Canon Fuel Cell DSLR Update
As you may recall, Photography Bay previously reported on Canon’s efforts to patent a method for using fuel cells to power your DSLR. A newly published patent application (US 2008/0180565) sheds a little more light on things to come with fuel cell powered DSLRs.
Canon continues to push its fuel cell development by devising a method for powering not only the internal DSLR body electronics, but also external components such as lenses and hotshoe flashes.
The present invention relates to an electronic equipment system having fuel cells, and more particularly, to a camera system in which fuel cells are provided to a camera body and a connection device connected to the camera body. [0001]
Say Goodbye to AA BatteriesEssentially, Canon wants its fuel cell to power everything you attach to your camera. That’s right. No more AA batteries to stuff into your camera bag.
. . . dual battery control of detecting a remaining amount of the battery in each of the devices and determining the state of each of the batteries to control electric power supply, which makes the battery control complicated. [0010]
The patent is a little long winded (as patents can be); however, the gist of it is to have a single power source (i.e., the fuel cell) and that source powers everything (e.g., hotshoe flash).
. . . an electronic equipment system in which fuel cells are provided to an electronic equipment body [ed., a DLSR body] and a connection device [ed., a hotshoe flash] connected to the electronic equipment body, and in which detection of a battery remaining amount and control of electric power supply can be performed under unified management [ed., one fuel cell], thereby enabling simplification of the electronic equipment system and improvement of power generation efficiency thereof. [0011]
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