If you've ever been on a long shoot, then maybe you have experienced an overheating camera, and if so, then you know the frustration of waiting until it cools. Nikon aims to solve this issue. Nikon has a patent pending on a removable heat storage unit for DSLR cameras that absorbs the heat produced by the sensor. In the same way you might interchange batteries or memory cards, Nikon's removable heat storage will allow you to switch one out for another, allowing one to cool and keeping your longer shoots on schedule. For some more info and schematics, hit the jump.
DSLRs produce and emit a lot of heat, especially from the LCD screen when working in Live Mode for extended periods of time. Nikon's heat storage is arranged between the LCD screen and sensor, and will absorb the heat produced by the sensor through the Pelteir Effect. Once the temperature reaches or exceeds a predetermined level, the heat storage can then be interchanged with another unit like a battery.
This comes to us from Egami, which was machine translated by Nikon Rumors:
In a digital camera, a latent heat storage material is arranged near the image sensor, and there are some which suppressed the temperature rise of the image sensor periphery by carrying out accumulation of the heat emitted from the image sensor to a latent heat storage material by a phase change.
Since the patent was only recently filed in Japan (and our source is written in Japanese, which I don't speak), there really isn't a ton of information on this, like what cameras will be involved. However, we can all imagine that being able to interchange the heat storage on a DSLR will allow for greater efficiency on set, as well as saving filmmakers the headache of a hot camera.
What do you think? Has overheating caused you problems on set? Would something like this save you a lot of hassle? Let us know in the comments.
Link: Nikon patents removable heat storage -- Nikon Rumors
[via Egami]
