Yesterday in the sun I was shooting 3-5 min bursts for about 30 minutes. I'd have 2-3 minutes between clips but I wasn't turning the camera off.

The camera did get pretty hot, even when off. That black body sucks up the sunlight. Canon should make a white DSLR. :)

Mine overheated after about 10 mins in the sun around 18c, and required shutting down for 5 mins in a cool room to work again. In those conditions probably a good idea to use the white cloth suggestion or move to shade / cool area wherever possible between shots - but the upshot is it means we can't rely on the camera in warm sunny conditions, especially with clients present who have very limited time.

On my 5D2, I had overheating only once. The camera was on a tripod in the sun, it was late in the day, and the sun was shining directly on the LCD panel.

So, yes, a white cloth is a good idea - especially on a tripod where the camera will be in the sun continuously.

So I finally got a chance to shoot with my new T2i along with my 5d and 7d. It was 94F last Saturday and I shot a wedding ceremony. My T2i with battery grip went the distance for approximately a 45 minute ceremony. The overheating icon came on but it never shut down. My 7d with no battery grip did shut down for 10 seconds in the last moments of the ceremony. The 5d with battery grip did not have any issue. I used a tape based camera for backup since it was my first shoot with the T2i and I am glad I have it for safety.

Today i experinced the overheating icon about 30 min into a shoot where I'd shoot a song, stop recoding and start recording again immediately because that's how the set was being played. After shooting with a 5D mk2 for the last year and a half and never seeing an overheating icon, I didn't know what it was.
So today was shooting on a tripod in the shade at about 80F. Is this camera defective in design?

Defective No. Its that its made of plastic vs the metal body of the 5D. The 5D disapates heat much better as a result.

According to Canon Support you might run that camera with that overheating symbol for some time and not hurt the camera at all. When it really truly gets to hot it will shut itself down. This is about how it feels in the hands of consumers. Its more of a liability thing "to hot to handle"
Of course it does not get hot enough to burn you, it would power off before that happened, however..... companies always err very conservatively in these cases to avoid any litigation etc.

Defective? I think that the sensor may not work exactly the same way in every single camera. Your flashing the symbol at 30min, someone else at 65min. etc. Then there is the ambient temperature etc etc etc.

For what its worth.....

CM

Just finished shooting a short film with my t2i. The shoot was mostly ext/day, in hot and humid Tel Aviv. After about an hour of continues starts and stops I got the warning sign. 5 mins in the shade and it was good. I believe that a lot of the over heating is from prolonged sensor exposure. For the rest of the day I closed the mirror shutter or the matte box between takes and there was no problem.

It's absurd that we are making all kinds of excuses for the fact that the camera is overheating.
It is unacceptable and thats it. No icebags, no waiting every 10 minutes, just solve the the problem canon.
It is true that we get a nice picture and we can live with the crappy sound recording, but overheating.
Canon give me a brick no..............

How is it unacceptable that a still-image camera being pushed to pull video from a giant sensor, compress it to a standard video format, and store it real-time to a cheap, small memory card gets a little warm sometimes?

We are pushing these cameras to their limits, that's all.

There are a few common factors that tend to surface when discussing overheating Canons...

-Shooting 720 60p
-Using less then stellar SD cards (this seems to be the biggest problem causer, as seen right here in your thread, John: http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/canon-eos-rebel-t2i-eos-550d-hd/484740-canon-t2i-great-photo-cam-very-bad-movie-cam.html...)


Now if, say, an EX1r was overheating this regularly, I'd be right there with you. But with these cams? You have to live with the limitations of using something that's not exactly designed to take the level of use it's getting. The T2i is a great video camera, you just have to accept that it isn't a full time dedicated, problem free video camera!

I've shot several weddings with 2 7D and 1 T2i before.
T2i always heats up first during long ceremony.
We usually continuously shoot back to back.
7D heats up, too.. time to time...
never heard 5D heating up.
I am gonna put 60D to test if it heats up like T2i.

JJ

When I first got the 60D I ran it through two 32gb cards in a room temp of 75 degrees. It did not give the temp warning, granted, it was only 75.

Then over the weekend I did a two camera interview in a room about 80 degrees. After about 45 minutes of continuous recording, well stopping and restarting every 12 minutes, the 60D did not give either of the temperature warning icons. The T2i did flash the red temperature warning but did not shut down.

Yea I second Mark, ran 60D for 3 hours at room temperature. no overheating icon no problems.
Very pleased.

Hi Bryan, We have and Ex1 and of course it never overheats in our Key West environment I believe due to the internal fan. Albeit it's samll and silent, but it does the job.
Our T2i on the other hand is another story. LOL
Thanks!
Craig

I've never even seen a high heat warning, let alone have it shut off.

I use our 550D for wide/fixed shots in dance concert productions in theaters. It overheats on every shoot during the course of the event.

Also, I get the dreaded "movie has stopped recording" error regularly as well. That is more of a worry than the heat problem because it comes "out of nowhere". I have been unaware of it and missed some shots at times until I happen to look at the screen.

T2i overheated and shutdown during a recording. Later, it appears that the file it was recording at that time was not recorded. It shows a 0 kb file size (when it should be a GB or two...). Have others encountered this?

Now it has not shut down on me but the icon comes on and the cards are blazing hot from the heat coming from the camera. If I did not have the grip would it be worst? I'm not sure and don't want to try it out on a job. Changing the battery every 40 minutes was pretty frustrating at a Christian Quinceanera prior to using the grip.

Hi Monday!

I'm afraid the cure is to replace the T2i with either the T3i, T4i, or 60D (if you want to stay in the Canon system). It seems the articulating LCD on those models has physically separated the two main heat generating components, the sensor and the LCD. I've seen no credible reports of overheating with those models.

I've switched to Panasonic GH2s for other reasons but those seem to not have the overheating problem (they also have an articulating LCD as well as a built in EVF.