Sony a7iv OVERHEATING AND PROBLEMS

[NiniBuba]

Hi guys !  At start sorry for my English. 
I'm first person in my city who rent a a7iv for test (Poland), Warsaw) and start talking to people about overheating problems

In my opinion a7iv is good camera but have few problems which will be out soon.
All reviews are wrong and they lie about test and time of long recording.
I didn't have much time for all test but few my test bellow!. Please do your own test and write in comments

tripod + open screen, temp set to HIGH
4k HS 200 Mbps 50fps (AF-C when nobody sitting on front of camera)
Nothing bad happened and first original battery finish after 1h:34min and i change to second battery and stopped the test after 1h50min
> I got a better time than stated by SONY ( +25min)

I wait until camera cold down (30 min) and start another test with fresh battery 

tripod + open screen, temp set to HIGH
4k HS 200 Mbps 50fps (AF-C when my friend was on the front of camera for all the time and eye tracking need to work )
Camera show after 35min overheating icon and turn off in 55min
> I got a worse time than stated by SONY ( -15min)

* For sure the time of recording with active AF-C is less then on SONY website
https://helpguide.sony.net/ilc/2110/v1/pl/contents/TP0002922662.html?fbclid=IwAR0-7-VTkXG6ENh9aArqD8eGcJccNib5I7KEBP_Avchury7Z2dl_BijEKvM
**I'm afraid it will much worse in summer when we gonna run and gun with AF-C and IBIS. Hand-held will accelerate heating issue (what do you think ?)

POWER USB DON'T WORK CORRECTLY

TEST 1 POWER USB
tripod + open screen, temp set to HIGH
4k HS 200 Mbps, 50fps  record 25min and turn off (overheating)
(AF-C when my friend was on the front of camera for all the time and eye tracking need to work )
> I got a worse time than stated by SONY ( -45 min) !!!
* Time between POWER USB 30 min and always fresh original battery

TEST 2 POWER USB
tripod + open screen, temp set to HIGH
(AF-C when my friend was on the front of camera for all the time and eye tracking need to work )
4k HS 100 Mbps, 50pfs  record 17min and turn off (overheating)
> the shortest time I got. I have problem with my a7iv or SONY screwed up
* Time between POWER USB 30 min and always fresh original battery

TEST 3 POWER USB
tripod + open screen, temp set to HIGH
(this time i check manual focus MF)
4k HS 100 Mbps, 50fps  record 17min and turn off (overheating)
> I got a worse time than stated by SONY ( -105 min) !!!

The same setting like above but without POWER USB , and on AF-C, (fresh battery)
tripod + open screen, temp set to HIGH
4k HS 100 Mbps, 50fps  record 1h 30 min.  and turn off (overheating)
(AF-C when my friend was on the front of camera for all the time and eye tracking need to work )
> I got a worse time than stated by SONY ( -50 min) !!!
But after 5 min cold down and changing battery he record again 1h and sd card v90 finish.

>>>My conclusions and thoughts<<<
1) All tests carried out by YouTubers are wrong. They record record the wall (item)  not human (AF-C and eye tracking) , so should should not be taken seriously. ( You know $$$)
2) Generally, the shooting times of 4k 200 Mbps where the AF-C really needs to work are below the guaranteed times.
3) The shooting times 4k HS 100 Mbps, 50fps where the AF-C really needs to work are HIGHLY below the guaranteed times.
4) USB POWER DON'T WORK CORRECTLY
5) I believe that the results of shooting by handhald may be even worse because there will be a problem with the cooling of the a7iv in the hands 
6) I believe that the situation with the overheating of the a7iv in the summer could be much worse and we need to have that in the mind before buy.
 

So far, I cannot perform any more tests and I would like to remind you that such results can only occur with me! However, I will be pleased to know your results, provided that you do not record the wall and you do not work for SONY.

XAVC HS 4K 200 Mbps 50fps - record 55min (tripod, af-c) (sony write 1 h 10 min)
XAVC HS 4K 100 Mbps 50fps - record 1h30min (tripod, af-c) (sony write 2 h 20 min)
USB POWER - max 25 min record
Is it ok and worth buying? Is it better to wait and see how the situation unfolds?
I leave it to you, but one thing is for sure, the Internet reviews sucks and you shouldn't trust the reviews and read the comments with caution and an open mind.
 

 

.
 

[UncleBobsPhotography]

USB-power may require extra voltage boosting/step down which can generate heat. Using a dummy batteri is usually a better solution since it moves the heat outside of the camera. If the camera accepts both normal 5v usb and USB Power Delivery (up to 20v), you might get better results with the latter.

Not trying to defend Sony, just a general tip.

[NiniBuba]

I talk with guy from Rental and they stop using dummy battery because they fried one a7ii. But on Power USB they record few hours on a7siii. 
 

[UncleBobsPhotography]

On 12/14/2021 at 11:27 AM, NiniBuba said:

I talk with guy from Rental and they stop using dummy battery because they fried one a7ii. But on Power USB they record few hours on a7siii. 
 

I would guess that they either powered both the camera and a monitor with the same power source or that they had a faulty power source that gave the wrong voltage. Using an NP-F battery connected to a dummy battery shouldn't be able to fry a camera since it's the exact same chemistry as the cameras own battery, just removed from the body.

That said, I would have been a bit sceptical of letting other people use dummy batteries with my cameras. I've seen 12v connectors which are suspiciously similar to the connector for my 7.4v dummy battery. When I use dummy batteries I want to be 100% sure of what I'm feeding my camear.

[Adl]

Did a small test with my A7iv today.

Tripd (small Arca Swiss base plate), open screen, temp set to high, no cage, no external HDMI connection, AF-C with human eye-AF, steady shot off, no USB-power, room temperature.

I have used two batteries in a row. The first was only 96% full, with the second battery the card was full.

XAVC S 4K 25fps 140M 4:2:2 10bit

Fist battery: 1h 53min continuous internal recording, second battery till card full: 1h 54min

No overheating at all.

Perhaps because of 25 fps instead of 50 fps. But for me, such long continuous takes are only important when I'm filming interviews, and then 25fps is enough for me. There are reports on the Internet that the time is shorter when outputting 4K on the HDMI out. Maybe I can test this on the weekend.

[ntblowz]

4k25p/30p on most camera can shoot fine without overheating, 4k50p/60p is another story though.

[kye]

11 hours ago, ntblowz said:

4k25p/30p on most camera can shoot fine without overheating, 4k50p/60p is another story though.

My GH5 says....

[Xavier Plagaro Mussard]

On 12/17/2021 at 11:59 PM, ntblowz said:

4k25p/30p on most camera can shoot fine without overheating, 4k50p/60p is another story though.

Who needs two hour long 4K50p/60p takes?

[Paul Cryer]

I'm just about to log a call with Sony.

I shoot weddings and events. So far, three uses since it has arrived, all shooting 4K 25fps 4-2-0 60mbps the camera overheats and stops at a little over 30 mins each time, in winter in the UK during ceremonies and speeches. Twice on a tripod with screen out, once in hands. The camera to touch feels very very hot. My a7iii cameras just keep running and running. So there is certainly an issue OR maybe some dodgy units. Maybe the sensitivity option you can set in the menu is not working? I've a friend who isn't having issues at all. Sony SD card and Sony batteries.

[photoboi]

To add to this, I picked up my a7iv Dec 23, was doing some test recording. 4k 30p 4-2-0 8 bit color with af-c and image stabilization, camera turned off after 2 mins 17 sec of recording... get in touch with Sony if you think the body is getting unnecessarily hot. 

[scotchtape]

Tested mine, 4hr no overheat in 4K 10bit 24p.  Ambient about 18C.

Camera gets really warm though, even just in the menus. Runs hotter than A7III 😞

[Mark Romero 2]

Not trying to dogpile, but there were a few videos out there about people complaining that the a7 IV overheated when they weren't even shooting, just going through the menus to set up the camera the way they want it.

 

Something weird is going on...

[SMD79]

Saw this thread because I was trying to see how common this issue is. I purchased 3 Sony A7IV cameras. One of them overheated and shut down while setting it up out of the box! I was NOT recording and was in a cool house (64 degrees inside at the time) indoors. I took it out of the box and was setting it up when I saw the overheat warning symbol. I had no card in and had not recorded anything. Kept setting things up and it shut down entirely. It wasn't hot. A little warm, yes, but nothing major and I've shot with Sony Alpha cameras for 8 years now. I'm an experienced Sony Pro member with 7 total cameras and lots of experience so I know how far they can be pushed. I switched to high temp mode and moved on. The issue did NOT happen with my other two A7IV cameras during set up. The LCD was flush to the camera for all 3 camera setups and I'd say it was only 15 minutes in with a fully charged Sony battery when the shut down occurred. Again, without even rolling!

 

We then shot our first wedding yesterday with the 3 new cameras plus my A7siii. All 4 cameras on a high temp setting so they'll last longer. About 15/20 minutes into the ceremony the original camera gets the overheating symbol! The others last the full 1hr ceremony with no warning. It's the same camera that had issues during setup (I labeled each one so I'd know). Pulling out the screen helped and the warning went away but the ceremony was in a cool church in the winter. We film outdoors in summer heat of Los Angeles all the time so there's no way this one will make it thru that. I'm convinced there are bad apples. For me it's 1 in 3 has heat issues. I'll be returning for another unit and will put it through its paces. I'll try to remember to post back but judging by me setting up my 3 cameras and my wife's two cameras (same a7iv cameras) and only this one having issues... I think there's just some bad copies out there. 

[Mark Romero 2]

58 minutes ago, SMD79 said:

Saw this thread because I was trying to see how common this issue is. I purchased 3 Sony A7IV cameras. One of them overheated and shut down while setting it up out of the box! I was NOT recording and was in a cool house (64 degrees inside at the time) indoors. I took it out of the box and was setting it up when I saw the overheat warning symbol. I had no card in and had not recorded anything. Kept setting things up and it shut down entirely. It wasn't hot. A little warm, yes, but nothing major and I've shot with Sony Alpha cameras for 8 years now. I'm an experienced Sony Pro member with 7 total cameras and lots of experience so I know how far they can be pushed. I switched to high temp mode and moved on. The issue did NOT happen with my other two A7IV cameras during set up. The LCD was flush to the camera for all 3 camera setups and I'd say it was only 15 minutes in with a fully charged Sony battery when the shut down occurred. Again, without even rolling!

 

We then shot our first wedding yesterday with the 3 new cameras plus my A7siii. All 4 cameras on a high temp setting so they'll last longer. About 15/20 minutes into the ceremony the original camera gets the overheating symbol! The others last the full 1hr ceremony with no warning. It's the same camera that had issues during setup (I labeled each one so I'd know). Pulling out the screen helped and the warning went away but the ceremony was in a cool church in the winter. We film outdoors in summer heat of Los Angeles all the time so there's no way this one will make it thru that. I'm convinced there are bad apples. For me it's 1 in 3 has heat issues. I'll be returning for another unit and will put it through its paces. I'll try to remember to post back but judging by me setting up my 3 cameras and my wife's two cameras (same a7iv cameras) and only this one having issues... I think there's just some bad copies out there. 

Do you know if it was the same BATTERY that you used for setup that led to the overheating as the one you used in the Ceremony that gave you the overheating warning? 

[SMD79]

On 1/2/2022 at 4:51 PM, Mark Romero 2 said:

Do you know if it was the same BATTERY that you used for setup that led to the overheating as the one you used in the Ceremony that gave you the overheating warning? 

Unfortunately, I didn't pay attention to that. I did label all my batteries 1-8. But I'll pay more attention to the battery now as I keep running more tests. The next big event we're shooting isn't for a couple weeks so I'm gonna put these cameras through a few side by side tests to try to see if it's just a bad apple, or bad battery or...whatever. If I find anything of importance I'll report back for sure. 

Today I tried to just leave that same camera on standard and get it to overheat while not recording and it didn't. I then put i back in high temp mode with the other 2 A7IV cameras and rolled at 4k60 for a while with the screen NOT pulled out and they all ran into high temp warnings. I then pulled the screens away and they all went on recording for quite a bit longer before eventually all stopping from heat. The recordings did keep though. This bummed me out because I was hoping for consistency here. This was not the case at the wedding on New Years when only the one camera I had issues with out of the box had issues during the long church ceremony recording while the others did not. I also tried messing with display settings and didn't see any improvements worth noting. Gonna keep at it before I return it. Will update soon. 

[Mark Romero 2]

Thanks in advance for keeping us posted.

One thing regarding overheating: I know your first experience occurred during menu setup. When the second overheating warning incident occurred during the ceremony, was that camera setup different than the others? In particular, were the others in manual focus while the  camera that was giving the overheating warning using autofocus? 

I only ask because I have seen some people talk about overheating of the a7S III and it seems like one can leave an a7S III recording for hours in direct sun as long as it is pointed at the ground or a wall, but once the af system is having to track things in the same situation, it might be prone to overheating.

[Andrew Reid]

On 1/1/2022 at 5:55 AM, scotchtape said:

Camera gets really warm though, even just in the menus.

I am interested to know what happens if you have 4K/60p enabled in menus, whether it overheats doing nothing like the EOS R5?

The guy on the other topic said it lasted 15 mins in the main menu.

Then you'd have to wait for it to cool down.

At least 4K/24p/25p seems ok, but it would be a pain if 4K/60p impacted normal camera menu operation and stills mode.

[scotchtape]

In the meantime you can turn off the auto lens corrections. Also open the screen, battery door and SD card slot, as well as the the port covers. And set the viewfinder to standard quality / fps

Heat wise it is definitely worse than the A7III but at least it wasn't marketed as a video camera.

On my A7III I would get overheating if I left lens corrections on depending on the lens so I turned it off.

On my A7SIII I leave shading correction off and distortion on. Shading correction seems to be buggy - I've had a few "glitches" in video mode where a frame or two will have correction turned off then on again.

I've also noticed some batteries run hotter than others - even the Sony ones.  I have 3 extra OEMs and one causes overheating more easily in my A7III.

Wouldn't be surprised if there was a recall, but with the parts shortage not sure if that can even happen.

[Adl]

Did some further testings yesterday and today, this time with 50 fps (crop mode) instead of 25 fps. No overheating at all. Maybe it really is true that there are variances within the model and I may have gotten a better one. Especially with the discrepancies of the reports.

XAVC S 4K 50fps 200M 4:2:2 10bit

3 batteries with cooldown in between. First battery eye-AF on, steadyshot off, display open, 1h 55min. Second battery eye-AF on, steadyshot on, display open, 1h 57min. Third battery eye-AF on, steadyshot on, display closed, 2h 3min.

So even with a closed diplay I could not force it to overheat within one battery. When I opend the display after the last test I measured something like 50 °C on the upper left corner. Good bit warmer than with the display open at the end of a battery charge (42 °C), but no overheating.

Overall the camera gets warmer than my A7Siii, but for my usecases I don't see any problems.

[Trek of Joy]

So I decided to take a look at my copy after seeing this and the thread on Fred Miranda. If anyone is getting fast overheating times, I'd return it - you have a dud. I'm at over 4 hours of 4k60p and counting, only stopping for battery swaps and to reformat the card. Batteries have been at about 35% when pulled. With the settings below my 128gb card can only record for 1hr 20min so I've been stopping it just before its full. Batteries are warm to the touch, but not anything to worry about. Same for the back of the body where the LCD screen sits, I don't even have a temp warning yet.

My settings with a 128gb Prograde V90 card:

XAVC S - 4k60p - 10 bit 422 - 200mbps
AF-c - wide area - Face/eye detection and touch tracking on
Screen out like I always shoot
Airplane mode to prolong battery life (always unless I'm transferring files)
Temp warning set to high 

I started with the FE 85 just pointing at a static scene in my 77 degree apartment with the camera in front of the heater so it was blowing warm air on it. I hit tap to track on the flower as you can see in the image, so tracking was constantly engaged the whole time. I stopped it just before the card was full after almost 1hr 20min of recording. Then I moved to pointing it at the TV and swapped to the FE 35 to bootleg The Grand Tour (haven't seen the latest one, no spoilers LOL!). This should generate more heat since the camera would be busy detecting faces/eyes and tracking them - which it did beautifully. No heat warnings at all. This is far better than my a7III and absolutely crushes the a6300. I've never done a test with my a7sIII because it doesn't need it, but these results are far beyond what I should ever use.

I'll try bumping to XAVC SI and the 600mbps bitrate, but I never shoot that because my 128gb cards only hold about 27 min of footage and after a year and a half with the a7sIII I don't see a difference with XAVC S. That said I have zero reservations about using the a7IV for my work as I've never recorded a 1hr 20min take - the longest for me is sunrises/sunsets at about 45 minutes from start to finish. I edit in 24p, a full 128gb card of 60p footage would be 3 hours slowed down. The photo shows the end of the three consecutive takes filling my cards and the switch to SI and its massive bitrate on the bottom right. Note the sweet eye AF LOL!

Cheers

Chris