[rcheshire (Rowland)]

I took advantage of the cold rainy night, here in Geelong, to further test the newly installed sensor defogger, fitted to my test camera, in addition to installing an Astronomik EOS UV-IR Clip-in filter, which reduces the volume of air in front of the sensor. Using a spare sensor, I did a full spectrum mod with the intention of fitting a clip-in.

I have migrated the cooling and sensor defogger to a 1000D test bed.

Cold finger temperature -10.94C, with sensor defogger set at 4V, slight condensation appeared in the bottom right corner of the sensor, but not enough to infringe upon the active portion. A slight increase in voltage will fix that. Normally running the defogger at 4.7 - 4.8V.

Very happy with this result. It is unlikely that these sorts of temperatures will be a regular thing and the test camera is working just fine. Then again for summer cooling I'm tempted to work on a more efficient setup, with a bit more aesthetic appeal.

I'm not sure if anyone is getting anything out of this? But my research indicates that one of the most ideal candidates for this set up is a 450D. 14 bit, pixel size 5.2um, same as 1100D, characteristically low noise and construction almost identical to the 1000D, which makes it a breeze to convert and cool. And a biggy - very cheap second hand.

I'm not taken with the 5D MKII as a candidate for coolling. Like many of the latest Canon offerings the sensor heats to astronomical proportions by comparison to earlier models that I have looked at. It is not very robust either. I find it too delicate/ fragile and ready to malfunction. But I do like the image scale with a 200mm lens.

In short, unless you are prepared to live with a bit of pain, mod something else. A cold finger, electric sensor defogger and a couple of good quality adjustable DC DC converters is all thats needed.