Recalls Don't Happen in Canon Land

[Harry Simpson]

I've got an event shoot tomorrow and would love to use two cameras - but alas the T2i is not reliable enough to even use due to the overheating issue.

If this had been a car there would have been a recall right. Is this not a manufacturing defect? If not has anyone decided what this is caused by. I've heard slow SD cards, LCD screen on, etc......

Just frustrated that my 5dMk2 is flawless and the T2i is flawed. blah blah blah complain.....

Thanks I feel better..

[John Wiley]

That's like expecting Ford to do a recall because you bought a Festiva with a tow-bar but couldn't tow a Caravan. With all the talk on these forums people often seem to forget that these camera's are first and foremost still cameras. Video is an added extra and, like adding a tow-bar to a tiny car, it's never going to perform as well as something designed specifically for that task.

The problem also seems to be different from camera to camera. For example, I've never had an overheating icon with my 550D, but I've seen it a few times with a borrowed 5dmkII. On the other hand, you seem to have a 5dmkII which is far less susceptible to overheating.

As for the causes; electrical appliances generate heat. When the electrical curcuits are inside a sealed shell with very little spare room, the problem is magnified because there is no way for the heat to dissapate. Now run that curcuitry constantly instead of in short bursts as it was designed for, and you'll quickly have problems.

[Keith Betters]

I agree that these cameras are more so designed for stills but I'm so tired of hearing it. The bottomline is that these cameras have a video function and I feel the fact that they overheat so easily is a defect. It does not matter whether they are more designed for stills or not! They should not offer that feature at all if the camera cannot perform the task without problems arrising. I love the video that I get from my dslr, but the fact is that they do offer video, so thats what they should do without flaw. I think the fact that they only 12 minutes is even ok because thats more of a limitation of the camera, but the fact that it overheats is more of a design flaw!

Just my 2 cents!

[Jon Shohet]

I think it's fair to say that the overheating is more a limitation than a flaw. One that most of us (other than the early adopters) were aware of when buying our camera. I heard of many overheating problems with the 7D and 550D, which was one of the reasons I chose the 60D.
Also, the video mode on these cameras is - at the end of the day - designed for home movies rather than professional use, which is part of the reason these cameras are dirt cheap compared to pro video cams.

[Jon Fairhurst]

A friend of mine went to film school in Arizona where they shot on a RED ONE. It also overheated. They would bring ice packs to help cool it. Such is life.

I haven't had any overheating problems with anything this year in the Pacific Northwest...
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[John Vincent]

Yeah, I tend to view is as a limitation of the DSLR format (although this gen of Canons do seem a bit more prone to it), and not a defect.

After all, it's talked about in the manual, and there's an actual "too hot" symbol built into the programing. All of which are open admissions that it could be an issue.

[John Wiley]

It is not a manufacturing defect or a design flaw. It is acknowledged by Canon in the official documentation and is, essentially a 'feature' of the camera. Albeit a bad one.

You could only call it a flaw or defect if they released the camera with no knowledge of it and only later found out that the camera was overheating. But the fact that they built a warning into the camera to tell you when overheating is imminent, as well as a power-off which prevents the camera from cooking itself, shows that it is something they paid attention to, and decided to release it as-is with disclosure in the official documentation.

You can't go around asking for a recall because of an inconvenient design feature that is not only common knowledge, but disclosed by Canon themselves.

[Keith Betters]

Yea, I guess you guys are right about it being a limitation rather than defect. However, I just don't accept the fact that its not designed for how we use it. I believe you work around its limitations but video is video, no matter how you capture it or with what you captured it with!

[Harry Simpson]

I had to look long and hard but found the sentence at the very back of the video section. It said to give the camera a rest.

I have redesigned my Lancer car with a flying mode.....and in my instruction manual i iterate that cliffs driven off should be no higher than 3 feet and need to let the car rest a little after each jump. = feature!!

I know the little camera is what it is and that's fine. I did not know about the heating problem before I bought it.

I tested it last night and the only time it overheated was when the battery was very low and the battery actually got hot. I shot that event today and used it and it worked fine. I'm giving it a rest now......

[Matt Thomas]

I've found, if you use a battery grip it helps with overheating a lot. I always use my battery grip now and it reduces the chance of overheating greatly, in my case anyway.

[Tom Bostick]

its because the batteries increase the heat in the camera ,when its the battery grip they are located in the base so it becomes less likely to encounter over heating

[Harry Simpson]

Battery grip is on the way. I also used a @10 rated card the other day which may or may not of helped over the @6 card i used when it did overheat....

[Jim Greene]

Hmmm, interesting about a higher class of card to help, that would be good to know. I think it's mostly the LCD that accelerates overheating. I have Magic Lantern, the version that allows you to have the display turn off automatically. On a cool non-humid day, I can record with the camera for over an hour when the LCD is off, compared to about 25 minutes when the LCD is on. However, in hot humid days (like all summer here in Boston) it will overheat much sooner than an hour. But I've never had the camera shut down due to overheating, it just indicates that it is overheated. And the image doesn't suffer either. So not sure it's really a major problem?

[Matt Thomas]

Jim, you say you record with the LCD off? So do you use an external monitor then?

[John Wiley]

I've personally never experienced any overheating problems, despite shooting in direct sunlight at the beach on hot days. I have the LCD brightness turned right down so perhaps that helps a little.