A canon patent was recently discovered, which suggests that the Japanese camera maker may be working on an external camera attachment for smartphones. The unnamed concept is shown to feature the ability to shoot via multiple lenses.
Based on the renders provided by Canon News (who also unearthed the patent), the device sports a design that somewhat resembles a Swiss Army Knife. It is shown to be composed of two halves; the main camera body and its outer shell. The images also depict the device to be considerably large, about the size of a medium-sized TV remote.
The main body, which consists of three detachable modules, can be flipped out from its shell when in use. It is believed that the shortest module that is connected to the outer shell to be the ultra-wide lens, whereas the middle module is the standard wide lens, and the longer module to be the telephoto.
The outer shell features what appears to be a spring loaded clip which is for attaching smartphones. Interestingly, there are no buttons that are visible on the device, which could mean that its functionality is fully managed via a companion app on mobile devices. That, or it could merely be a non-finalised 3D rendition of the concept product.
As with other discovered patents out there, there is a chance that this concept may never see production at all. Perhaps one day this smartphone external camera attachment would end up as one of Canon’s crowdfunding projects like the IVY REC or PowerShot Zoom.
(Source: Canon News via PetaPixel)
