New Firmware for R5/R6/R3

[Emanuel]

  

7 hours ago, wolf33d said:

I have spent 5 years on this forum complaining about every camera on the market. All I needed was 4K120, great reliable AF, IBIS, full frame, 10 bit, and great photo capabilities. We always had some of those specs in a camera but never all of them together in one package. 
Then the R5 was released. I sold my Sony, and been happily shooting ever since. You probably didn’t see me post anything since then. It has all the specs I listed and MORE (canon colors, great ergonomics etc). 
after 2Y of use I am still extremely happy with the R5. First time in 10y that I couldn’t care less about any camera release. 
the temperature issue is a joke. I have been shooting for 2 years and never got any overheating once. 

So you were here among us, only for complaining? Now that you've found the one... you've forgotten us?! ; )

 

4 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Probably shooting in 1080p 😂

Or a few short shots for once, I guess... ;- )

[MrSMW]

Canon really shot themself in the foot over this overheating thing…

A couple of years back when it launched, on paper, it was as quite comfortably the number one contender for my needs but the sheer amount of negative press over the issue put me off.

It wasn’t so much the Canon shenanigans, but more the fact I was not going to invest in something potentially so unreliable.

There have been several times since when I have had my S1H sitting in direct hard sun with temps in the shade of 100f+ and it has not missed a beat and at the time thought, “ha, do that Canon!”, but actually maybe it could have done it…

It’s back on the list as a contender for sure but I’m still hoping that any Panny rumors become reality over this next Winter…

[PannySVHS]

2 hours ago, MrSMW said:

There have been several times since when I have had my S1H sitting in direct hard sun with temps in the shade of 100f+ and it has not missed a beat and at the time thought, “ha, do that Canon!”, but actually maybe it could have done it…

I think the R5 would melt inside. Canon just shut off any time of heat management which the hardware cannot provide. Slogan " just leave that sucker on and keep it running til it melts". And it runs and runs and runs til it melts and melts and melts😄

[MrSMW]

3 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

I think the R5 would melt inside

🤪 maybe?!

I know the Panasonic’s are near bullet proof as they have had some really tough tests over this Summer!

They can get hot, really hot, but not even a warning and if the S1H fan has ever kicked on, I haven’t heard it.

[Andrew Reid]

Well since it is 35 degrees C in Berlin today I decided to do a quick test. Put it in 4K HQ mode (8K sensor readout) and record until card fills up. I'll let you know what happens.

(Don't expect any melting! The magic screw trick showed it could go for hours virtually non-stop shot after shot in 8K!)

Of course the client reviewers will all now be out praising Canon for fixing the non-existent problem they tried to cover up.

[FHDcrew]

Excited to hear your results. 

[Andrew Reid]

First test done. Went to 29m59sec maximum continuous recording length for 4K HQ with no issues whatsoever.

Could start another clip straight after. No overheating warning. Camera body feels very hot all over, makes a nice hand warmer.

[FHDcrew]

Well saying as the camera feels hot all over, the overheating must be true. Andrew, if it were false then surely the camera would not feel scorching hot after 30 min. 

[FHDcrew]

Thanks for doing the tests!

[douglaurent]

6 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

First test done. Went to 29m59sec maximum continuous recording length for 4K HQ with no issues whatsoever.

Could start another clip straight after. No overheating warning. Camera body feels very hot all over, makes a nice hand warmer.

Did record 4x 30min 8K Raw with 1.6 and, no wonder not having a fan, the camera does extremely overheat already after the first 30 minutes.  It just doesn't shut down like before.  Using it this way over and over again can't be healthy for cards, batteries and the camera itself.  So Canon is still correct with their protection advice and time limits.  The Sony A1 does also overheat and also shuts down. Nobody did criticize it while being much more expensive.  I never understood why a small 4000 Euro camera should be expected to deliver the highest image quality at unlimited recording times.

[kye]

On 7/22/2022 at 8:32 PM, PannySVHS said:

Now let´s test the camera running in the sun of current climate change days.

Or in summer of any country that doesn't snow in winter.

[Andrew Reid]

8 hours ago, FHDcrew said:

Well saying as the camera feels hot all over, the overheating must be true. Andrew, if it were false then surely the camera would not feel scorching hot after 30 min. 

I am not sure what you know about electronics but warm to the touch is not classed as overheating.

Have you ever looked at your PC CPU temps?

[Andrew Reid]

2 hours ago, douglaurent said:

I never understood why a small 4000 Euro camera should be expected to deliver the highest image quality at unlimited recording times.

Who said anything about unlimited recording times? It was never an expectation of anyone about rolling unlimited number of hours in 8K.

For those with short memories - We were sold a camera 2 years ago which was borderline unusable, shutting down from sitting idle in the menus, because of a badly implemented fake cripple hammer timer. There should have been a class action lawsuit brought.

Canon soon realised they had a PR disaster on their hands so rolled out a firmware update and got all their client journalists to hype it up. That update did very little to improve recording times. We had been mis-sold and mislead into buying a camera that was advertised to do professional 8K and 4K video at highest quality when it couldn't even get through 20 minutes of sitting idle on set or an hour of light stills use before blocking you out of major headline features you paid for. Then to make it worse they refused to apologise, and left it out there software-crippled for 2 years before fixing it.

But yeah you cannot expect anything more for your $4000... whatever Doug.

[FHDcrew]

25 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

I am not sure what you know about electronics but warm to the touch is not classed as overheating.

Have you ever looked at your PC CPU temps?

I get it, yeah electronics get hot. But I mean if it’s burning hot to the touch that sure sounds like uncomfortably hot temps to me!

 

With that being said as long as there is no long term damage, I would prefer the unlimited times. As I’m sure you do. 

[leslie]

On 7/22/2022 at 10:04 PM, Avenger 2.0 said:

The big question is, how will this affect camera life? Once bought a second hand 70D with low shutter, that failed quickly with a faulty motherboard (was used a lot for video).

my mate had this exact same problem. Except He bought his new.  it was used for both photo and video. he's since passed away and it was handed down to his youngest daughter. She was really bummed when it died and was told the price of fixing it. 

[leslie]

i should also  add I nearly upgraded  from the 60d to the 70d for the bigger buffer and ml but after a google search, i chose to spend my money elsewhere. read into that what you will. 

[Andrew Reid]

10 hours ago, FHDcrew said:

I get it, yeah electronics get hot. But I mean if it’s burning hot to the touch that sure sounds like uncomfortably hot temps to me!

Eh? Where did I say it was "burning hot"?

There are two separate discussions going on here. What type of overheating do you still think is the problem? Do you really think to avoid skin burns the camera needs 1 hour cooling off timer set in firmware plus arbitrary timers for 2 years upon release, then quietly removed with no explanation?

First discussion is about what the camera hardware is capable of. The hardware we pay for should be fully usable. Are the operating temps of the CPU and image sensor ok under sustained load. As you see from your GPU or CPU these peak temps are reached within minutes, then stabilise. Is the same with the EOS R5. The temps stabilise and the alloy housing acts as a passive cooler to dissipate the heat to the air.

Second discussion is the external temp in contact with skin and how hot is too hot or against consumer regulations and whether it can cause skin burns. If Canon is trying to avoid this, then why remove the limitation now? Did the rules change? I don't think so somehow.

Then there is the related discussion of Canon segmenting the market and whether they wanted EOS R5 to be used in place of R5C and C70 for pro video production. All three of these were planned at same time with staggered release schedule. What capabilities are fully reliable on which models is a question of firmware not just hardware.

So to answer discussion 1 - We proved way back in 2020 that the EOS R5 hardware was capable of running for long periods even in 8K with the EXIF temps never going above 65c and the battery pull + screw in the battery door trick was possible to reset the 'overheating' timer counting down in firmware.

It was capable of restarting a recording immediately - but remember the old firmware had a lengthy 45 minute to an hour long 'cooling off period' which was clearly bullshit because it didn't even take into account actual temperature sensors in the camera. For example the camera being in a fridge recording 8K where it would cool to room temp within a couple of minutes after stopping. It still had that arbitrary timer blocking you from the features and not allowing the use of the hardware you paid for to the full potential.

I was contacted by a class action lawyer in the US during these discoveries, and the whole thing was talk of the town. Canon were really on the back foot PR wise. All their own fault. They had created the perception of an unreliable but expensive flagship camera, and that their new hardware was overheating.

So rather than recall it and change the firmware, or even just apologise to their users who had spent the money on a defective cripple hammered camera, they enlisted their client journalists to say nice things about it and brought out a faux-fix firmware update that did barely anything.

So that was the situation for EOS R5 owners for 2 years until this complete U-turn last week.

10 hours ago, FHDcrew said:

With that being said as long as there is no long term damage, I would prefer the unlimited times. As I’m sure you do. 

I don't. I have no use whatsoever for "unlimited" recording times.

I just want normal predictable behaviour from a camera especially for £4000.

30 min limit is fine by me, I am not an event shooter.

Remember how severe the problems were with the original EOS R5 firmware - you could be in the menus or just shooting a few stills and an hour later the camera would be locking you out of the high quality 4K mode and 8K.

So by my standards I only have to be able to use the camera normally without being blocked by fake timers.

I kept saying all along after the magic screw trick, it was a firmware restriction, not real overheating. Nobody would listen. Even Magic Lantern were saying it. Nobody listened to them either.

Now the lifting of the firmware timers proves it.

But still people's minds don't change.

All I can say is I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.

[ND64]

Imagine Nikon or Panasonic do this.. yelling thumbnails with "seriously?" title on them would explode in our YouTube home page.

 

[wolf33d]

On 7/24/2022 at 6:59 PM, Emanuel said:

  

So you were here among us, only for complaining? Now that you've found the one... you've forgotten us?! ; )

 

Or a few short shots for once, I guess... ;- )

I admit I have done my share of complaining haha especially on Canon!. So has done Andrew in pretty much every gear article on this blog :). 
 

And no @Andrew Reid I actually have never tried 1080p. I have the 3 custom modes set to 4K HQ, 4K60p and 4K120p. Never use 8K either.

For my use though, just like Emanuel mentioned I never record long clips. No interviews and things like that. 
Anyway, good to see that this limitation isn’t one anymore for anybody using this camera

[Andrew Reid]

You must have been doing very light use and very short shoots in those modes, especially 4K HQ.

The question is why didn't the camera perform like this in the first place 2 years ago?

Why only fix it now?

2 years!