Image Sensor Shifting System (ISSS) [camera digital auto-focus]

Today’s camera auto focus systems have a variety of problems. They require every lens to have a built-in motor. As a result, lens sizes are larger and the price increases. In order to reduce its size and price, some optics manufacturers design the lens so that it has less glass and a smaller maximum aperture, which results in a smaller size and lower price for the same level of image quality. Also, lens motors need communication pins to make the connection between the lens and camera, so that the camera’s processor is able to send signals to the motor and tell it how much to rotate the focal glass to achieve an in-focus image. To improve the auto focus system’s performance, we introduce a new concept. Our system is designed to shift the image sensor forwards and backwards instead of moving the lens.  The advantages of shifting the image sensor instead of the lens are numerous. Lenses manufactured in the future will be smaller without sacrificing image quality. The lens will not require a motor and focal glass, and it will be cheaper to manufacturer. Today, there are many professional photographers and photography enthusiasts that possess a large amount of high quality manual focus lenses such as Leica M and Carl Zeiss screw lenses. By snapping our product onto the cameras that have this system, any manual focus lens can benefit from our auto focus mechanism too