F350 Overheating?
 

While filming sit down interviews with the F350 yesterday, I noticed that the camera's internal fan began to get louder and the camera top area was getting very hot. Having filmed for 3/4 of an hour I also noticed that the display level was showing I had only used about 10% of the disc? - the battery display level was reading about correct. At a break in the interview I stopped filming and changed discs - going on to film for a further 45mins approx - there were no issues and the display levels read correctly. I checked the first disc (this had already been fully used several times and had been formatted) in the camera and all was well. Back at the studio I checked the first disc more closely and everything is fine. Having spoken with Silver Support, they are unaware of this issue and told me to keep an eye on things, and that it is possibly a fault in the disc. Has anyone else come across this?

The camera was well ventilated and we only use Sony discs.

Regards: Stu
www.studioscotland.com

I have had the fan come on many times during interviews with our F350s. It does seem a bit unpredictable when it will come on and when it won't.

I have never noticed the disk remaining discrepancy you had but I usually pay more attention to the disk remaining time indicator in the viewfinder and not the bar graph display. If you put that disk back in the camera now does it display correctly? How much record time does the camera say are left on the disk?

Hi Scot - I put the disc back in and it reads 6 full bars out of the 7 on the flip out monitor - in the viewfinder it reads 30-25, I have tried other discs with similar results. I am going to let the camera run with a new disc until it is full and keep an eye on what is going on.

Did you find the camera getting realy hot when the fan came on?

Regards: Stu
www.studioscotland.com

I find my F350 gets pretty hot during normal use.

The fan will often come on. It won't over heat. Just make sure that you don't leave the shoulder strap or some other obstruction covering the vents at the back of the handle.

If needed (or if you are too scary) you can switch to fan to continuos mode in the service menu...

uli

Are you using Sony batteries or AB batteries?

Thanks for the replies folks...

Had a good read over the manual again and realised that (page 20) 6 bars on the indicator means that 25-30 mins is left on the disc, having checked the disc in the "Diagnosis" menu confirmed the remaining disc capacity (page 131) - I was pretty sure I filmed for longer than this.... think I need a holiday.

Mitchell: Batteries used are IDX Type 7s & 10

Was out on another job yesterday and there were no issues.

Regards: Stu
www.studioscotland.com

During the filming of a music video in a studio last Friday my F350 was almost continuously on for 8 hours. It became quite hot and the fan was coming and going periodically, but didn't observe any strange behavior of the meters etc.