According to a new patent application, Canon has patented a new liquid-cooled camera body design for future high-performance cameras. The design shows a system of enclosed tubes that will use magnetic fields to wick away heat from the camera image processor.
Patent application US 2022/02664767 A1 describes an internal tube array that will rely on a series of through magnets, which will keep the liquid circulating around the system, without the need for internal cooling fans or bulky heat sinks which add weight, girth, and more importantly fan noise to the equation.
Image Credit – Canon
The application was noticed by Northlight Images, which keeps an eye on patents and camera rumors.
The magnets create a pumping movement, which circulates the active cooling fluid over the heating unit, which likely picks up heat from the image processor, transferring it through the system to a cooling unit to dissipate it.
The direction of the fluid also changes, depending on the gravity direction and orientation of the camera.
Though the design could be for any of Canon’s future camera models, including cinema cameras, the drawings in the patent show what looks to be a design closer to their mirrorless models.
Recently, Canon’s Chairman and CEO Fujio Mitarai, indicated that the company was sunsetting its DSLR lines in favor of focusing on mirrorless designs.
Image Credit – Canon
Canon’s focus on cooling down its cameras represents an undiscovered country of sorts, in the realm of camera design, and has only become a factor with the advent of higher resolution and high-speed video which causes the image sensor to generate a lot of heat as it processes and writes each still to the video file.
This could indicate that Canon is moving towards developing even higher resolution cameras beyond the current 8K state of the art in order to compete with larger camera designs like the Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K or developing more powerful consumer-grade mirrorless platforms like the EOS R5, which captures cinematic grade 8K video in a compact form.
Naturally, the more compact the camera, the more heat becomes an issue, and as such, Canon’s liquid-cooled design makes a lot of sense.
The only question is if we’ll ever see it.
[source: Canon Rumors]
Order Links:
- Canon EOS R5 C Mirrorless Cinema Camera (B&H)
- Canon EOS R5 Mirrorless Camera (B&H)
- Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K (B&H)
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