Brilliant idea for noise suppression

eoren1

I just saw a post about the new Hasselblad H3D-II DSLR here:
http://www.letsgodigital.org/en/16874/hasselblad-h3d-ii/
If you can get past the line about the price of this thing (26k euros!) and read on you'll get to:
"Image noise in the Hasselblad H3D-II has been significantly reduced by improving the cooling of the sensor, achieved by attaching to the CCD a physical heatsink, which dissipates the heat generated to the entire camera body and considerably lowers the temperature of the system."

That is so simple and brilliant! Why hasn't anyone else implemented this idea yet? I imagine that will all of the live view cameras coming out that heat will become a very significant issue regardless of pixel density and sensor sensitivity.
Seems like a pretty good idea.
E

colourbox

Nothing wrong with the idea. I wonder if it's a physics issue. A Hasselblad body is so much bigger that there's that much more surface area to work with....is there enough surface area on a 35mm-sized SLR to dissipate the heat? Once you've avoided all of the areas you need to hold onto? I wonder where the exit points for the heat sink are on the Hasselblad.

Could also be a materials cost issue. On a camera that expensive, they might be able to afford some heat-efficient alloy that wouldn't allow a sub-$2000 camera to meet its price point.

Nimai

Sounds like a good application for a Peltier Junction Thermo Electric Heat Pump. (I've always wanted to use that in a sentence! )

LiquidAir

On most cameras, there is an LCD display where cooling fins on the heat sink would have to go. On a DSLR, if you put a heat sink there you wouldn't be able to see through the viewfinder.

jogle

CMOS chips use much less power so they don't heat up like CCD chips. They also aren't affected by temperature as strongly.

Peltier coolers also require a fairly large current, and they still need a big heatsink. Astronomical telescopes cool their ccd's with liquid nitrogen for super low noise. Imagine an SLR with a little cryo tank on the side!

It's more a testament to the SLR makers that they have technology that can deliver decent results at 1600 ISO and above in any temperature.

I haven't noticed more noise in my shots from asia and the tropics then my skiing and New Zealand winter shots.

Has anyone else?

kdog

jogle wrote:

I haven't noticed more noise in my shots from asia and the tropics then my skiing and New Zealand winter shots.

Has anyone else?

No. Nor have I noticed that the camera produces less noisy images right after you turn it on.

-joel

claudermilk

LiquidAir wrote:

On most cameras, there is an LCD display where cooling fins on the heat sink would have to go. On a DSLR, if you put a heat sink there you wouldn't be able to see through the viewfinder.

Exactly! Look at a typical MFDB--there's plenty of room in there to mount a heat sink to the backside of the sensor. You have a couple of inches of depth to work with since they are about the same size (or even a bit bigger) than the 120 film backs. You don't have that room in a 35mm format DSLR--there's a circuit board, a metal chassis plate, then the rear LCD all right next to each other.

Here's a couple of examples of how tight it is inside Canon & NIkon DSLRs: http://www.astrosurf.org/buil/350d/350d.htm and http://www.astrosurf.org/buil/d70/ircut.htm

Compared to MFDBs here: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/mf-backs.shtml (couldn't find any shots of disassembled--you mean nobody's torn apart thier $20K boack yet? wink). Anyway, those shots show the kind of space available, particulalry since the sensor is on then front face of the back, leaving all kinds of room for everything else.

GadgetGav

Nimai wrote:

Sounds like a good application for a Peltier Junction Thermo Electric Heat Pump. (I've always wanted to use that in a sentence! )

In scientific imaging, that's exactly what they do. Actively cooled CCD cameras are common. The downside of course is that they're big, heavy and use a lot of power - not good for a handheld device running from a battery!
I guess a passive heat sink is going to provide a little cooling, but I doubt it will do that much unless there's a fan on it too.

ziggy53

GadgetGav wrote:

In scientific imaging, that's exactly what they do. Actively cooled CCD cameras are common. The downside of course is that they're big, heavy and use a lot of power - not good for a handheld device running from a battery!
I guess a passive heat sink is going to provide a little cooling, but I doubt it will do that much unless there's a fan on it too.

With active cooling you also have to worry about condensation, which makes it less practical for general photography.