Sony selling camera(s) that overheat?

Chris Joy said:
Why are you asking me that? Who said anything about a 1dc? Or what the size of the A7sII should be?
Click to expand...

The inference from the body size graphic you posted between the GH4 and the A7R II, is that the body size of the GH4 is slightly larger than the A7R II and it uses a sensor that is 4 times smaller, and perhaps because of this the GH4 does not overheat. ( i.e. the larger body size relative to the sensor size takes care of the GH4 heat )

So would a larger body size be able to handle the heat from the A7R II / A7S II components and not overheat ?
 
So. I've meditated over this a bit. The overheating is clearly processor related, so as you pointed out, the downsampling (compression) , which isn't occurring when the data exits to an external recorder, is the issue. Sony could have just made the camera a little bigger and managed heat sinking at the processor better.


Samuel H said:
I believe the a7S II will overheat when recording 4K internally just as the a7R II does. The source of the overheating can be the sensor or the processor. On the a7R II it's the processor: it overheats when recording 4K internally, but doesn't if you record it externally (thanks to Emanuel for pointing this to me). Unless the problem happens only when the processor has to both to downsample and encode at the same time, the a7S II will have the same problem.

I'm perfectly fine with this. I hardly ever shoot a take of more than 90 seconds. YMMV.
Click to expand...

Samuel H said:
From what I understand, on the a7R II you get no overheating when recording 4K externally. If that's the case, it's not the sensor, and it's not the IBIS.
Click to expand...
 
Only Sony knows how much bigger the camera would need to be in order to disipate the heat fast enough that it causes no trouble at all. I would think 1DX size should be enough, but maybe smaller would do, maybe even bigger is needed. It really depends on a lot of details.
 
I think what it needs is mechanical cooling...

The GH4 is likely to be generating far less heat internally (as pointed out) as it's physically slightly larger, but with a smaller sensor with much poorer dynamic range.
The NX1 (which is bigger again) also has a smaller sensor than the A7Rii, but it's doing some crazy intensive h.265 encoding. Actually, to the touch my NX1 seems to get a lot hotter, but doesn't ever shut down.

If you look at most low-end professional 4K video style cameras (Sony FS series, Canon C series) they have cavities inside the camera that contain large heat syncs and fans that vent the heat through openings on the body.

The A7Rii has a couple of small vent holes, but it's relying on convection to draw the heat away. Personally I think a fan to draw enough heat out of the camera wouldn't need to be very large, but it would introduce noise and be an extra drain on an already poor battery capacity.
 
TheDingo said:
The inference from the body size graphic you posted between the GH4 and the A7R II, is that the body size of the GH4 is slightly larger than the A7R II and it uses a sensor that is 4 times smaller, and perhaps because of this the GH4 does not overheat. ( i.e. the larger body size relative to the sensor size takes care of the GH4 heat )

So would a larger body size be able to handle the heat from the A7R II / A7S II components and not overheat ?
Click to expand...

The A7rII is smaller and heavier, with a larger EVF, much larger sensor and an IBIS mechanism. It feels like you're holding a brick compared to the GH4, its much more dense. I'm sure the smaller EVF, smaller sensor and larger body and no heat generating IBIS does make the GH4 better in terms of heat dissipation. Looking at teardowns of Sony cameras show no wasted space. Your last question is for Sony's engineers. I haven't had any overheating issues with the A7rII, so for me its not much of a concern. But it would be nice if Sony solved the problem. Samsung's processor does the job without overheating, but its not a apples to apples comparison. Hopefully in the next generation Sony will introduce a new processor that's more efficient - or a more effective heat dissipation setup.
 
AlexLeith said:
I think what it needs is mechanical cooling...
Click to expand...
A fan would drain the batteries quicker and a (more useful) heat sink would take up a lot of room inside the body. Plus, both would add to the cost and Sony was probably trying to stay in that low $3,000 range for many marketing and non-marketing reasons.

The body size itself seems to be related to both marketing (A7 line) and production (most internal components across the A7 line must be quite similar, thus easing any engineering changes to the assembly process and allowing for a decent margin even at these prices).

In many respects, this is sort of like a car company that keeps the same line for a long time, while adding more powerful engines, stiffening the suspension, brakes, transmission, etc. At some point, all the added stuff overgrows the original frame. That's why a slight mod to the engine - such as installing turbo - might be OK but increasing the wheel power excessively takes the car into the territory that's beyond unwieldy.
 
Interesting that Sony did an about face with regards to internal 4K.

The #1 reason why the original A7S didn't have 4K was because "Reason why the camera doesn’t record 4K internally is because of power consumption and because of the heating produced by the large sensor" by Kenta Yamamoto.
SOURCE: http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sony...to-newsshooter-a7s-has-stainless-steel-mount/

People were even calling out Sony saying the overheating argument was all made up!

But here we are at the end of 2015 and they put internal 4K into the A7RII which causes it to overheat!

To make things more confusing, this Sony rep claims the overheating issue is due to people using slower cards (link below @ 2:29):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv42hpX-Na8

I never bet too much on Sony reps as the information that gets passed down to them can get distorted somewhat.
 
I would assume that the big difference in the heat buildup from the SII to RII is the processing power required for the oversampled 4K (15 MPX on RII in the s35 crop mode). But, at the same time, the 2015 cameras should have far more efficient 14-16 nanometer chips rather than the 20-22 that were available in 2014 (depending on the vendor, mass shipments commenced from late spring to mid summer of 2015). Unfortunately, I don't recall anyone asking their reps on the source or sources of heat and the means to ameliorate it.

And no one ever claimed not to be using the proper cards either.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top