Has someone tested how long on average the time is from warning of overheating till the camera stops functioning correctly if you try to continue?

Everyones 7D, 550D will overheat at sometime or another, The average shutdown time is about 5 minutes. For any long shooting sessions you will be much better off with a dedicated camcorder. These DSLRs generate a lot of heat, they are simply not designed for extended shooting. Having said that, I use my 550D as B cam to an EX1, and its a perfect tool for grabbing cutaways and infills. I know a lot of guys use there DSLRs as A cams on day long shoots, and get away with it. But they will overheat at some time. As long as we are aware of that and use the cameras within their limitations, its no problem. Now if only they could address the awful aliasing and moire problems !!!!

At NAB, one of the Canon reps told me the cameras generate more heat when they use an external monitor.
He said the CPU has to work harder to push the information out.

theatre shoot
 

Eric..I had the XHA1 as my wide centre shot (will also keep it 1080 and crop/pan as the final product will only be DVD quality) and an HF100 as a side cutaway shot. I moved around with the T2i to get as many different detail shots as possible. I used a 17-55 and a 50/1.8. I had it on a tripod for front of house shots and then hand-held backstage for more documentary style clips. I also had an assistant with a 5D using an 85 and a 200 for closeup face expressions. (It was a dance production). I have 9 different streams to put together from the 3 performances. It's going to be spectacular, but not really worth what little I am being paid!

I have to say I LOVE the T2i. Its so light that I was able to shoot for almost an hour straight completely hand-held. The image quality with the 50mm prime fully open is stunning. The focus was difficult on the moving subjects, so I used the auto focus (half pressing the shutter release) on the floor at the dancer's feet and then re-framed....that way it focused much faster and more accurately.

As I mentioned, I had no overheating issues at all even after shooting over an hour hand-held on the second night. Yes, it got hot in my hand but the warning never came up.

Hi Daniel,

Its all very anecdotal at this point. A few days ago I decided to run all my batteries (15) and cards (12 x 16gb) through three bodies all day long while I was editing just to make sure I didn't have any lemons. When they stopped recording I hit the button to start them up again. When the card filled up I formatted the card and started over. When the batteries ran out in the grips I replaced them. I went for literally eight hours and only once, with one of the cameras, did I have the overheating warning pop up. I was as surprised as anyone to see that they didn't overheat. I plan on running the same test again next week.

Ran my T2i recording a recital tonight @ 1080-30P. Ran it almost non-stop for about 75 minutes, perhaps with one 3 minute rest and may 2 or 3 one minute rests. The red thermometer popped up about 2 minutes before finishing the last piece, which I was able to finish without the camera shutting down. I'm downloading the card now, hopefully it all came out.

well I just got my T2i this week and I did a test shoot right out the box see my post http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/canon-eo...-good-bad.html , from all the posts that I have been reading it seems like it overheat more shooting 60fps then 24 or 30 fps, of course more frame to process at 60, on my test shoot I use 60 fps and it overheated too many times, I have not tried 30fps yet.
Also people experiencing less overheating when using the battery grip, I don't know why that is the processor still work as hard !!

Overall I still think for the price of this camera and the quality of the image it can give you, the benefits outweighs all the problems that it has.

88 degree day in Maryland. The over heat lamp came on quite a bit throughout the day. I would have to shut the cam off for 1 minute and resume filming. Little frustrating.

Was this with or without the battery grip?

It was without the battery grip. I'm waiting on a 3rd party battery grip to be released.

Yeah, I was waiting on one as well but had a shoot come up that made it worth the $170 to deflect possible overheating issues.

Shot for two hours yesterday in 95 degree heat, direct sunlight.

Got the temp icon about 30 min in and started to switch on and off between shots. The icon kept returning, but the camera never shut down.

As another data point, not sure if it has anything to do with anything, I've only ever seen the temp icon while shooting 1080 30p. I shoot 1080 24p 90% of the time and have never seen it in that format.

Link Delight just released the grip a couple of weeks ago. I have mine but I haven't used it yet. This is my 3rd grip from them and I have been more than satisfied with the other two (5d and T1i grips).

I purchased one approx 3 weeks ago. I've been using it now for 2 weeks and love the prolonged battery life by using 2 batteries instead of one.

Is the heat issue non-existent with the grip?