Sony A6300 Overheating - Test Results

Thanks for all of your comments Chris, here and at DPR. And for posting that DPR link here at DVX.

For a week or two there, I thought we were going to be okay! :)
 
I could deal with RS, but overheating can be a real problem to me. I dont shoot long takes, but in summer time I very often work under the sun in really high temperatures. Pitty...I was really excited about that camera, now I dont know what to do. Is there any chance a battery grip would help a little? Not sure if there is any logic in that...just wondering...
 
Yeah overheating kills it for me. Much of my stuff is unscripted one take footage with no chance to redo it, so I need gear that always works. Oh well, I'll keep hoping they issue a successor to their AX100.
 
In theory, an external recorder should resolve the overheating. One guy who tested found it still overheated when he triggered the recording in camera. But not when he started the recording on the external device.

The difference with the A6000 is that the 4k recorders are a minimum of $1,000 to $2,000 with media and accessories, instead of$300 for 1080. While the $500 Panasonic G7 and the $500, APS-C based Samsung NX500 can already shoot internal 4K for 1+ hours without overheating.

Now, the cost of the external recorder isn't bad if you need the extra quality anyway. But it does raise a few questions. Why buy an A6300 at $1,000, for example, instead of a used A7S for about$1,300?

It will be a good camera for a lot of people. It is just so frustrating, Sony comes so close, but just can't give us an APS-C body that doesn't overheat. If they weren't making so much money on full frame, maybe they could give us an A6300V- for video? Basically the same camera in a slightly larger, better cooled body?

I think those of us who also shoot stills are especially frustrated. It is just so hard to get any one camera system that does both great stills and great video, and that will work in a number of niches.

I held on to my Sony A6000 and lens kit for about 9 months without using it, just waiting to see Sony's 4k upgrade. Especially after the RX100IV looked so promising- except for the overheating. :)
 
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When you're fighting at the front-end of technology, lots of tradeoffs arise. You can face them by making choices (and then all your products have something wrong with them) or by trying to have your pie and eat it (fighting the tradeoff until you beat it, which in practice means releasing your products later than the firms that made a choice).

If sony wanted, they could make a $1400 version of the a6300 that puts this sensor and processor inside an a7II body. Maybe the bigger body would help with overheating, and IBIS would probably be worth the price bump for many people.
 
Samuel H said:
If sony wanted, they could make a $1400 version of the a6300 that puts this sensor and processor inside an a7II body. Maybe the bigger body would help with overheating, and IBIS would probably be worth the price bump for many people.
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An a6300 with IBIS and no overheating? Add a darn TOUCH SCREEN to it so I can select the focus point by just tapping with my finger (like I do with my 70D) and take 2000$ from me...and I will be HAPPY...:-)
 
Thanks Dafilman21! That really confirms it for me. :(

That is about the same as what I was getting out of the Sony RX100IV last July. Before I went to Panasonic for 4k.
 
Samuel H said:
fighting the tradeoff until you beat it, which in practice means releasing your products later than the firms that made a choice
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The rumors that I heard long ago were that the A6300 was supposed to be released last summer, but they were having problems with overheating. So it was apparently delayed by 9 months from the originally planned launch. I don't know how much/ if they improved it during that time? Or if they just "punted" and said "good enough for this niche."?

I heard more recently taht part of teh reason it was delayed was because it didn't have any competion in eth niche? Maybe with Samsung pulling out of the NX system, they felt less pressure to launch an update to the A6000? (I wish my NX500 had an EVF! Problem solved.)

It might depend on how much profit they actually make/ made on the A6000. And how much they expect to make on the A6300? Everything that I have seen about Sony profits (in cameras) in the the last 6-9 months has been about the profit on the A7 series/ full frame. That it saved their butts.

I think we have seen pretty clearly that Sony has limited resources for interchangeable lens cameras. All the lenses we have gotten for the past 2 years have been FE. And mostly pretty expensive FE lenses at that, with the exception of the FE 28 mm 2.0. Sensors for phones and industrial uses seems to be the big profit contributor withing the Sensor and Imaging division. It can be crazy hard to get resources when you have to justify everything based on your Return On Investment (ROI) and you are cpompeting against much bigger, high return units, during tough finacuial times. (I used to work in a Fortune 50 company in IT, which was part of Finance.)


Maybe we will get another version of the A6300 that can do video? Or maybe we will have to wait for a 4K, A73, that also has the improved auto focus, to go with the existing IBIS, etc.?
 
Okay, here is another video from yesterday, March 19. Sony A6300 overheats in 4K mode, at 20 minute mark.

On YouTube, from ZedProMedia:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQT9jrPTAJU&feature=youtu.be

He says that the camera was "in the sun." But as he explains later, he is actually shooting indoors, with some sunlight coming through a window. Not like it is baking in the sun, on a truly hot day.


++++

Another commentator on the video reports the same thing. Overheating at 28 minutes in 4K 30fps. Plus overheating when taking stills, indoors! Maybe the "overheating in stills" will get Sony's attention, and get us a quicker firmware update?


mark marion:​

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My a6300 overheats (overheat symbol comes and stays on)​

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28 minutes 4k 30fps starting from a completely cooled down camera.​
15 minutes 4k 30fps when the camera is slightly warm.

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25~50 minutes just taking pictures and using the screen to review (NO video)​

​
Test conditions.. ​

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Indoors out of sunlight​
68 Degrees indoor temperature​
Stock Sony Battery​
Screen is out​

​

​
I am very sad.. this is such an amazing camera and video.. but it's useless to me if ihave to worry about overheating. I preordered the camera based on some beta tester that said there was no overheating even after hours of video which is obviously INCORRECt.. many others now seeing overheating..​

​
The manual says don't run once the temperature icon comes on and stays on as the sensor quality will degrade..​

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what a shame.. getting a refund now..​


Also:

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I did the test multiple times.. it's very repeatable.. The insult/injury is it also overheats taking photos (no video).. I don't know why some claim it doesn't either they are lying and haven't actually tested it, or have a different firmware, or there is some tolerance issue..​



++++

This all sounds like about the same performance as my A6000 in 1080P, or worse. I deemed that camera a "not usable" for video, for my purposes. In fact, I have owned it for more than a year and have only ever used it for stills. Aside from some testing of teh overheating at home. :(
 
I am sure many know this but for the sake of "history" I have an NEX 7 which I initially bought as a second camera for my FS100 some years back. I still have the camera and it is a fine still camera for my purposes. It also shoots pretty decent video but suffers from the overheating issue. It is especially bad when I use an LA-EA2 lens adapter with it and my Sigma lenses. However with the 18-200mm Silver Sony lens it never overheated but just the usual 29.59 minute record limit. So this is an engineering issue that Sony has had and has not dealt with for several years on this body style of camera. I find it hard to believe that some magical firmware update will be the fix on the 6300 but stranger things have happened. I am very disappointed and had planned to add one or even two to my kit this spring. But I can't understand why one of the many people who "review" and get test cameras have not brought this to light before now or at the very least got some kind of update or reply from Sony.
 
BrianMurphy said:
But I can't understand why one of the many people who "review" and get test cameras have not brought this to light before now or at the very least got some kind of update or reply from Sony.
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Many times, reviewers and testers of any product will not provide you all of the information that may be available.
 
Erik Naso said:
Things got a little toasty yesterday.... It didn't take very long for the overheating to happen. Around 25 minutes inside at 76 degrees shooing product shots with LED lighting.
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Did you record onto Q7+ too?

As to overheating - it's a small body with a 20 MPX/6K oversampling into 4K. I assume Sony is using the latest chips but, until they get even smaller (14 nM now, soon 10 nM, perhaps 7 nM by 2018) and more efficient, heavy processing in smaller bodies will result in these complications. Remember, a year ago, they had the same problems with A7RII. The obvious answer is to use larger bodies or more expensive means of controlling heat (one can install a titanium heat sink, for example ... but then the camera would be priced in thousands). To go with A6300 in this format was obviously a marketing decision. It is what it is.
 
DLD said:
Did you record onto Q7+ too?

As to overheating - it's a small body with a 20 MPX/6K oversampling into 4K. I assume Sony is using the latest chips but, until they get even smaller (14 nM now, soon 10 nM, perhaps 7 nM by 2018) and more efficient, heavy processing in smaller bodies will result in these complications. Remember, a year ago, they had the same problems with A7RII. The obvious answer is to use larger bodies or more expensive means of controlling heat (one can install a titanium heat sink, for example ... but then the camera would be priced in thousands). To go with A6300 in this format was obviously a marketing decision. It is what it is.
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No just monitoring with the 7Q+. The 4K image on the a6300 is very good. Lots of detail. I also think they can fix this overheating issue like they did with the a7rII. It's basically crippling the camera to the point of it being unusable.
 
Wow, 25 minutes at room temperature is pretty bad. :(

I guess Sony knew about it though. The manual says it will overheat at 20 minutes in 4K.


I still think that the overheating in stills mode has to get their attention. I haven't heard of that on any stills camera that I can think of?

Thanks so much for confirming Erik! It makes it all seem a lot more real when someone like you, who is known here and is a trusted professional, reports the same thing.

Damn. I was hoping Sony could help simplify my life, by reducing the number of systems I own. Why did you leave us so young, Samsung NX? :)
 
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Sony a6300 manual.

It requires a lot of power to perform high quality movie recording or continuous shooting using the image sensor. Therefore, if you continue to shoot, the temperature inside the camera will rise, especially that of the image sensor. In such cases, the camera turns off automatically since higher temperatures affect the quality of the images or affect the internal mechanism of the camera.• The duration of time available for movie recording is as follows when the camera starts recording with the camera’s default settings after the power of the camera has been turned off for a while. (The following values indicate the continuous time from when the camera starts recording until the camera stops recording.)HD: XAVC S HD 60p 50M/50p 50M4K: XAVC S 4K 24p 60M

• The duration of time available for movie recording varies with the temperature,the recording format/setting, or condition of the camera before you start recording.If you frequently recompose or shoot images after the power is turned on, the temperature inside the camera will rise and the recording time available will be shorter.

• When is indicated, stop recording the movie.

• If the camera stops recording due to the temperature, leave it for several minutes with the power turned off. Start recording after the temperature inside the camera drops fully"
 
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