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70D overheating
I have been shooting video with the Canon 70D for about 10 months and have been largely impressed with the camera. However, after shooting 100 gigs of video today (mostly outside, 80 degrees) I noticed the overheating icon appear on the top of the LCD screen. This was the first time I have seen it. It never stopped recording, however I lost controls from the shutter and ISO dials. Thankfully, I was able to adjust shutter and ISO with the touch screen, not the dials. It was very strange. I was shooting in the manual mode, 1080, 30FPS. I mostly used the 18-135 STM lens.
I also noticed my auto focus was not working as well either. When shooting in auto focus the focus boxes are white and when the overheating icon appeared the boxes went grey and the auto focus was slow to perform. I typically like to use manual focus but it’s a convenient feature to use the 70D’s great auto focus system when shooting run-and-gun type of stuff, trucking with your feet, etc. To get the grey boxes back to white, I had to go to the focus button, click on another setting (either tracking, multiple or single) and the white box would appear again, but only for a short time.
The smooth camcorder-like auto focus system in the 70D was a big selling point to me. It has been spot on since I purchased the camera, but it failed today.
When we had a good half-hour break, it was all working again. After we starting to shoot more sequences, the same thing happened as mentioned above.
Lastly, I burned through 5 charged batteries today, which was really odd. I can’t help but wonder if today’s shooting issues were with the overheating issues.
Any thoughts?
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15 Replies
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This was a really common problem back in 2008/2009 when the DSLR revolution started. My 7D would do it if we were in hot environments. I remember people actually carrying ice packs or bags of ice and then laying them on top of the camera in-between takes! 🙂
For the most those problems are gone, but as you experienced they still crop up. One thing I noticed was related to the type of memory cards I used. The cheaper the memory card (KomputerBay, Kingston), the less consistent the write speed and therefore the buffer in the camera would have to work harder to manage the data being written to the card. If the environment was already warm (especially shooting outside in direct sunlight) then that would trigger it. When I moved up to Sandisk Extreme and Extreme Pro cards I never saw the overheating symbol again. Not sure what cards you’re shooting, but I’d look into that. Also if you have a reputable card, but it’s not capable of write speeds of at least 50mbps then you should upgrade your cards.
If you’re shooting outside in direct sunlight you may think about shading the camera to block it from direct sunlight. While it may be 80 outside air temp, the camera is much warmer being in direct sunlight and in use.
If you’re camera is running hot, expect to go through batteries much, much faster. And if the camera buffer was working harder (as mentioned above) it’ll chew threw batteries much faster. Ultimately, you should be alright overall. If it happens again it’s a good idea to let the camera cool down if possible. Under severe circumstances there can be camera damage from running an overheated camera for a sustained period of time. Or pack some ice on your next outdoor shoot! 🙂
Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost -
Great insight, Ryan, thanks! Nice visual thinking of those shooters putting their cams on ice like an athlete after the big game. I used a Sandisk Extreme, 128 gig, 80MB card. It seems anything under 40MB the camera stops recording after 10 seconds. I’ll keep an eye on it and pack the ice. 🙂 Thanks again!
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[Mark Anderson] ” I used a Sandisk Extreme, 128 gig, 80MB card. “
Mark – you’re card does have a “10” with a circle around it, right? That would be a Class 10 card which you should have for shooting video. I think the 128GB card only comes in Class 10, but I thought I would bring it up so you double check.
It may just have been an isolated incident. If you have access to other cards, you may try running some tests to see how it goes. But shooting outside can be tough on DSLR’s since they aren’t good at dissipating heat (no fans). So while you’re air temp may be warm, it’s even hotter inside the camera and the outside air that should be cooling it off is hot as well so the components never really cool. Add in the sun on top of that and you have a good recipe for a hot camera.
Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost -
Good stuff, Ryan. I checked and my card is class 10. I appreciate your counsel.
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I have a Canon 70D and I’m using a 95MB/sec, class 10 Extreme card, but when trying to shoot video, it just stops after a few seconds. No message, nothing, just stops and offers the video for review.
What am I doing wrong here?
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That is really odd. Sorry to hear of this. I use Class 10 Extreme cards at 80 mbps and it works fine. One would think 95 is better. By chance did you forget to format the card?
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No, I formatted the card and it still isn’t shooting video more than a few seconds. I even tried shooting and after it stopped tried shooting again (someone suggested this). If I can’t figure this out, I may call B&H Video in NYC and see if I can come in for some help. I bought the camera from them.
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Good plan to call B&H. Good luck.
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Guess what? I had bought a Canon 70D tutorial DVD and I set up the video shooting as the guy suggested. After I sat here wondering what to do and getting nowhere, it hit me–do the simplest thing. I re-set the camera to all default settings and voila, it shoots video like it’s supposed to. I can now use this camera’s great features and shoot video, what I really wanted to do with it.
Thanks for your help. So, default settings did it.
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That is awesome news!
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