Removing internal battery resets EOS R5 overheat timer

[Avenger 2.0]

2 hours ago, Mandalorian said:

I suspect that even with all the negative publicity due to the R5/R6 "overheating" being found out to be mostly fake, Canon is still not going to "fix" the problem since Canon always wanted the higher end video options of the R5/R6 to be crippled.

Sure, they will probably release a firmware that will modestly increase the record times for the higher end video modes so that they can at least pretend that the issue is "fixed", and they will probably spout some line like "Well, we need the record limits to prevent sensor damage, blah, blah, blah..."

But the higher end video options will always be crippled on the R5/R6 since they have RF Cine cameras and 8K Cine cameras coming out soon that need to sell, and they sure as hell don't want the R5/R6 eating into those sales at all.

Indeed, they will never acknowledge the overheating timer. They will release a firmware update with will give us like 15% longer recording time and 30% quicker heat recovery and call it a day.

[John Matthews]

Has anyone considered the idea that Canon might have wanted to release the full potential of this camera at a later point? The argument could be made they wanted to own the entire "spec" buying videographer market, knowing Sony or someone else would have made something to compete that would be up to snuff to compete (again, in terms of specs). At this point, they'd release a new firmware "unlocking" the full potential on us unsuspecting customers. Both Fuji and Olympus have done this type of thing in the past, only with firmware.

Yes, if this is so, it went horribly wrong for Canon.

[jgharding]

8 minutes ago, John Matthews said:

Has anyone considered the idea that Canon might have wanted to release the full potential of this camera at a later point? The argument could be made they wanted to own the entire "spec" buying videographer market, knowing Sony or someone else would have made something to compete that would be up to snuff to compete (again, in terms of specs). At this point, they'd release a new firmware "unlocking" the full potential on us unsuspecting customers. Both Fuji and Olympus have done this type of thing in the past, only with firmware.

Yes, if this is so, it went horribly wrong for Canon.

They do have previous on this, as DPAF was included some C cameras, not mentioned, but later activated

In the face of their competition it's been a serious blunder though

[BTM_Pix]

12 minutes ago, John Matthews said:

Has anyone considered the idea that Canon might have wanted to release the full potential of this camera at a later point? The argument could be made they wanted to own the entire "spec" buying videographer market, knowing Sony or someone else would have made something to compete that would be up to snuff to compete (again, in terms of specs). At this point, they'd release a new firmware "unlocking" the full potential on us unsuspecting customers. Both Fuji and Olympus have done this type of thing in the past, only with firmware.

So they've replaced the "Cripple Hammer" with the "Temporary Incapacitating Hammer" ?

Its a possibility.

Earlier on in this saga when the denial was high about the R5 I said we'd reached the "Pining for the fjords" stage of the Dead Parrot Sketch.

I might have to revise that now and say we might only be at the "He's not dead...he's just stunned" stage 🙂  

 

[John Matthews]

2 minutes ago, BTM_Pix said:

So they've replaced the "Cripple Hammer" with the "Temporary Incapacitating Hammer" ?

Earlier on in this saga when the denial was high about the R5 I said we'd reached the "Pining for the fjords" stage of the Dead Parrot Sketch.

I might have to revise that now and say we might only be at the "He's not dead...he's just stunned" stage 🙂  

 

It still has yet to be proven that Canon will or wants to unlock the R5 at any date in the future. My gut feeling is they'll need to respond at this point... who knows what kind of BS they'll come up with, but have visions of the Canon execs in a war room frantically brainstorming new ideas about how to spin or cripple the R5.

There's also a final scenario- not release anymore cameras and simply say "we couldn't make it work". This might actually cost them less money in the long run with future sales of their cinema cameras. I doubt it though.

There should be no more discussion on temperatures of any sort. It's simply a cripple clock- the end. I cannot imagine it's going to settle well with anyone on this forum.

[stv]

31 minutes ago, John Matthews said:

Has anyone considered the idea that Canon might have wanted to release the full potential of this camera at a later point? The argument could be made they wanted to own the entire "spec" buying videographer market, knowing Sony or someone else would have made something to compete that would be up to snuff to compete (again, in terms of specs). At this point, they'd release a new firmware "unlocking" the full potential on us unsuspecting customers. Both Fuji and Olympus have done this type of thing in the past, only with firmware.

I'm a far more cynical individual but I think Canon were trying to hedge their bet. I think what they were originally hoping to do was create a camera with amazing specs to wow customers, artificially cripple it, release it and then gauge consumer response. If sales figures and adoption are low, ease back on the crippling and see if they can gain more customers. Ideally, I think they were hoping that no one would care all that much about the crippled performance and that they wouldn't need to do anything. They wanted their cake and they wanted to eat it too. They wanted to show the class leading specs without actually having to give them to the consumers.

Canon's actions have long demonstrated that they want their dslr/mirrorless cameras to be used for photography. If Sony, Panasonic and Fuji weren't pushing video so hard in their own cameras the R5 would likely have the same mushy 1080 as the Canon T2i.

[John Matthews]

5 minutes ago, stv said:

I'm a far more cynical individual but I think Canon were trying to hedge their bet. I think what they were originally hoping to do was create a camera with amazing specs to wow customers, artificially cripple it, release it and then gauge consumer response. If sales figures and adoption are low, ease back on the crippling and see if they can gain more customers. Ideally, I think they were hoping that no one would care all that much about the crippled performance and that they wouldn't need to do anything. They wanted their cake and they wanted to eat it too. They wanted to show the class leading specs without actually having to give them to the consumers.

So far, everything is going according to plan. Except for some people having thermal common sense? Canon really does take us for idiots! Waiting 2 hours? ...give me a break! I don't know who came up with that one.

[Ilkka Nissila]

It is normal that temperature control algorithms include not only the current temperature but also the recent temperature history that are factored into the algorithm calculating "what is the next move". It wouldn't be surprising that if you erase the data of the temperature history and other parameters by removing the battery, the algorithm has to go by without it, but it doesn't mean that it works in the intended way to protect the camera if you do that.

It has been shown that the algorithm does monitor the temperature (by the freezer experiments) and others have not been able to reproduce Andrew's fridge results, in fact there are reports of temperature going down in the fridge as expected, and with good recording time left in the high-quality modes after a similar period in the fridge. Perhaps settings were different, explaining the different outcomes. Prolonged LV, focusing and IBIS activity can certainly be factors. Canon do recommend turning the camera off when not using it.

The long-exposure noise in still photography has been shown to increase as the camera gets hot. Here there is discussion of the long-exposure noise and comparison with rival cameras:

http://www.mibreit-photo.com/blog/canon-eos-r5-image-quality/

"The amount of hot pixels and noise in such a photo taken with the R5 will be worse, the longer you have the camera turned on in advance to taking the long exposure." So it does appear that the image quality is deteriorated in certain situations when the camera heats up.

[maxmizer]

no come on
I would think about it for a long time before changing mount ...

[BTM_Pix]

44 minutes ago, John Matthews said:

It still has yet to be proven that Canon will or wants to unlock the R5 at any date in the future.

It depends on which is the least amount of face to lose, having to unlock it and admit they'd locked it or canning it altogether to avoid having to admit that.

You'd think they'd just go with the numbers, take it on the chin, just fix it and carry on selling it but you just never know.

Although having said that its not even entirely certain whether they would actually get much backlash.

People will let a lot of things slide to get the features a fully unrestricted version of this camera would give them and of course, in the modern world, as long as they tough out the first few days of any backlash then by and large everyone forgets anyway.

44 minutes ago, John Matthews said:

There should be no more discussion on temperatures of any sort. It's simply a cripple clock- the end. I cannot imagine it's going to settle well with anyone on this forum.

Everything that I targeted from the API in the testing app was based on that premise as both @Andrew Reid and I knew it was unlikely to be strictly temperature based but the subsequent chase down was necessary to prove it as definitively as its likely going to be proven outside of Canon.

I still don't think that will stop everyone talking about the temperatures though 😉

Canon muddied those waters with their original limit list when describing a specific temperature which set off all sorts of tangents with different anecdotal reports from differing environments.

All of that was a red herring but even "60 jpegs in a fridge" doesn't quell the "I used it to shoot 300 RAW files in 12fps burst mode whilst pouring molten lava on it and it didn't overheat" reports.

So I think it will go on for a while, particularly in the vacuum that Canon have left for it to do so by not making any sort of comment whatsoever.

I'm starting to think those people who have experienced all these outlying run times and unhindered performance with their R5s might actually have faulty ones 🙂 

[David Bowgett]

The most mind-blowing thing about all of this is that they've apparently managed to create an imaging processor that can handle 8k30 RAW and 4k120 while maintaining reasonable temperatures, at a time when Fujifilm, Panasonic and Sony only have processors capable of 4K60 (and Nikon don't even have anything capable of that), but have crippled it to the point of near-uselessness.

Okay, maybe it's not really that mind-blowing when you consider Canon's history, but still...

[Avenger 2.0]

10 minutes ago, David Bowgett said:

The most mind-blowing thing about all of this is that they've apparently managed to create an imaging processor that can handle 8k30 RAW and 4k120 while maintaining reasonable temperatures, at a time when Fujifilm, Panasonic and Sony only have processors capable of 4K60 (and Nikon don't even have anything capable of that), but have crippled it to the point of near-uselessness.

Okay, maybe it's not really that mind-blowing when you consider Canon's history, but still...

Don't forget they will recycle this processor and sensor until at least 2030. So over the course of 10 years they will slightly uncripple it 🤣

[stv]

44 minutes ago, John Matthews said:

So far, everything is going according to plan. Except for some people having thermal common sense? Canon really does take us for idiots! Waiting 2 hours? ...give me a break! I don't know who came up with that one.

I think they were hoping that chatter among the photography community would drown out the complaints coming from video focused users. I think they designed the camera with photography users in mind and added the 8k for that wow factor on the spec sheet. I can't see why else they would add such a feature and then hamper it to the point of it being completely unusable.

[Davos]

The A7S3 can shoot 4K 120 and Philip Bloom (who has probably had most time on it thus far) says it hasn't overheated for him.

I'd love 4K 120 but if I could get 4K 60 HQ unlimited 4:2:2 Int I and I suspect most others would be happy with that.

[ajay]

There once was a camera built on deceit
Who's video features were said to be sweet.
But amongst all the clamor,
Came Canon's Cripple Hammer,
And now we know it really doesn't overheat.

 

 

 

[Clément Gabriel Jolivet]

It makes me think of the Epson Page Count planned obsolescence "scandal" :

https://therestartproject.org/design/triumphing-together-against-planned-obsolescence/

Standard practices it seems.

Or when people realized ink cardtriges really are utterly overpriced colored liquids, some crafty users did stuff like this (basically to self recharge and have continuous and affordable ink):

 

And the Epson reacted...with that : 

 

It seems it's still up to users to create some rumble and class actions to have things move forward in a good way.

[Joseph Weigert]

This chart is very interesting from DPreview user Jesse. It clearly shows, that HQ mode doesn't produce a lot more heat, than normal mode.  The temperature plateaus around 59-61 ℃, but then it stops rising. HQ mode is actually barely hotter than normal mode, it still shuts down.

 

[Andrew Reid]

I see it plateaus  around the 57C-61C mark for 15 mins.

So it can roll along just fine at 60C for 15 mins... But come the 30th minute of thou hour, the great Thermal Christ beams down from Cripple HQ to read us the Ten Commandments.

[Andrew Reid]

58C for 45 mins in the special "not limited by heat" mode!!

But what's a few degrees C between friends when you want to sell a C500 II, right?

[hoodlum]

Roger Cicala put on his tinfoil hat and posted his thoughts  on the R5 overheating.

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/64283221