Testing done using a Canon EOS 600D and a Canon EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS II.
- VBAT
- DET (common with P-GND on lens side)
- P-GND
- VDD
- DCL
- DLC
- LCLK
- D_GND
VDD is nominally 5V. VBAT seems to also be ~5V (others report 6V).
VDD is always active (even with the camera off, if it has been powered on at least once) when a lens is connected (DET = low). When the camera turns on, VDD increases slightly (standby power vs. active regulator?)
The data lines are idle high and weakly pulled up by the camera. However, the drivers are not open drain (to get better rise times).
The signal levels are 5V. Driving 3.3V on DCL does not work - you need 5V, the lens seems to consider 3.3V as logic low. 3.3V on LCLK does seem to work.
The protocol is basically a variant of SPI with CPOL=1,CPHA=1. There is no framing or CS signal, which complicates parsing, and there is an additional variable length ACK clock pulse driven by the lens (kind of like I²C clock stretching).
Default clock period is 13µs (6.5µs per half cycle) = 77 kHz (80 kHz). This decreases to 2µs for newer lenses (1µs per half cycle) = 500 kHz Intended duty cycle seems to be 50% (fast mode seems to be 0.8µs low / 1.2µs high, but this is likely just an analog effect).
Power-on timing:
- 1µs low glitch on DCL (?)
- 42µs delay (?)
- Single 6.5µs low pulse on DCL (does this serve a purpose?)
- 103µs delay
- First three byte cycles:
C 00 L ff [TX 89us ACK 14us BUSY 2165us]<- note long BUSY periodC 0a L aa [TX 89us ACK 14us BUSY 4us]C 00 L aa [TX 89us ACK 14us BUSY 4us]<- VBAT turned on by camera during the lens ACK/BUSY pulse
Command byte timing:
- Camera drives DCL at a random value for ~18µs (slow mode) or ~4µs (fast mode)
- This seems to usually be whatever the last bit of the previous command was, but not always consistent.
- Each bit is driven (by both camera and lens) on the falling edge of LCLK, and sampled on the rising edge.
- Camera drives DCL high (or stops driving?) and stops driving LCLK 1µs after the last rising edge of LCLK (this is half a cycle in fast mode, but much shorter than half a cycle in slow mode).
- Lens releases DLC ~4.3µs after the last rising edge of LCLK
- Lens drives LCLK low ~14µs after the last rising edge of LCLK (ACK/BUSY)
- ACK/BUSY pulse seems to last at least 4µs but may be much longer
- Gap between bytes (rising edge of LCLK ACK/BUSY to first falling edge of LCLK) is at least 120µs in slow mode and at least 18µs in fast mode.
Note that slow/fast mode only changes the camera timings. The lens always behaves the same way.
Holding LCLK low for >700µs seems to reset the lens. The lens will then itself hold LCLK low until ready (~300us, sometimes longer).
Pulsing LCLK low (e.g. shifting in one bit) then waiting causes the lens to time out. After 740µs, it will reset itself and hold LCLK low for ~300-400µs. This may effectively be the same situation as the above (holding LCLK low).
Command 08 powers down the lens. After this, the next command sent by the camera is ignored, and the lens will hold LCLK low for ~2ms during that command as it powers up.
Lens commands opcodes are one byte, and may have a number of arguments and reply bytes. The lens replies to a command starting on the next byte cycle. Commands may be pipelined: the last response byte from the lens may be transferred at the same time as the next command from the camera.
When the lens receives an unknown command, it will echo it back to the camera on the next cycle.
There is no explicit framing, therefore keeping sync with the protocol requires knowledge of all command lengths. There are no implicit timeouts. You can send a command, wait one second, then send the argument, and it will be interpreted as such, not a new command. Commands have both fixed argument and response byte counts (i.e. a fixed overall length); the camera cannot interrupt an information retrieval command by sending another command. The lens ignores dummy data from the camera while it is replying to a command. Canon cameras send 00 as dummy padding bytes during such read cycles.
The command codes follow certain patterns:
- 00-0f: commands 0-f with zero arguments
- 10-1f: commands 0-f with one argument
- 20-2f: commands 0-f with one dummy argument (unused/redundant)
- 30-3f: information commands
- 40-4f: commands 0-f with two arguments
- 50-5f: commands 0-f with one dummy argument (unused/redundant)
- 60-6f: more info commands
- 70-7f: unused/unimplemented
- 80-ff: largely more info commands
These range 0x, 1x, 2x, 4x, 5x encode the same operations. Each operation is intended to be used only with one argument count (of 0x, 1x, 4x); if used with the wrong count, it will instead re-use the argument from the previous valid operation. The basic commands are:
00 No-op
01
12 XX Change aperture (+/- int8 0xXX)
13 XX Same as 12
44 HH LL Change focus (+/- int16 0xHHLL)
05 Focus to max (infinity)
06 Focus to min
07
08 Power down
09
0a Ready/sync (replies aa)
0b
0c
0d
0e
0f
So, for example, the focus is intended to be set with 44 HH LL, but 04, 14 XX, 24 XX, 54 XX will all just repeat whatever the previous valid 44 HH LL command was.
This table exhaustively lists all commands and what they return on this lens. The lengths can be used to build a table for a protocol analyzer (or a modchip). The busy time may help determine which commands are unimplemented/no-ops and which actually do something.
Testing note: "--" values are presumed don't care, but actual testing was done sending 0a bytes after every command (to determine when it gets interpreted as command 0a and returns aa).
Consider busy timing values to have +/-1µs jitter.
CMD RET TIME Brief description
00 00 4 No-op (padding to get last response)
01 01 4
02 02 9+ (Change aperture, repeats cmd 12/13)
03 03 10+ (Change aperture, repeats cmd 12/13)
04 04 8 (Change focus, repeats cmd 44)
05 05 7 Focus to max (infinity)
06 06 7 Focus to min
07 07 10
08 (ff) 298 Power down
09 09 11
0a aa 10 Sync
0b 0b 16
0c XX 4 Repeats last response byte
0d 0d 8
0e 0e 11
0f 0f 12
10 -- 10 10 7, 3 (No-op)
11 -- 11 11 8, 4
12 YY 12 12 9, 14+ Change aperture (+/- int8)
13 YY 13 13 9, 14+ Change aperture (+/- int8)
14 -- 14 14 7, 4 (Change focus, repeats cmd 44)
15 -- 15 15 7, 4 (Focus to max)
16 -- 16 16 7, 4 (Focus to min)
17 -- 17 17 7, 4
18 -- 18 (ff) 8, 297 (Power down)
19 -- 15 15 7, 5
1a -- 1a aa 7, 4 (Sync)
1b -- 1b 1b 7, 9
1c -- 1c 1c 7, 3 (Repeats last response byte)
1d -- 1d 1d 7, 4
1e -- 1e 1e 7, 3
1f -- 1f 1f 7, 4
20 -- 20 20 4, 4 (No-op)
21 -- 21 21 4, 3
22 -- 22 22 4, 8+ (Change aperture, repeats cmd 12/13)
23 -- 23 23 4, 7+ (Change aperture, repeats cmd 12/13)
24 -- 24 24 4, 4 (Change focus, repeats cmd 44)
25 -- 25 25 4, 4 (Focus to max)
26 -- 26 26 4, 4 (Focus to min)
27 -- 27 27 4, 4
28 -- 28 (ff) 4, 296 (Power down)
29 -- 29 29 3, 4
2a -- 2a aa 4, 3 (Sync)
2b -- 2b 2b 4, 8
2c -- 2c 2c 4, 4 (Repeats last response byte)
2d -- 2d 2d 4, 4
2e -- 2e 2e 4, 3
2f -- 2f 2f 4, 4
30 ?? ?? ?? 30 30 30 30 4, 4, 4, 6 ?
31 ?? ?? 31 31 31 3, 3, 35 ?
32 ?? 08 03 7, 4 ?
33 ?? ?? ?? 07 0a 0a 4a 6, 6, 3, 3 ?
34 ?? ?? 34 34 34 5, 4, 12 ?
35 00 5 ?
36..3f 36..3f 3-5 (unused)
40 -- -- 40 40 40 8, 4, 4 (No-op)
41 -- -- 41 41 41 7, 4, 4
42 -- -- 42 42 42 7, 3, 9+ (Change aperture, repeats cmd 12/13)
43 -- -- 43 43 43 8, 3, 9+ (Change aperture, repeats cmd 12/13)
44 HH LL 44 44 44 7, 4, 4 Change focus (+/- int16 big-endian 0xHHLL)
45 -- -- 45 45 45 7, 4, 5 (Focus to max)
46 -- -- 46 46 46 8, 4, 4 (Focus to min)
47 -- -- 47 47 47 8, 3, 6
48 -- -- 48 48 (ff) 7, 4, 316 (Power down)
49 -- -- 49 49 49 8, 3, 6
4a -- -- 4a 4a aa 7, 3, 4 (Sync)
4b -- -- 4b 4b 4b 7, 4, 10
4c -- -- 4c 4c 4c 7, 4, 7 (Repeats last response byte)
4d -- -- 4d 4d 4d 8, 4, 5
4e -- -- 4e 4e 4e 7, 4, 5
4f -- -- 4f 4f 4f 7, 3, 5
50 -- 50 50 4, 4 (No-op)
51 -- 51 51 4, 4
52 -- 52 00 4, 9 (Change aperture, repeats cmd 12/13)
53 -- 53 00 4, 9 (Change aperture, repeats cmd 12/13)
54 -- 54 54 4, 3 (Change focus, repeats cmd 44)
55 -- 55 55 4, 4 (Focus to max)
56 -- 56 56 4, 4 (Focus to min)
57 -- 57 57 4, 4
58 -- 58 (ff) 4, 298 (Power down)
59 -- 59 59 4, 5
5a -- 5a aa 4, 4 (Sync)
5b -- 5b 5b 4, 9
5c -- 5c 5c 4, 4 (Repeats last response byte)
5d -- 5d 5d 4, 3
5e -- 5e 5e 4, 5
5f -- 5f 5f 4, 5
60..65 60..65 4 (unused)
66 06 12 ?
67 67 4 (unused?)
68 30 4 ?
69 -- -- -- -- --
23 09 00 00 00 00
9, 69, 4, 4, 4, 6 ?
6a -- -- -- -- --
23 09 00 00 00 00
11, 65, 4, 3, 4, 6 ?
6b -- f1 9f 11, 4 ?
6c -- f2 b8 12, 4 ?
6d -- f1 9f 12, 4 alias of 6b?
6e -- f2 b8 12, 3 alias of 6c?
6f -- 54 2a 6, 4
70..7f 70..7f 4 (unused)
80 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Get lens basic info
91 34 00 12 00 37 75 92
12, 9, 4, 4, 4, 4, 3, 4
81 -- -- --
3f 00 00 90
7, 4, 3, 4
82 45 5 Get lens name (first char)
83 46 6 Get lens name (next char)
84 84 6
85 -- -- -- --
ff ff ff ff ff
9, 3, 4, 3, 4
86 -- -- -- 03 00 00 00 7, 3, 3, 4
87..8f 87..8f 5-6 (unused)
90 -- 00 80 16, 12 Get basic status bits
91 -- -- 00 80 44 18, 4, 4 Get extended status bits
92 92 8
93 XX YY ZZ 93 93 93 93 8, 3, 4, 4 Set IS parameters
94 -- f5 00 15, 16
95 -- -- -- 04 37 37 00 6, 6, 3, 3
96..9f 96..9f 3-5 (unused)
a0 -- 00 12 7, 3
a1 1f 4
a2 1f 4
a3..af a3..af 4-5 (unused)
b0 -- -- 25 25 50 6, 4, 4
b1 -- 91 93 8, 4
b2 -- -- 42 02 5f 6, 4, 3
b3 -- 99 82 7, 3
b4..bf b4..bf 4-5 (unused)
c0 -- 00 00 13, 3
c1 -- 00 33 6, 4
c2 -- -- -- ff ff ff 7, 4, 4, 4
c3 40 8
c4 -- 00 20 8, 4
c5 ?? c5 00 4, 4
c6 c6 4
c7 -- fe ff 4, 4
c8 c8 4
c9 -- -- -- -- --
23 03 ff 00 00 00
10, 4, 4, 3, 3, 4
ca -- -- -- -- --
23 03 ff 00 00 00
9, 3, 4, 4, 3, 4
cb..ce cb..ce 4-5 (unused)
cf -- 00 7c 9, 4
d0 ff 24 Get param array d0 (first byte)
d1 ff 24 Get param array d1 (first byte)
d2 ff 26 Get param array d2 (first byte)
d3 ff 26 Get param array d3 (first byte)
d4 fa 27 Get param array d4 (first byte)
d5..d7 d5..d7 4 (unused)
d8 ff 24 Get param array d8 (first byte)
d9 ff 24 Get param array d9 (first byte)
da ff 25 Get param array da (first byte)
db ff 24 Get param array db (first byte)
dc fa 27 Get param array dc (first byte)
dd..de dd..de 4-6 (unused)
df af 7 Get next byte from param array
e0 -- 3b c9 9, 4
e1..e3 e1..e3 4 (unused)
e4 -- 1d 8e 6, 4
e5..e7 e5..e7 4 (unused)
e8 -- -- -- -- --
29 96 9e b0 00 00
10, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4
e9 e9 4 (unused)
ea -- -- -- -- --
29 4e 9d f6 00 00
10, 4, 4, 4, 3, 4
eb..ef eb..ef 4 (unused)
f0 05 12
f1..f7 f1..f7 4-5 (unused)
f8 b5 10
f9 00 11
fa b5 11
fb fb 4 (unused)
fc b7 12
fd f5 11
fe b7 12
ff ff 7