertion- which would fly in the face of every body of patent law on Earth- is true, you won't mind providing a legal citation or article referencing the decision."

 

I didn't bookmark the article when I read it, so I don't have any link. Neither have you, regarding your claim that "Canon has licensed the FD mount to third-party lens manufacturers".

 

I'm not sure if the ruling was about patents or copyright. If it was about patents, the court may have found that the patents weren't applicable. There isn't necessarily one patent covering the complete lens mount, but maybe specific patents regarding aperture transfer, locking mechanism etc. It also happens that patents are ruled invalid.

 

It Sigma was sued for copyright infringement, the clone might have had sufficient differences not to be considered a copy, like screws in different locations, different flange thickness or differently shaped aperture levers. Copyright infringement can be avoided by having one person write a specification based on reverse engineering, and someone else do the implementation based only on that specification, thus making sure that you don't copy the original work. That approach was used for making clones of the IBM PC and its BIOS.

 

So copyright infringement can be avoided by not being too lazy. If Canon ever had any enforcable patents on the FD mount, they have expired years ago. Thus anyone can legally make a camera compatible with the FD mount today.

[lazy_sod]

Eric, I then suppose you just dreamed that Canon had licensed the FD mount to third-party lens manufacturers. You first make an undocumented statement, then criticize someone else for doing the same. That's hypocrisy, plain and simple.

 

You're also evading the point that any FD-mount patents are expired today, making most of this patent discussion off-topic. So although that "mythical article" didn't involve any trolls, this discussion does.

[peter_evans4]

<p>Cough. Perhaps I'm just dreaming, but it seems to me that even if

Canon were as monomaniacally litigious as SCO (or whatever was the

company that was trying to scare people into thinking that GNU/Linux

was illicit), which I don't believe, then it would face

considerable difficulty in preventing the recycling of lens mounts

from old Canon cameras. After all, back in those happy days before

Microsoft and other <s>creepy</s> wonderful companies existed, you

could buy consumer durables that didn't require assent to an "End

User License Agreement".</p><p>I am now looking at an FT that I

recently bought for ¥1050 (perhaps eight of your US dollars).

The lens

mount looks an easily detachable chunk of the

body. I'd idly <em>guess</em> that in order to save on machining

expenses this chunk of the FT is the same as the corresponding chunk

of other FL-mount bodies. Dozens of sick examples are available for

next to nothing. If FD is preferred, then perhaps the T50

also has a detachable chunk. No matter how daft the laws and how

fanatical any branch of Canon is about having them enforced, I don't

see any principle that would prevent anybody from producing a

not-quite complete camera body on which you could mount part of

another camera body.</p>

[dangoldman]

I wonder if it would possible, in the coming years, to take a digital sensor and place it into the back of the camera. This would involve taking the uh... whatchamacallit thing out that holds the film against the curtains and guides it into the roller to make space for the sensor, but it probably shouldnt be too hard with a lot of cameras. Then, lock it into place using the film canister holder and spool. It probably could not use a CF card, but a secure digitaly could probably be made to fit. Granted, im not sure how much electronics are associated with the sensor and processor, and the problem of power could be an issue too, but i wonder if the technology will be there for that in the next few years?

[kelly_flanigan1]

Lets call it "Silicon Film" :)

[brucecyr]

One problem with a third party making an FD mount body is that the party probably has extra-legal relationships with Canon that might make this infeasible to them. Such a manufacturer probably does substantial subcontract manufacturing for the major camera makers, like Canon and Nikon, and they wouldn't want to endanger those relationships, especially for a paltry niche market like that for the Canon FD mount.

 

For example, recently Cosina apparently stopped making its 100mm f3.5 macro lens in the EF mount. SFAIK, its still available in other mounts, like Nikon, Pentax, etc. Now why would it do that? Because its a money losing lens? Because it didn't want to offend Canon? Don't know, but we can all speculate.

[piotr_trzeciak]

Instead of constructing a totally new DSLR camera with FD lens mount (which is very expensive and risky), one should try to build digital backs for most typical MF cameras (AE-1, F-1, etc.). All metering and settings would be done by the "old" camera. Only the image registration would be done by a cheap sensor placed in the digital back. Obviously, the digital back would be more thick than a regular film camera back. So, there is enough room for battery and storage facilities. Such digital back should be cheap and easy adaptable to all pre-digital MF and AF cameras.

Hey, is there any one with a screwdriver and a garage, around? Millions of old cameras owners are waiting to pay you big money.

[lazy_sod]

Piotr, "Silicon Film" that Kelly referred to was a company that tried to do what you're suggesting, except that they used a cartridge with the sensor behind the original back, with wireless communication to a bottom unit that attached to the tripod mount, thus avoiding the need for a different back for each type of camera. I don't think they ever got any of their products to the market.

[chris_tyrrell]

<p>A reasonably priced and simple digital back for my many Canon FD lenses and other attachments to complement my A1 would still be most welcome in 2010. However Canon appear to have made their position clear - and so have I. I've simply re-invested in Nikon kit - a D90, D300S, Coolscan and some lenses plus other equipment. That's good money that could so easily have gone Canon's way if only they had looked after the people who had already made them successful. Never again will I be purchasing *any* Canon-branded product, **ever**.....unless it happened to be a quality Canon FD Digital back at a reasonable price. Vote with your feet when faced with any company that fails to support its history properly - and that definitely now include firmware and interfacing standards!! That support has got to last as long as the hardware which is likely to be 20+ years - quite a challenge for the strategists in these high tech companies where they have to try and keep their software working and up to date whilst the PC market churns at a much faster rate, such as the latest Windows etc and other mechanical interface changes. It might be argued that the failure by Canon to find a way to transition FD into the Digital age was the wrong one. It's a strategy decision that could have been appropriate for a commodity item with a short life - not a premium product range with a very long one. Nikon generally appear to have avoided this trap with it's lenses. Can Canon survive - well not if continues to upset it past and present stalwart users. It's possible for a Company to redeem itself; however history tends to suggest a company with this sort of systemic problem it will only change enough when faced with near extinction, by which time the damage is often irrepairable. You need your chosen Company to be around for a very long time for the amount you are investing in them and they they have a good record on product support. Loyalty and trust from users is a reflection of a Companies loyalty to them - you reap what you sow. The lack of vision that prevented the Canon FD from taking it's niche in the Digital age should become a Case Study for corporate strategists learning how to manage the very fine line and relationship of a past successful product range and the new vision. In many big companies the future is a threat to the present so gets supressed. In this case something else seems to have happened where the present and the then existing user base was perhaps seen as a threat (or irrelevant) to the future. We'll see whether they made (and are making) the right choices over the next few years...</p>