Newsshooter: Sony A7RII overheats and shutdown after recording 4K for a while

N

Nicholas Natteau

Veteran
Not to be alarmist here, as I'm very much looking forward to transitioning from my A7s to the A7RII.
But a few days ago this post by Dan Chung from newsshooter.com recently caught my attention, specifically this paragraph a little down the page:

Here's the excerpt from his review that has me a little concerned:

One thing I discovered about half way into the shoot was that the camera has a tendency to overheat when recording in 4K for extended periods. At first a yellow warning sign pops up on the screen, then a few minutes later the camera shuts itself down with a black warning saying it needs to cool down. This is not something I have experienced in normal shooting with either the Panasonic GH4 or Sony a7S. The last time this happened to me was when using a Canon 5D mkII in hot conditions. During the shoot it was warm weather but not scorching hot, so I expect it is the 4K recording that is creating the excess heat. I lost several shots while waiting for the camera to cool down.

I can’t see a way around this other than to perhaps try shooting instead in 1080P HD, or 4K to an external recorder like the Atomos Shogun. I haven’t tested either of these options yet but unless this can be resolved I would be very reluctant to use the a7R II as my only camera on a long documentary shoot.

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http://www.newsshooter.com/2015/08/...andheld-to-tell-the-story-of-a-london-busker/

Has anyone else heard anything about this issue? I'm planning to shoot an interview in September in 4K with the A7RII and I'd hate for the camera to shutdown right in the middle. If 4K overheating turns out to be this camera's Achilles heel, then I think it's important to know how many minutes into a 4K clip the A7RII begins overheating and shuts down.
 

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My A7rII arrives tomorrow and this is one of the first things I'm going to investigate. I've had no overheating issues with the A5100 and A7II by keeping the LCD off the body and minimizing energy consumption with airplane mode and such. Of course their max bitrate is half the A7rII and its not processing 4k from 42mp, so I'm sure the new cam generates a lot more heat.
 
After testing today, internal 4K is not reliable enough for my liking, either in FF or S35 mode to be able to confidently work without it overheating on paid jobs.

My testing was out of direct sunlight, about 23-24°C indoor temperature... 24-105mm Canon f4 lens mounted via Commlite adapter. IBIS on (although the camera was static on a tripod). Lens IS off. Airplane mode on. Monitor open and away from the body. Battery power, not USB.

4K S35 – 27 mins before overheat
Temperature warning @ 23:50; overheat & shutdown @ 27:12

Camera was fairly hot to the touch. I let it cool for an hour before the next test.


4K FF – 45 mins before overheat
First run: full 29:29 no warnings
1 min rest
Second run: temperature warning @ 6:40; temperature warning disappeared @ 9:09; temperature warning appears again @ 9:40; overheat & shutdown @ 15:15

The camera seemed physically a lot hotter on the outside. Around the lens mount and the underneath were the hottest areas. I allowed about 20 minutes before the next test.


HD S35 – No overheat
5 x 29 min runs back to back.

There were no warnings and the camera felt a lot cooler to the touch all the way through. Cooler even than my A7S does.

––––––––––––––

I would assume that 4K to an external recorder would work without overheating. And on jobs where you're not doing interviews or long presenter sequences you should be fine. That said, 24°C is not a hot temperature (nowhere near the 40°C mentioned in the manual) and the 4K S35 didn't even make it through a single run. Bit disappointed.
 
That's pretty disappointing. My a7rii just shipped and I wonder whether I'll keep it if the 4k overheats easily. Fortunately I don't do a lot of work that requires 20+min takes in 4k, but I'm sure now I'll find myself wanting to all the time...

The bottom of the camera is metal, right? I guess there is an opening in the market for some a7rii heatsink baseplate and hotshoe silent fans...
 
Everyone is different, but I mostly shoot short B-roll takes and interviews for me are almost always less than 10 minutes. I'm hoping to make this my A-cam for a doc. Damn, there's always a catch...
 
If IBIS is a major culprit, is it possible that the camera overheats even when an external recorder is used?
 
Thanks very much Alex for sharing those test results and everyone else who replied to my initial post. Wow, I was hoping that the A7RII Dan Chung was testing might have been just a fluke in terms of the overheating and shutdown. But if a number of people are reporting this, then it's a problem for long format shooting.

I was looking forward to shooting 4K in S35 mode. But if it overheats after only 20 minutes in S35 mode, then I'm wondering how I would shoot a one hour documentary interview with it. Would I have to stop recording after 20 minutes? Shut it down, let it cool off for a bit, then resume shooting? That would be a little awkward with the interviewee.

Knowing this, I think I'll hold off on this purchase for the time being. I could always get the Atomos Shogun for my A7s. But I was very much looking forward to the idea of being able to shoot 4K internally. If there's no way Sony can address this 4K overheating issue with the A7RII, then hopefully they fix it for the future A7sII.

But if Panasonic figured out how to record 4K internally on the small GH4 without overheating and shutdown issues, hopefully Sony do the same (via a firmware update fix?) with the A7rII.
 
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Nicholas Natteau said:
If it overheats after only 20 minutes in S35 mode, then I'm wondering how I would shoot a one hour documentary interview with it.
Click to expand...

+1
I've rented the FS7 a few times when clients want 4K for interviews. Some takes definitely run 25+ mins long (some longer!), and I know the producers didn't like stopping when I needed to change out the cards (I didn't have enough cards to hot-swap non-stop heh, a lesson I learned and got more cards the next time so I didn't have to jump in and stop them for any reason).

If I/they didn't like stopping to swap a card, I can't imagine trying to say we need to break for 10-20 mins (or... an hour...??!) to cool the camera down :| Yikes... :|
 
If someone would test the camera with IBIS off and see if it overheats or not. If it's on and on a tripod it's still working and could be heating things up. Only way to find out is turn the IBIS function off and shoot some long takes in 4K and s35.
 
IBIS has to be off if you are in a tripod.
You can also try to use an external battery - power bank (via USB maybe) to see if things are better ....
 
I'm running another test right now with SteadyShot / IBIS off...

It won't be exactly the same as it's a paltry 19°C (hooray for the British summer!) today. But I'll run another test after a suitable cooling period with IBIS on again for comparison.

I would imagine the issue is not the actual IBIS itself (after all my last test was on a tripod, so the IBIS wouldn't actually have been doing anything), but more that the sensor is "floating" and not attached to a heatsink.

The manual specifically mentions USB power as a source of heat, so I figured an actual battery would be better. I wonder if a battery grip might move some of the heat generated by the chemical reactions in the battery away from the actual camera.
 
I have one of these coming in to test. My experience is that I rarely used the A7S as an "A" camera for long takes, but you CAN do so with a Shogun/Odyssey etc. As a doco camera, I always shoot interesting bits vs just laying it down all the time because as an editor I don't want to comb through tons of footage. I rarely shoot 20+ min takes on paid jobs, so this would still work handheld as long as it cools quickly. Then again, I have an FS7 which will run forever, so that would always be my A camera in mission critical situations with A7S/A7RII with shogun as a backup.

Basically, I'm saying this is not that big of a deal, practically, for most doco shooters unless you're shooting a massive ratio or you NEED to run that camera internally recording 4K for long (20+ min) stretches like concerts and interviews.

Remember the 5D Mark 2? We all dealt with what was it, 12 min takes, back then no problem :)

If you want a real challenge, shoot 4K with the Sony RX100 Mark 4. You have to keep your takes really under about 2 min to not risk overheating. Great for B-Roll and not much else, but the image quality is so good (it would easily cut in with the A7x x cameras) and so small I keep it on me all the time. Great for just capturing b-roll in a non intrusive way.

Ultimately 20+ min per take is fine with me for this kind of camera as long as you don't have to wait 10 min for it to cool down.
 
With the IBIS off, S35 4K it recorded for a total of 44 minutes before shutdown. BUT, as I say, it's cooler here today by 4°C, so I'd go as far as saying that the results are not significantly different enough to be able to call it better or worse

1st run: 29 minutes - no warnings
1 minute cool down
2nd run: temperature warning @ 10:12. Shutdown @ 15:02.

Slightly alarmingly this time it didn't give the customary overheat message. It just went dead!

For me, 4K inside this camera for my style of working is a bust! It's a shame because I had a play around with the camera on a gimbal, and the AF with native lenses and face detect seemed to be VERY well behaved. You could quite easily do presenter-to-camera shallow d-o-f without touching the camera. Just not with 4K if your presenter is doing something like making a recipe or anything that lasts longer than about 4 minutes! Especially not if the sun is out! :-D

I now regret selling my Shogun BEFORE getting this camera in my hands.
 
AlexLeith said:
With the IBIS off, S35 4K it recorded for a total of 44 minutes before shutdown. BUT, as I say, it's cooler here today by 4°C, so I'd go as far as saying that the results are not significantly different enough to be able to call it better or worse ...
Click to expand...
This camera would be a huge hit in Siberia - "It's fifty below, Ivan. I'm beginning to lose feeling in all my extremities" - "Not to worry, Katya. Stick this A7RII into your boot and you'll feel as if you were back in Sochi".
 
Overheating is something firmware can't fix, its design process from the start, the NX1 and GH4 can record unlimited 4K because of 1. smaller sensor, 2. relative large body, 3. large heatsink due to lack of ibis which really help with heat dissipation.
 
ntsan said:
Overheating is something firmware can't fix, its design process from the start, the NX1 and GH4 can record unlimited 4K because of 1. smaller sensor, 2. relative large body, 3. large heatsink due to lack of ibis which really help with heat dissipation.
Click to expand...

I would tend to disagree. Firmware could potentially fix overheating either by reducing the processing load, balancing various heat-producing components, or by increasing overheating alarm thresholds. Some Canon DSLRs have fixed or lessened overheating in firmware updates (I suspect in that case it was just increasing the alarm threshold). Obviously it may be a challenge to fix overheating while also maintaining the full functionality of the camera unless they find a way to make processing more efficient. Perhaps it would mean underclocking the sensor, which might make rolling shutter worse. Also I'd be interested to see if using a metal baseplate made from thermally conductive material might help since the camera has a lot of metal on it.
 
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