Does Canon’s Just-Announced EOS R5 Already Have An Issue?

A few day ago, Canon announced two highly-anticipated cameras, the EOS R5 and EOS R6. The R5 has an eye-grabbing headline feature: 8K video recording. With 4 times the resolution of 4K, the resolution found in nearly all new TVs, 8K is a jump forward “needed” only by the most cutting edge early adopters.

However, 8K has many uses for content creators, opening up a variety of interesting creative opportunities even 4K can’t manage. So while you don’t need an 8K TV, having 8K in a camera is potentially very useful for some videographers.

However, recording 8K in a small, hand-held device is pushing the envelope of what’s possible in the current generation of electronics. Processing over 30 million pixels 30 times every second requires pushing chips to work fast, and that means heat. Heat is one of the main killers of electronics.

The two main byproducts of any processing chip are whatever you wanted processed, and heat. It’s not necessarily a linear correlation. Processing more doesn’t always mean more heat. But typically if you’re trying to push what’s possible with the current generation of tech, those chips are going to run pretty hot. These same chips processing something simple, say HD resolutions, won’t run nearly as hot.

With some devices, like computers, there are fans that help move air past heatsinks. The heatsinks radiate heat far better than the chip can on its own thanks to a much greater surface area. This is how another small 8K camera, the Kandao QooCam 8K stays cool. A tiny, albeit noisy, fan vents extra heat.

Which brings us to the Canon EOS R5. There are no fans, which is logical. A noisy camera would preclude using the camera in many situations where it would have been highly suited. But that means it’s going to generate a lot of heat with a limited ability to shed it.

In an effort to reduce potential damage, or potentially reduce the life of the camera, Canon has implemented record time limits. As first discovered by EOSHD via a source from a Canon repair shop in the UK, and updated shortly after with more info, these limits might come as a surprise to some.

You won’t be able to just turn it off and then on again either. There are some wait times for it to cool.

This isn’t surprising, given the size and price of the camera, and what it’s trying to do. How big of a deal is this? Well, it depends. If someone was hoping to record a 2 hour concert in 8K, yeah, this isn’t going to work. They’re going to need a much more elaborate, and expensive, camera rig. Someone recording YouTube videos, with multiple short takes and shots spread out over a few hours, it’s possible these cool-down times wouldn’t be an obstacle.

Remember, these are the times for continuous recording. If you record for a minute, change a setup for 3 minutes, then record again, it’s possible the camera won’t heat up enough to notice or shut down on its own. Unless you’re in the desert. Or in the sun. Heat is heat, wherever it comes from.

It’s worth keeping in mind that these are pre-release numbers. It’s impossible to say what future updates will do to improve these times. More efficient firmware could easily help. Probably not by a ton, but I’d be surprised if they didn’t go up a bit as Canon has time to improve efficiencies in the programming.

So yes, this is a bit disappointing, but not entirely unexpected. 8K was always going to be a challenge at this price and size. Personally, it doesn’t make me any less interested in the R5, but then, I shoot landscapes and airplanes.