Canon News web site has reported a recent patent filing for what appears to be an EOS R-series (mirrorless) camera with an Eye Control system. (Not to be confused with Eye Focus, found on some cameras today, where the AF system detects the subject's eye and focuses on that automatically.)

For those who don't know, Eye Control was a fairly short-lived feature that found it's way onto three Canon 35mm film SLRs back in the 1990s: Canon A2E (EOS 5), Elan 7E (EOS 30) and EOS-3.

Eye Control was supposed to track the photographer's eye movement and activate the AF point wherever they were looking. It was rather simple on the A2E with it's 5-point AF system and not much more sophisticated on the Elan 7's 7-point system. But there were high hopes for it with the 45-point AF system of the EOS-3 (that same 45-point system, without Eye Control, was used in EOS 1V SLR as well as a couple generations of EOS 1D- and 1Ds-series DSLRs).

Some people really liked Eye Control.... or at least were infatuated with the idea of it. Personally I used a couple EOS-3 and an Elan 7E with it, and it never seemed to work very well for me. But I wear eyeglasses and that might have been part of the problem. Another thing was that I soon learned I had a tendency to look all around the image area, not just at my subjects.... that made Eye Control a bit crazy, especially on the EOS-3s, as it tried to track my eye.

Some people apparently have much better results with it and there was a lot of moaning and groaning when Canon didn't continue to offer Eye Control on subsequent cameras (mostly DSLRs... I think they only ever intro'd one or two film DSLRs after the 1V). But I suspect some of the whiners never actually used it, just thought it sounded like a really cool feature.

Maybe it's been redesigned to work better this time, if Canon actually follows through from the patent and produces a camera with Eye Control. No doubt the more powerful processors in cameras today will help it, too.

We'll see!

Canon News web site has reported a recent patent filing for what appears to be an EOS R-series (mirrorless) camera with an Eye Control system. (Not to be confused with Eye Focus, found on some cameras today, where the AF system detects the subject's eye and focuses on qthat automatically.)

For those who don't know, Eye Control was a fairly short-lived feature that found it's way onto three Canon 35mm film SLRs back in the 1990s: Canon A2E (EOS 5), Elan 7E (EOS 30) and EOS-3.

Eye Control was supposed to track the photographer's eye movement and activate the AF point wherever they were looking. It was rather simple on the A2E with it's 5-point AF system and not much more sophisticated on the Elan 7's 7-point system. But there were high hopes for it with the 45-point AF system of the EOS-3 (that same 45-point system, without Eye Control, was used in EOS 1V SLR as well as a couple generations of EOS 1D- and 1Ds-series DSLRs).

Some people really liked Eye Control.... or at least were infatuated with the idea of it. Personally I used a couple EOS-3 and an Elan 7E with it, and it never seemed to work very well for me. But I wear eyeglasses and that might have been part of the problem. Another thing was that I soon learned I had a tendency to look all around the image area, not just at my subjects.... that made Eye Control a bit crazy, especially on the EOS-3s, as it tried to track my eye.

Some people apparently have much better results with it and there was a lot of moaning and groaning when Canon didn't continue to offer Eye Control on subsequent cameras (mostly DSLRs... I think they only ever intro'd one or two film DSLRs after the 1V). But I suspect some of the whiners never actually used it, just thought it sounded like a really cool feature.

Maybe it's been redesigned to work better this time, if Canon actually follows through from the patent and produces a camera with Eye Control. No doubt the more powerful processors in cameras today will help it, too.

We'll see!

Edit: There are articles posted about this online. Do a search for "Canon Eye Control" online at Digital Camera World and elsewhere. I'd post a link for your convenience, but for reasons that have never been entirely clear to me, if I did that UHH policy would cause this post to be banished to some obscure part of the forum.

Canon News web site has reported a recent patent filing for what appears to be an EOS R-series (mirrorless) camera with an Eye Control system. (Not to be confused with Eye Focus, found on some cameras today, where the AF system detects the subject's eye and focuses on that automatically.)

For those who don't know, Eye Control was a fairly short-lived feature that found it's way onto three Canon 35mm film SLRs back in the 1990s: Canon A2E (EOS 5), Elan 7E (EOS 30) and EOS-3.

Eye Control was supposed to track the photographer's eye movement and activate the AF point wherever they were looking. It was rather simple on the A2E with it's 5-point AF system and not much more sophisticated on the Elan 7's 7-point system. But there were high hopes for it with the 45-point AF system of the EOS-3 (that same 45-point system, without Eye Control, was used in EOS 1V SLR as well as a couple generations of EOS 1D- and 1Ds-series DSLRs).

Some people really liked Eye Control.... or at least were infatuated with the idea of it. Personally I used a couple EOS-3 and an Elan 7E with it, and it never seemed to work very well for me. But I wear eyeglasses and that might have been part of the problem. Another thing was that I soon learned I had a tendency to look all around the image area, not just at my subjects.... that made Eye Control a bit crazy, especially on the EOS-3s, as it tried to track my eye.

Some people apparently have much better results with it and there was a lot of moaning and groaning when Canon didn't continue to offer Eye Control on subsequent cameras (mostly DSLRs... I think they only ever intro'd one or two film DSLRs after the 1V). But I suspect some of the whiners never actually used it, just thought it sounded like a really cool feature.

Maybe it's been redesigned to work better this time, if Canon actually follows through from the patent and produces a camera with Eye Control. No doubt the more powerful processors in cameras today will help it, too.

We'll see!

Edit: There are articles posted about this online. Do a search for "Canon Eye Control" online at Digital Camera World and elsewhere. I'd post a link for your convenience, but for reasons that have never been entirely clear to me, if I did that UHH policy would cause this post to be banished to some obscure part of the forum.

Canon News web site has reported a recent patent filing for what appears to be an EOS R-series (mirrorless) camera with an Eye Control system. (Not to be confused with Eye Focus, found on some cameras today, where the AF system detects the subject's eye and focuses on that automatically.)

For those who don't know, Eye Control was a fairly short-lived feature that found it's way onto three Canon 35mm film SLRs back in the 1990s: Canon A2E (EOS 5), Elan 7E (EOS 30) and EOS-3.

Eye Control was supposed to track the photographer's eye movement and activate the AF point wherever they were looking. It was rather simple on the A2E with it's 5-point AF system and not much more sophisticated on the Elan 7's 7-point system. But there were high hopes for it with the 45-point AF system of the EOS-3 (that same 45-point system, without Eye Control, was used in EOS 1V SLR as well as a couple generations of EOS 1D- and 1Ds-series DSLRs).

Some people really liked Eye Control.... or at least were infatuated with the idea of it. Personally I used a couple EOS-3 and an Elan 7E with it, and it never seemed to work very well for me. But I wear eyeglasses and that might have been part of the problem. Another thing was that I soon learned I had a tendency to look all around the image area, not just at my subjects.... that made Eye Control a bit crazy, especially on the EOS-3s, as it tried to track my eye.

Some people apparently have much better results with it and there was a lot of moaning and groaning when Canon didn't continue to offer Eye Control on subsequent cameras (mostly DSLRs... I think they only ever intro'd one or two film DSLRs after the 1V). But I suspect some of the whiners never actually used it, just thought it sounded like a really cool feature.

Maybe it's been redesigned to work better this time, if Canon actually follows through from the patent and produces a camera with Eye Control. No doubt the more powerful processors in cameras today will help it, too.

We'll see!

Edit: There are articles posted about this online. Do a search for "Canon Eye Control" online at Digital Camera World and elsewhere. I'd post a link for your convenience, but for reasons that have never been entirely clear to me, if I did that UHH policy would cause this post to be banished to some obscure part of the forum.