Canon EOS R5 records 4 hours of 4KHQ 30p to an external recorder, with a couple of simple tweaks

Consider also the price of CFExpress cards ($512GB = $600) vs a Ninja and 1TB SSD is not that much more.... and for that price you get better monitoring, professional tools for correctly exposing / managing color and better codecs for editing. It doesn't really add much more bulk but increases your flexibility massively. And you can always remove it and shoot internal if you want.
Agreed. But external don’t support 8k nor 120fps except one Sony model, and u less r5 has HDMI 2.1 then it is limited to 4:2:0
 
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Here is a second video from Vistek where they did the same thing (he didn’t run a torture test but ran it for 2 hours without breaking a sweat)

‪Canon R5 Redux: Deep Testing Overheating, Resolution, and Auto Focus.

This is huge news and hopefully we will see more workarounds like this!!
Thanks for sharing.

The clarity slider was a good tip.

That Canon loaned them a r5 hopefully they fed back to them also (support raw externally)...
 
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cornieleous

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I guess without two cards there's just two ventilation holes which improves air circulation.

I'm not sure that's it since the doors are still closed and the body is weather sealed.

That is not really ventilation, and simple holes or vents would be poor cooling anyway though better than nothing. Just having pockets of hot air that are not large is unlikely to be that much an effect compared to conducting heat to the body and then convecting it away into cooler outside air. Even if they were open to the air, enough ambient air has to exchange the heat which is why cameras like S1H have a fan instead of just vent.

I'm speculating heat sources are being substantially reduced. There is still card activity and battery activity unless external recording with external power. When those are removed heat generated is lower by substantial amount. Card writing quickly generates plenty of heat. Same with battery discharge. Dummy battery and AC adapter will always be cooler than battery as it is basically an empty chunk of plastic.

In my time-lapse tests, IBIS and EVF heated the camera up substantially in only 1 hour of 5 second interval stills. No overheat but very warm. Turning IBIS and EVF off, it ran just like my 5D4, nice and cool by the end of the test. I think the camera just has too much heat generating features in a small body and getting rid of any couple will improve the situation.
 
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bbasiaga

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I saw this video while surfing Youtube this morning as well. It seems to make sense that the less the camera is doing itself, the slower it will heat up.

I have separately heard that CFexpress cards heat up in normal use as well, but since I don't have anything that uses them I don't know. Funny if the card slot is the problem, more than the digic.

I agree with the video that some this seems like it could be affected by firmware, which could help those who don't want to use an external recorder.

-Brian
 
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SecureGSM

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I guess without two cards there's just two ventilation holes which improves air circulation.
Not to the extent of Having total record time increased by that much. And ... it took only a few minutes after camera finally did shut down to be ready recording again. So no not just ventilation holes located inside a weather sealed body. :)
 
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nolifedigital

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Here is a second video from Vistek where they did the same thing (he didn’t run a torture test but ran it for 2 hours without breaking a sweat)

‪Canon R5 Redux: Deep Testing Overheating, Resolution, and Auto Focus.

This is huge news and hopefully we will see more workarounds like this!!

We've also confirmed he did this without cards in the camera.
 
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Canon cripple hammer. Mostly to protect their cine line

Unlikely.

We know that Canon has been implementing a slew of new features - 8K, IBIS, CFExpress card, 45M sensor, compression algorithm. All of the features increase the heat generated in the camera. All of the features have to be handled optimally to keep the generated to a minimum. With so many variables to handle, I am not surprised that Canon isn't able to keep the heat down. Case in point, Sony also had the same issue on their first effort.
 
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DBounce

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Battery really doesn’t get hot during overheating, however there is definitely a lot of heat generated by the card. I know, as I tested overheating on my own R5 and noticed that the grip gets hot. Granted I tested with an SD card not a CFExpress card. So I’m not sure it that makes a difference. One thing is certain, the card getting hot when idle is a definite software bug. It should not be generating heat on idle. And if this were addressed we could probably use this body with little fear of overheating outside of for long takes.
 
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marathonman

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Agreed. But external don’t support 8k nor 120fps except one Sony model, and u less r5 has HDMI 2.1 then it is limited to 4:2:0
Believe R5 4K external is 4:2:2 at 10 bit. If you want to do 8K or 120FPS has to be done in camera. I don't believe the Ninja supports 8K anyhow but I could be wrong.
 
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Hey, can anyone use Atomos Shogun 7 to test Canon R5 4K at 120 FPS ? Maybe 4h+ OR unlimited recording like the HQ mode? :) That would be awesome!


REPLY

Only 1 Sony body is supported at 120fps, and if Canon only has HDMI 2 to 2.0b then it can only do 4:2:0 whereas Canon does 4:2:2 which I believe needs 2.1
 
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Does the R6 show this behavior as well (for its limited time modes)?

If so, this is not a CF express problem, and it might point towards:
  • Perhaps limits are all battery related and we don't know why yet. That should immediately be crossed off the list if running on external power + card in place shows temp warnings (which I presume we would).

  • Canon is super conservative with it's firmware limits... to I don't know, limit risk of bricking something? And then somehow they failed to implement limits for this specific use case of no card + external recorder?

  • Canon didn't account for cards heating up in general with their mechanical design, found this issue late in the game and just slapped time limits on recording if a card is in there. (I really doubt this.)

  • Canon was nerfing some aspect of record to protect another product line... Nah. Seems far fetched for such a mottled spread of time limits.
What else would explain this? Just riffing here.

- A

Good points!

I thing it won't be point 1 since batteries do get some head but in normal cases do not overhead, they are nowadays quite efficient with high currents.

I thing it could be point 3, as I start to believe the underestimated the head generate from card and card slot during writing since there where only preproduction? cards available at the time they developt the camera. And now it's simply to late. Next version of the R5 camera will have heat sinks and thermal conductive paste for passive cooling at the right place.
The problem seams to be too big for a quick hack but easy to solve for the next generation. The firmware update may double the record time but that's it.
 
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Battery really doesn’t get hot during overheating, however there is definitely a lot of heat generated by the card. I know, as I tested overheating on my own R5 and noticed that the grip gets hot. Granted I tested with an SD card not a CFExpress card. So I’m not sure it that makes a difference. One thing is certain, the card getting hot when idle is a definite software bug. It should not be generating heat on idle. And if this were addressed we could probably use this body with little fear of overheating outside of for long takes.
Yes but not necessarily with the r5.

I have usb flash drives which heat up on a PC - maybe the issue isn’t with the R5. Hopefully it is and it can be changed, but as one of the other threads mentioned, even a quick firmware fix can take 2 months to appear....
 
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I'm not sure that's it since the doors are still closed and the body is weather sealed.

That is not really ventilation, and simple holes or vents would be poor cooling anyway though better than nothing. Just having pockets of hot air that are not large is unlikely to be that much an effect compared to conducting heat to the body and then convecting it away into cooler outside air. Even if they were open to the air, enough ambient air has to exchange the heat which is why cameras like S1H have a fan instead of just vent.

I'm speculating heat sources are being substantially reduced. There is still card activity and battery activity unless external recording with external power. When those are removed heat generated is lower by substantial amount. Card writing quickly generates plenty of heat. Same with battery discharge. Dummy battery and AC adapter will always be cooler than battery as it is basically an empty chunk of plastic.

In my time-lapse tests, IBIS and EVF heated the camera up substantially in only 1 hour of 5 second interval stills. No overheat but very warm. Turning IBIS and EVF off, it ran just like my 5D4, nice and cool by the end of the test. I think the camera just has too much heat generating features in a small body and getting rid of any couple will improve the situation.
Re door closed - good point well made!

I said the same re multiple sources of heat, so yes, the system is a little more complicated else probably Canon would have solved the issue, lol...
 
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Bert63

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