Canon 60d keeps shutting itself off!!

[gregoriodavila]

I'm having a major issue with my Canon 60d and I'm hoping you can help me.

I'm shooting a documentary with many interviews. This **bleep** camera keeps shutting off. Not the 12 min shut off during video, it just keeps shutting off.

I read on blogs about the SD card not keeping up. I've used two cards: ScanDisk 32 mb class 10, and Transcend 32 mb class 10 and had the same issue. I'm shooting 1920x1080 24fps.

I'm thinking maybe the camera is getting hot? It will initially record fine for about 20 min's then shut off. Recoding again it shuts off after about 7 min. then 5 min, then 3 then continues at a lower and lower recording time until it shuts off around 30 seconds into recording.

I have found nothing online that will solve this problem.

I am interviewing many well know figures who have been around a long time and have great notoriety, and it's extremely embarrassing  to have this happening. Not to mention not getting the information I need for the movie because of camera issues.

Please help!!!

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Much gratitude,

[TCampbell]

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@cale_kat wrote:

TCampbell writes, "...put the camera in front of an AC vent..."

Please, OP, do not do this! It is a recipe for disaster because cooling the outside of the camera could lead to condensation internally. This is very bad advice.

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AC is very dry air (condensation collects on the evaporator coils and drips off ... drying the air.)  We deliberately blow AC through the racks in datacenters.  No condensation problems.

If you left the camera in the refridgerator or freezer and THEN walked in to a an environment with warm, moist air... that would be a problem.  Warm moist air wants to condense on cold surfaces.  Cold air does not want to condense on warm surfaces (and the sensor WILL be warm.)

For astro-imaging... we actually have chillers on the cameras (physically cold sensors result in much lower noise levels.   The coolers will typically drop the sensor temps by about 25-40ºC depending on the imaging camera.)  When we're done with those cameras, however, we don't just switch them off.  We switch off the cooler but leave the fan running for about 5 minutes to break them back up to ambient temps.

[cale_kat]

AC is dry air but that doesn't mean that the air inside the camera has adjusted to the ambient temperature or humidty. Exposing the camera to rapid temperature changes is explicitly warned against in my Canon Instruction Manual. They mention moving from cold to warm and I mention from warm to cold.

[gregoriodavila]

Yes. The problem is we can't have air or fans running during taping because of sound.

[TCampbell]

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@gregoriodavila wrote:
Yes. The problem is we can't have air or fans running during taping because of sound.

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I was suggesting only as a "test" to see if the cooler air makes a difference.  

[TCampbell]

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@cale_kat wrote:

AC is dry air but that doesn't mean that the air inside the camera has adjusted to the ambient temperature or humidty. Exposing the camera to rapid temperature changes is explicitly warned against in my Canon Instruction Manual. They mention moving from cold to warm and I mention from warm to cold.

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The air temp out of an AC vent isn't that cold... about 60ºF.  Also... going from warm to cold is never a problem (that's physics).  Going from cold to warm+moist can cause condesnation if the surface temperature of the item drops below the dew point.

You can always check the dewpoint at any weather site. 

[gregoriodavila]

So I did a test today in my house in a cool air conditioned room.

I let the camera record in 1920x1080 at 24fps.

I got 4 smooth recordings where I stopped and restarted recordings manually at roughly 8 to 9 minutes each time. Then the fifth recording shut the camera off just after 3 min. Turned it immediately on agian and it rudely capped off at just 20 seconds!

I took the card out and let the it and the camera cool for 15 min then tried again.

The first recording turned off around 7 min. I turned it back on immediately and I got 3 min. Then got 1.5 min.

The overheat light NEVER came on at all during these recordings.

So while the cooler room helped, it didn't solve the issue. Basically I was able to get only about double the uninterrupted video that I have been getting in the warmer rooms.

Anybody have a Panasonic gh3 they wanna trade??

[cale_kat]

I think you're going to have to send it in for repair.

Good luck with your service call.

[RobertTheFat]

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@cale_kat wrote:

I think you're going to have to send it in for repair.

Good luck with your service call.

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It sounds as though there may be a problem with the warning lights in the OP's camera. But let's face it: The real problem is that the OP is using a consumer-grade camera on an application for which a professional-grade camera is needed. If he's levelling with us about the important personages he's interviewing, and there's no reason to suppose that he isn't, then he has to understand that freedom from embarrassing equipment failures starts with having the right equipment available. I'm not a videographer, so I don't know what camera he needs. But I don't think it's a 60D.

Bob

[cale_kat]

I have suggested the same and recommended that the OP get a second body. Tools are tools, so I'm not inclined to argue the merits of the choice. But the OP has asked a question about their tool so I think it is more productive to suggest how to get better results rather than suggest how they could have made better choices. But the limitations of the camera are not predictable in the absence of the warning symbols. It should be fixed and the OP should have this as a takeaway from the thread. Unfortunately, the OP seems more interested in venting.

[gregoriodavila]

I don't think expecting a camera to record video longer than 40 minutes at a time is unreasonable. Whether a camera is 'professional' grade or not this shouldn't be an issue. Documentaries are shot with all types of camera grades: that's the nature of documentary filmmaking.