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overheating and interviews
I understand the overheating issue requires a stop every ten minutes, but I’m unclear as to the specifics.
Are certain DSLRs able to run longer than others? How long do you have to wait for the camera to cool down between takes?
Thanks.
Bob C
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19 Replies
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Your merging tech limitations.
DSLR cameras typically have between 5 and 20 minute record time limitations depending on manufacturer.
Overheating rarely happens when using fast memory cards and a normal video workflow. Cameras CAN overhear, I just don’t personally experience it often.
Richard M. Harrington, PMP
Author: From Still to Motion, Video Made on a Mac, Photoshop for Video, Understanding Adobe Photoshop, Final Cut Studio On the Spot and Motion Graphics with Adobe Creative Suite 5 Studio Techniques
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I notice that my 7D overheats all the time but my 5D can be started and stopped every 12 minutes in order to shoot a 3 hour interview and it has not overheated.
Errol X. Lazare
EXL Films
http://www.exlfilms.com -
My t2i has only heated up twice in 5 months use… and surprisingly 30-45 secs of rest gave it ample time to work again!
2.66 GHz 8-core, ATI Radeon HD 4870,
FCS 3, AJA Kona Lhi“The creative person wants to be a know-it-all. He wants to know about all kinds of things: ancient history, nineteenth-century mathematics, current manufacturing techniques, flower arranging, and hog futures. Because he never knows when these ideas might come together to form a new idea. It may happen six minutes later or six months, or six years down the road. But he has faith that it will happen.” — Carl Ally
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Bob,
If I may – I think you’re over thinking this decision by a pretty significant margin.
You can’t understand DSLR video by talking to others. You honestly have to do it yourself.
Whether you become a fan of the process gets decided over the course of about a minute not long after you buy a camera. You’ll fumble and fiddle for a while – then you’ll go shoot something – whatever you like as your first test.
Then you’ll come back and have some minor ingest and capture hassles to overcome but you’ll eventually work them out and put the picture on your screen – on your system – and one of two things will happen.
Either you’ll say “it’s fine, but it’s not worth the hassles for the potential of what I’m seeing here as this image relates to my life, my work, my budget and my peace of mine.
Or, like hundreds of thousands of us all over the world, you’ll look at the PICTURES and say – “Woah – I can get pictures like THIS for the cost of THAT camera? Oh my GOD. I don’t care if I have to record my audio on a 1969 Wollensack reel to reel – I’m selling everything and THIS is my new visual standard – PERIOD.”
This in a nutshell, is why DSLR video is a huge deal right now.
New cameras will change this. The industry will move on. But right now, you have to make the ABOVE choice – and it’s NOT a choice about specs or lenses or even workflow per se – it’s a choice about whether you OPEN YOURSELF to the WOW – or whether you don’t need one in your practice right now.
Both are OK. But you will NEVER understand the WOW if you just read about it and talk to others.
Good luck with your decisions.
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Agreed, I do need to take the plunge – I just want to jump into the right pool, camera-wise.
For interviews with “real folks,” I need to be able to run continuously for as long as possible, without overheating. So far, it sounds as if the 5d>7d – anybody have experiences using the 60d for long takes?
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Hi Bob: You may wish to investigate the new Panasonic DMC-GH2 (and its predecessor the DMC-GH1).
https://panasonic.net/avc/lumix/systemcamera/gms/gh2/index.htmlThese cameras almost never overheat. I’m sure if they were operated in insanely hot ambient temps they might overheat, but in temps tolerable by their human operators GH2 & GH1 cams aren’t known to overheat like Canon cams occasionally do.
The NTSC versions of the GH2 & GH1 can record clips without a time length limit, up to the capacity of the SDHC memory card. So, for example, a GH2 can record for about 45 minutes continuously in the cam’s highest quality 1080p24 mode using a 8GB card.
(PAL GH2 & GH1 cams are limited to 29:59 max per clip because of EU-imposed tax restrictions.)
My favorite GH2 feature: Its built-in 1.5 million dot resolution, always-available, live electronic viewfinder. Much higher res than the built-in LCD monitors on other DSLRs (the GH2 has a LCD, too). The GH2’s 100% view EVF is great for live focus, framing & playback. And because the GH2’s EVF is built-in, you don’t have to buy an expensive LCD magnifying loupe. The GH2 also features a live, full-HD HDMI output for critical monitoring.
I’ve owned a GH1 for about a year, and I just took delivery of a new GH2 last week. Currently GH2 cams are in extremely short supply in the US, so you’ll probably have time to research it thoroughly while we wait for it to become more readily available in the US.
There’s lots more GH2-related info in threads elsewhere in this forum. Cheers.
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[Bob Cole] “anybody have experiences using the 60d for long takes?”
Is 8 hours (of 12min takes) long enough?
JM
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Great job Jason. Thanks for sharing your very convincing and well-produced test.
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Hi Jason: Thanks for taking the (considerable) time to create that test. Good stuff.
It’s interesting to note that with a GH2 you can shoot 8 hours of 1080p24 AVCHD footage @ 24mb/s — a 6 hr. continuous clip, plus a 2 hr. continuous clip — using only 2 SD cards (a 64MB card, plus a 32MB card). Of course, this will require using the optional AC adapter for takes of this length.
Info here:
https://panasonic.net/avc/lumix/systemcamera/gms/gh2/movie.htmlIt goes without saying that, most of the time, you don’t need or want to record continuous takes anywhere near that long. But if you did, the GH2 might be the camera to use. Another tool in the toolbox.
Cheers.
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Thanks Peter. The GH2 looks great. The only negative: Some very knowledgeable people have warned me that the AVCHD codec is a concern.
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