7D Overheating
 

What do most of you do when your 7D overheats? We shot for 2 hours today and it overheated 3 times, really disappointing. - At least it is the broll camera, and the 5D is working fine, except for the codec - and 30p issues.

Is there a fix for this?

Has Canon talked about a fix for overheating?

Thanks!

Geo

Never ever had an overheating problem on my 7D - maybe I'm just luck (mind you last week I was using it at -40C in the Arctic!). There is a thread in this section (quick search should find it) that list some good tips like turning if off when it's not needed and especially turning off the LCD (live view) in between takes etc. Some have used fans and shielding from hot lights/sun and some cool packs. Some even use 2 bodies and cycle them.

I guess this is the price us 7D owners pay for 8 frames/second stills shooting capability and stunning build/weather shielding.

I've never had a problem either, shooting in pretty warm conditions. All the reports I've read of heating have always involved shooting at 60fps for extended periods.

While shooting car footage mounted outside the car I got the "overheating" icon. At first I wasn't even sure what it was, but since it was mounted outside and we had about 10 minutes until I was in a position to stop shooting I just let it go.

The icon stayed on but the camera kept recording and there were no problems with the footage.

I was shooting 1080P24 and had been shooting continuously for about an hour. The camera was sitting in direct sunlight between takes.

It took about an hour to change camera mounts and the camera was fine and the icon was off. I removed the battery and lens while changing the mount.

It would be great if Canon could do something about this, although it has not been a huge problem.

Thanks, I looked at the other threads. They were aged, so I thought I would bring it up again, in case there is any new info.

2 bodies is a good idea. We are planning on just using our 7d/5d for fancy broll, and leave the rest up to the Z7u for weddings.

Corporate work ought to go a little easier on the cameras that would be more controlled.

We shot at a university today, with some rough backlighting. - The 7d, of course blew away our Z7u as far as control over the image with the backlighting issue. - Wow, the image was like the windows were not even open. - Amazing.

The overheating was an issue.

Thanks for the feedback. - I wish canon would address this. - The 5d firmware has to come!

Geo

On a recent shoot in Thailand, I had the warning come up when shooting two interviews outside and one inside, it wasn't a major hassle as I was shooting on two cams in a controlled environment, but equally it's not something I would expect with a professional tool.

1. Change from 720 to 1080P

2. Use faster CF cards

3. Keep the camera, especially the LCD, out of the sun

4. Keep something cool on the right side of the 7D (near the processors)

5. Frequently call for "CUTS", citing problems with the acting, etc and turn off the camera so as to avoid anyone knowing the problem is your 7D is overheating

6. Insist the scene be changed to a nightime shoot, claiming the scene will be more artistic

7. Say your prayers every night, make sacrificial offering to Canon, insist that your AC wildly fan the camera, etc...

Happy trails, Michael

Number 5 is my favorite.

I shoot weddings and have had the overheating problem occur numerous times. Has me scared to death that it will happen at the wrong time. I'm gonna buy the T2i as a backup.

I only owned the camera for about 2 months and I only had it happen a couple of times on set. Mostly cause they were long takes. Shut it off for 5 minutes and when I turned it back on it was fine. Not a big deal. More processors mean more heat.

This issue has been discussed numerous times on many boards. It is an issue.

I returned my first camera because I was having problems in the 40-45 minute range under almost all conditions. Did lots of experimenting and finally took the camera back and got another. Same issues.

One thing I tried that worked was to use a cold pack on the right side of the camera for a few minutes., That worked. I tried the packs that work the opposite of hot pads. Got em from the drug store. They worked fine. I wouldn't use them too long, but a few minutes at a time every 20 minutes or so seemed to hold off the dreaded red overheating icon.

I haven't figured out an elegant way to attach the cold pack, I just wrap it around the handle/battery side with a rubber band and let it roll for a couple hours (on a tripod) using a timer every 12 minutes to maximize load. I tested with both a cold jel pack from the freezer and the drugstore type where you bang it a few times and then it gets cold.

Both worked for 2 hours with out problems.

I get it at 1080p30 after about 1 hour of shooting. I find that humidity has more to do with it than temp.

Daniel Weber

When shooting in Buenos Aires, I had many instances of camera overheating. I was using the camera all day, for shooting pics and videos of everything I encountered, in a documentary fashion. It is very useful, because you don't have to carry both a still camera and a camcorder. The other benefit is that almost nobody understands that you shoot video, assuming your rig is only for pics.

Here are a few observations:

I also believe it has to do more with other factors besides environmental temperature, but couldn't figure out a pattern. At least in my camera the 50p argument is not valid. It overheats equally in 25p mode.
It seems to overheat less in auto mode. Maybe because the sensor is never overexposed as it can happen if you shoot in manual.
There is no clear pattern when overheating occurs, but if it happens once, probably it will repeat soon. There were days that went on without one instance of overheating and others that I had to turn the camera on/off every 20min or less. Turning the camera on/off seems to cure instantly the problem, but not solving it.
I found out, that opening the battery lid and taking out the battery for a few moments prolonged the intervals between overheating. I thought of changing the battery when overheating occurred, but never really tried it.
Sometimes I just keep shooting with the red sign on. Because it was not a planned work and I had only two batteries, on location reviewing was out of the question, I never figured out if the footage was recorded or not in those instances.

Thought I'd give this thread a bump as I can forsee the overheating issue becomeing a problem for me.

I've not had my 7D out on a wedding yet, that comes tomorrow (just for some B-cam stuff, nothing major so that if the 7d fails drastically, it wont matter, as I'll be using it as an extra cam to my other 2 HDV cams)


From the tests I've done, I can never get more than 40-50 mins without the overheating icon coming on.


This is at room temp, and I'm in Scotland, out hottest day in the summer is about 30 degres celcius, and thats a hot day! So the whether is not goinf to be a factor I dont think.


I plan on using the 7D as a B-cam to begin with (wide shot of church etc...)

Alot of the time, the service and the speeches run past 40 mins, so its a bit of a worry.

Anyone got any updates on the overheating?

I'm gonna try the coldpack to see how that goes.

I can just about deal with the 12 min clip limit, but if I cant get an hour at a time without overheating, I think I may need to rethink things

James

Overheating
 

My new 7D overheat twice on a recent shoot doing interviews. One the first intvu it happed at about 45 mins. I shut down for five minutes. We then had lunch so the camera was off.

On the second also at about 45 mins. Shut the camera down for about two minutes.

My setup was: 7D with EF 17-55mm IS USM with IS off and AF off. LSC was off too because I had an external HDMI monitor. It was a little warmer than room temp because of lights.

Alan

Hi Alan,

Curious - what memory card make/model/speed and what frame rate/resolution were you shooting. Also, were you using a charged factory Canon battery or something else? Lastly, I wonder about the lighting wattage (I assume tunsten) and distance from the camera.

Regards, Michael

I have had the camera overheat in Africa, Egypt and Israel while shooting.

I recently took it to Geneva and Istanbul to shoot and not overheating problems at all.

The difference was the temperature of the environment that I was shooting in. Geneva and Istanbul were much cooler than the others.

I really think that the 7D can't handle high temps or humidity. I think that humidity is worse than the ambient temperature.

Kind of wish that I had sprung for a 5D.

Daniel Weber

Has anyone heard from Canon about a possible solution to the overheating?

Someone here posted a link to an interesting cooling plate that required a little bit of electricity. It was inexpensive as I recall and small.

Khoi Pham posted that a little while ago. I know there are a lot of workarounds, etc.

I live in Las Vegas so I'll have to be very careful in the summer. I've seen it get so hot out here that you couldn't even touch 35mm mags without burning your fingers.

I'll put the camera through the torture test as soon as it warms up here. :)

Received this from Canon support:

We haven't found any issues with the Rebel T2i or 7D overheating. The
working temperature range for your camera is 32-104F. The working
humidity is 85% or less. Please be sure to only use the camera within
the specified range. If you are recording video in high temperatures
you should let the camera rest between recordings.

I am willing to compile of list of overheating problems and send them to Canon but I need specific information to submit to them.

I will ask all users with overheating problems to provide the following information and then I will submit a summary to Canon and keep on top of them until we get this resolved.

I worked in computer tech support for a government contractor debugging computer programs for years and the best way to debug these problems is to be able to reproduce it, so the more detailed information we have the better chance we have to solve this problem.

As soon as Canon can repeatedly reproduce the problem the sooner we will have solution.

Here is the information I will need before I can submit it to Canon:

Camera Model
Serial Number
Firmware version
Your e-mail address and phone number so I can forward it to Canon in case they want to contact you.
Location: country, city, state, where you were shooting.
Were you shooting outside or inside?
Were you in the sun or shade?
Ambient temperature, estimated humidity.
What memory cards were you using, any additional devices attached, etc.
Handheld, tripod, steadicam, etc.
What modes were you shooting in, eg. 1920 30fps, 720 60fps, etc.
How long was the camera on, how were you using it.
Any other relevant information.

Hopefully, we can get this resolved in the near future.

the heat issues comes when there is a change in env. Particularly from indoor to outdoor. Its simple to overcome by having 2 cams. Anyway 5D2 has 24P now so its no issue with 2x 5D2 for a wedding =)

Just curious, when you guys are getting overheating, are you handholding the camera?

Mine overheated one time while shooting my childs play inside a school auditorium, which was a cool 65 degrees. The 5d worked flawless, but it was on a tripod. I was handholding the 7d and noticed my hand was getting very warm while holding the 7d and it was then I kept getting the overheat warning.

Would be interesting to know if anyone is getting it on a tripod, where your not transferring your body heat from your hand into the right side of the camera, right were the cpu's are.

hmm. I did a shoot yesterday and got the overheating icon after 10 minutes and had it pretty much remain through the shoot. (although it never shut off).

I read all the above posts and thought about my scenario:

on the bridge of a cruise ship in port. (no a/c). A mildly warm day, but not "hot". A tiny bit warm on the bridge, but not enough to make you sweat. Humidity seemed "normal".

The two variables that piqued my curiosity:

1. i was powering the 7d with a tekkeon battery via the canon dummy batt. I had the voltage set to 7.5v. The canon batteries are rated as 7.4v, but yield around 8.6v when fully charged. The camera itself lists the voltage as 8.2v... So i'm reluctant to jump up to my next voltage setting (9v) but curious if the 7.5v (or any canon batteries running low on voltage) can cause extra heating issues. is it possible thats why we get the "after 45 minutes of shooting" problems?

2. My subject was backlit, with totally blown out windows behind the subject. I wouldn't have thought that was an issue, but Emmanuel mentioned overexposure as a possible cause of overheating. Made me curious at least.

I really hope its not my battery solution, as i love being able to do a full days shoot without worrying about power. Not sure how to test it further... except for shooting a prolonged sequence without overexposure and see how that fares. hmm.

cheers!
-a

I recently had this problem when shooting in an air conditioned building, not very hot at all. I was using a marshall HDMI monitor so the LCD wasn't on. I was shooting at 1080/25 and recording to a 32GB UDMA Sandisk Extreme card. After around 10 minutes of recording the temperature warning light came on. I had no choice but to leave the camera running but the footage looks fine.

It's a bit worrying that this happened in non-extreme temperatures though, I'm planning on using the 7D at an event in St Tropez in May and now I'm a little concerned about this issue.

The 5D was fine all day under the same conditions, does the 5d even have the same warning?

Moving from indoor to outdoor causes problems with humidity rather than heat. Though I agree, two cams is the way to go.

Speed of Cards
 

We are using Transcends 133x with the 7D and having the overheating indoor in air controlled rooms, 60-70 f - nice and cool. We taped for about 40 minutes, then the overheat icon came on.

Is it the write speed of my cards? I have no problems with the 5dMii.

I am wondering about trying a faster card before dumping camera.

George

I've shot with it for hours with no overheating, and at times gotten the overheating icon within 30 minutes.

Today I shot some scenes for an indie feature out side in Miami. Within about 45 minutes, i started gettin the message. After reading Michael Nistlers post, I started thinking that it might be the direct hot sunlight, on the right side of the camera. Maybe an umbrella on the tripod, or some kind of cloth to shade the camera from hot sun?

Bruce Yarock

I am going to try to do some testing so I can understand this camera better.

If anyone has any other testing on the bench, it would be great to understand what exactly triggers this icon of disappointment.

It is really a challenge to use and trust this camera at an event. When you have to roll, you have to roll.

I guess it's off to buy a T2i as a spare.

George

Like others have saids, I'd never trust this camera as my main camera at a non repeatable event, like a wedding.
And the more I think about it, I think that the direct hot sun is the worst culprit.
Bruce Yarock

Hi Bruce,

Yes, I've heard others have problems with direct sunlight on the LCD monitor - I suppose since it's a flat surface that area would conduct more heat radiation than the rest of the camera's curved surfaces. At any rate, if overheating is an issue than we should take steps to keep the camera cool (out of the sun, cold packs, reduce processor load, etc).

Good luck, Michael

I was thinking of using a small clip on umbrella...
Bruce Yarock

Canon 7D Overheating Feedback
 

@John Mastrogiacomo

Camera Model: Canon 7D
Serial Number: #0420408362
Firmware version: 1.1.0
Extras: Zacuto Z-Finder, Canon BG-E7 Battery Grip with two batteries
Memory Card: Kingston 32GB | 133X
Tripod: Yes
Recording Format: 1080 30fps

Contact Info:
tadams@twistoflime.com
425-698-7773
Seattle, WA

Outside shooting: Yes
Were you in the sun or shade? Both

Ambient temperature, estimated humidity:
Camera was used under a variety of conditions. High 40's to 60 degrees. Rain and wind on some days, sunshine on a few others. Humidity range 40-80%.

My Canon 7D was used to record ten soccer games --on a tripod-- over a period of 2.5 months -- beginning in January. Temperatures for Jan and Feb were cool, cloudy and rainy at times with a breeze ranging from 5-25 m.p.h. on some days. Under these conditions the camera performed flawlessly. While recording soccer games the camera was stopped and restarted about 20-25 times over the course of 30 minutes. This was done whenever the action stopped for the whistle, an out of bounds ball or shortly after a goal was scored. At half-time the camera was turned off. This process was repeated for the second-half.

It wasn't until the sun came out on one recent March day, heating the outdoor temperature to 60 degrees, that I experienced the overheating icon after 20 minutes of use. There was very little breeze that day. The camera was in direct sunlight, no umbrella. After the overheating icon came on I let it run for a little longer, but eventually I decided to turn the camera off for a couple of minutes. After turning the camera back on to begin recording the high temperature warning came back on after only a couple of minutes of recording, which leads me to believe the Canon 7D probably needs a minimum of a half-hour out of the sun to dissipate the internal heat.

On another day when the sun was out and the temperature hit 60 degrees I successfully recorded a soccer game without any temperature warnings. The difference: the wind was blowing at about 15-25 m.p.h. On this day I was prepared to mount an umbrella to the tripod handle. However, the wind made it unsafe to do so and subsequently, unnecessary.

I've gotten the overheating error on my old 5DMK2 when I had it, and I got it a couple times recently on someone elses 7D. Never got it on my own 7D, though, and I wonder if it is in some way related to firmwares but I dont remember which firmware was in use each time it happened. To my recollection, I was always surprised by the circumstances of the overheating indicator as it was always in a situation that was not that hot (most recently it was in an airconditioned office building without many hot lights shooting 1080@24), whereas I've shot hot humid concerts rolling constantly for hours at a time and never seen the overheat indicator. I also wonder if the LCD brightness level has an effect as im sure it puts off a little bit of heat and is rather close to the rest of the internal components of the small camera.

The 5D Mark II will go baking hot before it eventually shuts down. Far hotter than the 7D can cope with.

Has anyone downloaded the latest firmware 1.2.1 which is supposed to help the overheating issue? - and have you since experienced an overheating warning light? How much filming did you get in?

Have important interviews tomorrow, and have not given the camera a proper run out. I am using another two HD cameras as backup, but my plan is to have the 7D as the main camera for this.


PREVENTION?

Does anyone have any tips they could pass on? (ice packs on the battery side?)
If the camera overheats, how long does it usually take before it's back up and running, if cooled with an ice pack?)
Does taking the battery out and changing it make any difference?
Does applying an ice pack to a CF card, or changing the card ,make any difference?

Would be interested to hear your thoughts.

Martin, the other day I was shooting for about 10 minutes outside in 80 degree heat and the warning light came on. the next day I applied the update to all three of my 7d's and am happy to report that I shot an outside ceremony on Saturday in similar heat and had no warning all day from any of the cams.

What they did was increase the point of warning and so it has to heat up even more before the warning turn on, could be bad since I've heard a few 5DM2 got fry from shooting all day, and so they lower the warning point when the 7D came out, and got complaints and so now they raise it. Can't win or lose.

That's really good to hear Chad, thanks. I think at least it's made us 7D owners more aware of switching off the camera when not using, and trained us to conserve battery power!