heat

Roger Cicala and the crew at Lensrentals finally got the chance to do a proper teardown of the Canon EOS R5, and what they found is an exceptionally well-sealed camera that's packed full of the latest tech. That's both a huge pro and, if you're thinking in terms of heat dissipation, a potential con.

A computer vision engineer by day and photographer by night, I never take the path most traveled, especially when it comes to imaging technology. Thermal cameras are one of the most interesting types of cameras, and while they are widely used in industrial, scientific, and military applications, they are largely untouched and unknown to the general public.

With homelessness on the rise in countries across Europe, photographer Grey Hutton decided to take to the streets of London and Berlin to shoot portraits of the homeless in winter months using a thermal camera. His project is titled Traces of Warmth.

Standard schlieren imaging techniques use a large mirror to be able to visualize heat or pressure differences in air. The problem with these techniques is that they require large precision telescope mirrors that are very expensive. My lab is fortunate to have a 13-inch diameter telescope mirror; but what happens when I need to photograph a larger subject?

Schlieren flow visualization and photography is one of those things that is just too cool. Using an optical trick, it allows a camera to capture, "small changes in the index of refraction in air." In other words, it can see anything that affects airflow: heat, sound waves, or just plain old air currents themselves.

And the video above, uploaded at the beginning of this year by the Harvard Natural Sciences Lecture Demonstrations YouTube channel, is one of the most fascinating demonstrations of Schlieren optics we've ever seen.

Earlier this year, we told you about the FLIR ONE, an iPhone case with a built-in thermal camera that made 'predator vision' available to all.

But if the FLIR ONE is just a bit too pricy for your blood, there's a new player in the thermal camera game you might want to take a look at. It's called the Seek thermal camera, and while it's not as impressive as the FLIR ONE, neither is its price.

As DSLRs become more and more capable video capture machines, the problem of overheating becomes a more pressing one. With RAW video in particular, where the amount of data being captured is staggering, the sensor needs to be protected if you expect to keep using the camera for any extended amount of time.

Cinema cameras, like Canon's 1D C, have attacked this issue in the past by arranging the internals in such a way as to provide better cooling. But a couple of new Nikon patents take a different approach.

Hawaii-based photographer Sean King captures beautiful photographs of lava flows in Hawaii, venturing into locations where lava reaches temperatures of 2000°F.

Modder Andy Rawson needed an easy way to find air leaks in his 100-year-old house in order to improve its energy efficiency. Not wanting to spend thousands of dollars on a thermal imaging camera, he decided to go the DIY route. He built a box containing a 64-zone temperature sensor, and managed to connect the device to his iPhone via the dock. By overlaying the temperature data onto the iPhone's camera display, the $150 attachment instantly turns the iPhone into a cheap thermal imaging camera.