EOSHD testing finds Canon EOS R5 overheating to be fake

[Emanuel]

The impact stands for many years to come, not only for a couple of business years.

[newfoundmass]

11 minutes ago, noone said:

Nah, it is just a company that makes toys for us to play with after all.       

If the toy is really really good and more so after they fix it to work as it was originally sold, not that many will care.

I care. And everyone else should too. 

We shouldn't have an adversarial relationship with a company we're giving our money, nor should we need someone to spend $4,000 on a camera so they can do extensive testing, take it apart, etc. so we know whether or not we're being screwed. We shouldn't accept this! 

[noone]

3 minutes ago, newfoundmass said:

I care. And everyone else should too. 

We shouldn't have an adversarial relationship with a company we're giving our money, nor should we need someone to spend $4,000 on a camera so they can do extensive testing, take it apart, etc. so we know whether or not we're being screwed. We shouldn't accept this! 

I can understand that but put it this way.

It IS just a tool for photography and video, the video side is being crippled (either by lie or by stuff up or both).

IF the aim is to make the best video you can, surely you would want the best equipment you can get and IF that best equipment was from a company that lied to protect their OTHER equipment, should they turn around an fix the lie so people DO get the best equipment doing what it was sold to do, what you are saying is you think people should not get it and buy second best?

Who is that going to hurt?   You, or them (or both)?    Human nature says a few will not buy it on principle but plenty of others will and that will include people who would never have considered the camera before.

Personally, I would still prefer the Sony A7siii but that is because it suits what I want but I can appreciate what Canon has done in building the R5 while reviling them for crippling it.

[Emanuel]

We should find anyone able to supply us a mod to overcome the issue instead :- )

[Video Hummus]

3 hours ago, ajay said:

I'm not a lawyer, but I find it difficult to believe that they could be open to litigation. They aren't harming anyone (other than messing with our heads) are they?

The best thing is to kick them in the pants by not buying their cripple-hammered products.

You’re probably right. I was hoping and still hoping we can finally get a useable Canon hybrid camera out of this. I’m doubtful. 

[Emanuel]

Without pressure on their courtyard nothing will happen.

[mechanicalEYE]

8 minutes ago, Emanuel said:

Without pressure on their courtyard nothing will happen.

It's definitely gonna take some pressure. Andrews doing well with that but its definitely gonna take more people to get loud.

[Video Hummus]

I still think we need more tests performed well before we can conclusively say the timers and overheating warnings are BS.

[gt3rs]

5 minutes ago, Video Hummus said:

I still think we need more tests performed well before we can conclusively say the timers and overheating warnings are BS.

Somebody at FM did 20 min 8k then 20 min fridge and then 20min 8k again so there is for sure some connection between internal temperature and recovery time... but still a lot of fishy things on these limits

[Video Hummus]

We need to establish:

1. using direct temperature readings as close to the cpu as possible, a graph comparing this direct temp reading to the EXIF temperature. This will tell us wether the EXIF temp is a reliable indicator.
2. we need to chill the camera to the advertised coldest operating temperature and then turn it on to take a picture and see what the EXIF temp is reporting. It should be lower than what it reports at a cold start at 24C. If it isn’t...then something funky is going on.
3. A graph of temperatures running in 4KHQ to shutdown and 8K to shutdown. If they aren’t pretty close to being the same. Something funky is going on.
4. A graph of temperatures running in the 4K line-skipped mode compared to the the 4KHQ mode. If the graphs are the same. Something funky is going on.

[Phil Holland]

I've only had about 3 hours with the R5 recently and won't have time to dig in much until I just have a body laying around here.

Agree with the posters above generally. 

Theoretically this has nothing to do with the CPU nor the Media (it gets warm and generates heat as well) even, but the accumulation of heat on the sensor itself, which I don't think Canon pushes out via metadata visible to us.  It would actually be very hard to monitor specific hot points where heat can do the most damage to the sensor short of taking the camera fully apart and investigating, but even that is a tough one as the guts would be exposed.

I imagine without active cooling this particular sensor with all photosites active likely at specific areas behind the sensor are the reason the cap is there, whether it's safe timer based situation or some sort of sensor driven fail safe.  The main reason for either of the caps would be to keep it from permanently damaging and/or inducing a degradation of reliability or image quality of the sensor not just in the short term, but long term use.

If it's a CPU related heat thing, I'd be pretty shocked.  But who knows.  Maybe it's a combination of it all.

There's lots of reason the more video minded cameras (C500 MK II) have active cooling and this is certainly one of them.

[ajay]

I will try this one more time with another cooling idea to get to the bottom of this:

1. Get the camera to overheat. Have the back open with everything still connected. (Just enough to apply coolant spray.)
2. Use a can of freeze spray and chill down the components. (Better than a fan.)
3. Check again to see if the camera recovered or still shows an overheating condition.

If the camera still doesn't work and shows an overheating status, you know you've got some kind of firmware clock controlling the overall functionality of the camera.

If the camera works as if it had been off for two hours, then you know it truly is heat related and the camera  just takes a long time to cool down.

It's a simple test that should get to the bottom of this. All that's required is for someone to loosen some screws and slightly open the camera. Enough to get a spray can nozzle inside.

This should prove if Canon is playing games with the firmware.

Note: It might even be possible to spray the memory card slot (w/o the card) to cool the camera downs w/o taking out one screw. Somebody with the camera needs to pick up a can of freeze spray! (I used to do component level repair and we used this stuff all the time for heat-related problems.)

 

[Cliff Totten]

So...correct me if I'm wrong....

R5 firmware has two "heat performance" profiles.

1.) Card inserted forces fake heat warnings and activate crippling "clock-based" timer warnings.

2) Card out and firmware unlocks fake heat restrictions and deactivates clock-based cripples?

Wow...what a screw up! Cannot should have checked that before they released the R5. How will they explain the next firmware patch that fixes the card in/out bug? Now,...they have to force the heat problem either with card or without....after we discovered it.

If they spotted this earlier, we never would have known a hack existed.

[ajay]

You can buy this stuff on Amazon here in the states:

https://www.amazon.com/Professional-Freeze-Electronic-Component-FR-777-777/dp/B000Z99ZCA/ref=sr_1_7?dchild=1&keywords=freeze+spray&qid=1597265368&sr=8-7

This will chill down the camera within seconds if you can get the nozzle near enough to the circuit boards. Through the memory card slot ought to do it.

[ajay]

Another option not as drastic and would take longer to cool the camera down is to use a spray can of air duster. It also cools down when releasing the air. Again spraying it in the card slot would probably be the best place.

 

[wolf33d]

3 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

This attitude is what has enabled companies to walk all over us. It's so sad to see it. 

When I say that I do not care, I mean that I do not care if they put a limitation in the camera if then they remove it. 
A company is here to make profit. When they "listen" like Fuji and bring you a good feature update, that's not to make you happy or because they are nice guys. Fuji CEO couldn't care less about you, as much as Canon CEO. They do bring that update because they think you are more likely to buy their camera and stay with them if they do it. They do it for your money. 

Stop being blind, camera manufacturers are not charity. They want to make money, and they happen to have different strategies for doing so. Canon strategy is to cripple lower priced camera to have you buy a more expensive one. Fuji strategy is to bring you software update and pretend they listened to you. I agree that Fuji strategy is much better. Yet for my need, the R5 could be a much better tool than any Fuji or Panasonic on the market. At the end of the day is what TOOL do you need, and which company is making that tool. The tool I need today, a hybrid 50/50 photo/video FF camera with 4K60/120 and IBIS and great AF only exists with Canon appart from their soft limitation. They remove the limitation I buy it. they don't remove it I don't buy it. Nobody is walking over me, I am making a choice based on my need. If you don't buy the R5 in case they fix it despite the fact it was the tool you needed just to punish them, you actually roll over yourself. 

[ajay]

56 minutes ago, Phil Holland said:

Theoretically this has nothing to do with the CPU nor the Media (it gets warm and generates heat as well) even, but the accumulation of heat on the sensor itself, which I don't think Canon pushes out via metadata visible to us.  It would actually be very hard to monitor specific hot points where heat can do the most damage to the sensor short of taking the camera fully apart and investigating, but even that is a tough one as the guts would be exposed.

I imagine without active cooling this particular sensor with all photosites active likely at specific areas behind the sensor are the reason the cap is there, whether it's safe timer based situation or some sort of sensor driven fail safe.  The main reason for either of the caps would be to keep it from permanently damaging and/or inducing a degradation of reliability or image quality of the sensor not just in the short term, but long term use.

If it's a CPU related heat thing, I'd be pretty shocked.  But who knows.  Maybe it's a combination of it all.

There's lots of reason the more video minded cameras (C500 MK II) have active cooling and this is certainly one of them.

I thought that too at first but when testers were able to get the camera to run for extended periods using an external recorder, it made me believe the sensor temperature isn't the problem.

[Andrew Reid]

20 minutes ago, ajay said:

You can buy this stuff on Amazon here in the states:

https://www.amazon.com/Professional-Freeze-Electronic-Component-FR-777-777/dp/B000Z99ZCA/ref=sr_1_7?dchild=1&keywords=freeze+spray&qid=1597265368&sr=8-7

This will chill down the camera within seconds if you can get the nozzle near enough to the circuit boards. Through the memory card slot ought to do it.

Shall I pack 10 cans per shoot or just 1?

[ajay]

40 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

Shall I pack 10 cans per shoot or just 1?

Get a case of it.

In all seriousness, everyone so far has tried to cool the camera down externally and not internally. If you want to be absolutely, positively be sure that Canon is using the cripple hammer, it would be best to chill down the camera ASAP and retest record limits. Don't wait hours. Don't try putting it in the freezer. By getting the circuit boards chilled within minutes will give you a definitive answer to whether Canon is intentionally crippling the camera.

Do we know for sure there is only one temperature sensor in the camera? Maybe Canon is reading the temperature of a different component other than the one in your experiment.

I'm not trying to be a jerk about this, but we need a secondary test to prove beyond a doubt that Canon is intentionally crippling this camera. This is truly a big deal.

Chilling the circuit boards directly and rapidly will prove this out.

(Last post on this. I don't mean to keep repeating this but I do feel it's important. I'm done.)

[Lux Shots]

12 hours ago, Brian Flint said:

I am retired now but have experience over many years as an electronic design engineer.

If there are 'timers' employed in the design then it is likely they would 'reset' to a zero or starting count state when the power is removed and then returned to  electronics. This would occur when the battery is removed. for a short period..

However if Canon was clever they could continuously write the count value of the timer(s) to a non-volatile memory  and when the power is resumed ( after battery removal ) the values of the count stored in the non-volatile memory could be returned to the timer(s). To do this there would have to be some non-volatile memory in the camera.

 

Most embedded non-volatile memory has a max write cycle of 200,000. A separate EEPROM or FRAM, has higher write/erase cycles, but I doubt they added another chip to do this.