fbpx

DIY Photography

Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time

Search

Submit A Story

DJI FPV Drone teardown shows it’s modular and repairable at home

by Leave a Comment

One of the key aspects of FPV drones is their repairability. After all, most FPV drones (particularly racing ones) are self-built by the person flying them. They’re not off-the-shelf purchases, so the person who made it and is flying it knows exactly how to tear it back down, replace parts and rebuild it. But does DJI’s new FPV drone stand up to the same self-repair scrutiny?

This teardown video from Livyu FPV shows that, while it’s not exactly an FPV racing drone, it does seem to be designed in a modular fashion that makes it fairly easy for users to repair at home when needed. And, make no mistake, with an FPV drone, you’ll almost certainly have a crash and need to do so at some point.

[Read More…]

Tearing down the Canon RF 100-500mm f/4.7-7.1L IS USM reveals a very complex design

by Leave a Comment

This is probably one of the most in-depth lens teardowns I’ve seen from Lensrentals. Their efforts weren’t by choice, though. The lens lied to them. The team recently posted a teardown of the Canon RF 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1L IS USM lens that had a broken element inside it. It appeared as though the element might reside inside the stabilization system, which is relatively easy to remove.

It turned out, though, that the IS system of the lens was simply masking the true location of the broken element. This resulted in the need to pretty much completely dismantle the entire lens, down to almost its core constituent parts, in order to track down exactly where in the optical makeup it was.

[Read More…]

iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro camera modules revealed in this iFixit teardown

by Leave a Comment

No matter what brand of phone you choose to use yourself, the biggest spectacle in the smartphone world each year is undoubtedly the new iPhone releases. This year, that meant the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro (well, and the iPhone 12 Pro Max, but that’s not available yet). And, following on from that announcement is the obligatory teardown from iFixit.

In an hour and a half live stream, Taylor Dixon, iFixit’s Teardown Engineer, took apart both the iPhone 12 and the iPhone 12 Pro to see how easy it is to dismantle and to take a look at the components inside – including the camera modules (the camera talk is around the 44-minute mark).

[Read More…]

Tearing down the Sigma fp – the world’s smallest and lightest full-frame mirrorless camera

by Leave a Comment

Since making is debut in July of 2019, the Sigma fp has gained notoriety as a very capable camera among its mixed reviews. The decidedly lowercase ‘fp’ is Sigma’s first full-frame sensor. The fp was released the same year that all other major camera manufacturers that aren’t Sony were releasing their first or second full-frame mirrorless cameras, and in typical Sigma fashion, the fp stood out from the crowd.

It’s certainly doing its part now to popularize the sensor-in-box style form factor that makes so much sense for video shooters. This design also makes it a great candidate for conversion to Infrared!

[Read More…]

Thermal vision tests suggest Canon may not be able to “fix” the EOS R5’s heat issues

by 15 Comments

LensRentals just recently posted their teardown of the Canon EOS R5 and noticed that it has some pretty hefty seals to help protect it from the elements when shooting outdoors in harsh conditions. But they theorised that those seals and the tightly packed components might hamper the EOS R5’s heat dissipation abilities.

Well, now, Roger and the team at LensRentals have pointed a FLIR thermal IR camera at it to see exactly how hot the Canon EOS R5 gets after it’s been on for a while at different parts of the camera body. And some of it… Well, it gets extremely hot!

[Read More…]

Canon EOS R5 teardown shows great weather sealing but few escape routes for heat

by 1 Comment

Well, Kolari Vision might’ve been the first to tear apart the Canon EOS R6 and get a good look at the chip that seems to keep time for “overheating” issues, but it looks like Roger and the gang at Lensrentals has beaten them to the punch on cracking open the Canon EOS R5.

They’ve published a complete EOS R5 teardown which offers some good insights into its weather sealing, which looks very impressive. But those seals might be the EOS R5’s downfall when it comes to letting heat escape.

[Read More…]

EOS R6 teardown reveals the timer chip that’s holding the camera back

by 5 Comments

Here at Kolari Vision, we love tearing into the newest camera gears to learn how they work and if they can be modded for infrared photography, full spectrum photography, or other things. We’ve been really excited about the R5/R6 release, and had plans to add some cooling mods and overhaul it into a proper video camera.

Reports from EOSHD that Canon uses an overheat timer rather than actual temperature readings left us a bit disappointed and calls into question whether physically cooling down the camera can actually give any more shooting time. Andrew Reid was able to bypass this timer by using a screw to override the safety shutoff switch in the battery door compartment and do a hard shutdown during recording, but this seems to corrupt video files.

[Read More…]

Take a peek inside the Canon EOS R6 mirrorless camera in this disassembly and teardown

by 4 Comments

Here at Kolari Vision, we love tearing into the newest camera gears to learn how they work and if they can be modded for infrared photography, full spectrum photography, or other things. We’ve been really excited about the Canon EOS R5 & EOS R6 release and had plans to add some cooling mods and overhaul it into a proper video camera.

Reports that Canon uses a clock rather than temperature readings left us a bit disappointed and calls into question whether physically cooling down the camera can actually give any more shooting time. While we don’t have an R5 yet, we did get an R6 this week and tore it down to see what’s inside. Here we’ll go over the basics that we found inside, how the thermals are handled, and later share some insights we learned about how the Canon clock circuit works.

[Read More…]

Teardown reveals the $749 DJI Mavic Air 2 is made from around $135 worth of parts

by 33 Comments

 

This isn’t the first Mavic Air 2 teardown we’ve seen, that honour goes to the folks at iFixit, but a new teardown by Tokyo-based research specialist Fomalhaut Techno Solutions in partnership with Nikkei Asian Review certainly seems to be the most in-depth.

The complete teardown doesn’t appear to have been published publicly, but the Nikkei Asian Review has reported on some of its details. Details like the fact that it is comprised of around 80% off-the-shelf parts, and coming in at a total material cost of around $135.

[Read More…]

The $10,000 teardown – Fuji GFX 100 vs saltwater

by Leave a Comment

Setting the whole DSLR vs mirrorless argument aside for a minute, there’s one thing that’s remained constant amongst all of them. Don’t let it get in contact with saltwater. And if you are going to head out into the ocean with it, make sure to check that you’ve got a reliable dive housing with no leaks!

Lensrentals recently had a Fuji GFX 100 out, which they were told was used in a dive housing and “suddenly died for no reason”. It turns out that there was a reason. Not wanting to risk killing a $10K camera themselves, they spoke to Fuji, who gave them the “repair not possible” line. Well, if Fuji’s told you it can’t be repaired, and the insurance has already paid for a replacement, why not tear it apart and take a peek inside?

[Read More…]

Recent Posts